GigReview

First gig of 2010. British Sea Power at Scala as part of the NME Shockwave awards.

There was a good start to the gig with ‘Sparrow in the Workshop’ a three piece from Glasgow with a rather cute lead singer. They supported BSP at their Regent’s Park gig last summer.

Sparrow play very simple ‘folk indie’ music. But the mixture of the folk indie accoustic sound is lifted by the lead singer’s American voice that has just a hint of a folksy country feel that helps lift the music from Glasgow to somewhere over the mid Atlantic.

Tonight, they were the first support act of three and the early start meant a less than impressive crowd. Which is a pity, because they were easily the best support act.

There was nothing particularly wrong with the second band, Surfer Blood. The band hail from Florida and there was something laid back, almost lazy about their music. I guess bland ’skater music’ would be an appropriate description of their music. They sounded very much like a college band, you know the kind, nothing particually wrong with them, but missing that spark that differentiates them from the rest. When they came on stage, I thought there would be an ‘edge’ to their music with the Slash lookalike on keyboard adding extra percussion to some songs. Unfortunately the second drummer didn’t give them the ‘edge’ they needed

The third band, These New Puritans, didn’t appeal to me. Frankly I thought they were awful. They played that electronic noise music where there’s lots of noise happening, but you just end up with a muddy sound. Lots of samples, different instruments, like chains, but everything was fussy. They might have pulled it off, if their lead singer wasn’t so awful. On the odd time you could hear him, you wished you couldn’t. They couldn’t leave the stage quick enough.

With the support acts out of the way it was time for the main act British Sea Power

With a new album coming sometime this year. BSP took the opportunity to mix in some of their new songs amongst a number of old faithfuls such as Canvey Island and No Lucifer. I’m not a fan of bands trailing too many songs before an album’s release and it’s often hard to judge what will be good songs on the first listen. In this case they got the balance right between new and old, but without a pre-listen, non of the new songs jumped out at me.

As usual, BSP couldn’t just play. This time during Waving Flags (?), Noble climbed up the speaker stack up to the gallery, playing most of the rest of the song from up there and during the fantastic encore, crowd surfed while dragging tape around with him turning the crowd into a cats cradle.

Overall, it was very enjoyable gig. It wasn’t as special as the Regent’s Park gig, buy enjoyable nonetheless.

Youtube

Flickr Photos

Best Gig of 2009: The Dead Weather, Brixton Academy

There were a number of gigs in the running for the ‘Best Gig of 2009′. ‘The British Sea Power’s’ gig in Regent’s Park was not only excellent, but very odd. ‘Them Crooked Vultures’, a gig I was really looking forward to, was excellent but it looses out because I had such high expectations. ‘Placebo’, ‘Yeah Yeah Yeahs’, ‘Pearl Jam’, were all great gigs. But the best gig for me was ‘The Dead Weather’ at Brixton Academy. Jack White’s new band have managed to produce an album that really sounds good live.

Best Stadium Gig: U2, Wembley Stadium

Only one band in the running for this (because I only went to one stadium gig) and that’s U2. Like them or loathe them (or at least Bono), they do know how to put on a show.

Best Arena Gig: Placebo, O2

There were two bands in the running for this. ‘Pearl Jam’s’ gig at the O2 was almost perfect. But was just pipped to the post by an excellent gig by Placebo, also at the O2.

Best new venue: Scala

There were a number of gigs at new venues for me. ‘The British Sea Power’ played the Open Air Theatre in Regents Park. Nice venue, but it the security were heavy handed. The Boston Rooms for the ‘Dead Weather’s’ warm up gig in North London, was another new venue, with it’s ’school hall’ feel that allowed you to get very close to the band. But the winner is Scala, near Kings Cross. This tiny club is not only convenient for me travelling back from London, but is a great sounding venue for small warm up gigs.

Weirdest Gig: British Sea Power, Open Air Theatre, Hyde Park

No contest for this. This is my facebook status from the night:

Paul is wondering what he’s just witnessed? A pensioner(!) had to be ejected by security. He was drunk and trying to get on the stage. A fight broke out between two people who were old enough to know better. A security guard pushed a member of the audience to the floor who was trying to get on the stage. Oh and a 6 foot bear attacked the guitarist! Good gig!

There was also a lass in the front row knitting!!!

Watching ‘oldies’ trying to make a brake for the stage was hilarious. Security even had to drag the bassist down from the tent rigging. Weird.

This was the first time I’d seen ‘British Sea Power’ live. This is one band I’ll make sure I follow in 2010

Best Supergroup Gig: The Dead Weather, Brixton Academy

I was surprised at this one. A band consisting of John Paul Jones, David Grohl, and Josh Homme, should have walked away with this, and they very nearly did. However, the talented Jack White managed to team up with the excellent Alison Mosshart from ‘The Kills’, along with members of QOTSA and ‘The Raconteurs’, to produce his own supergroup, and boy do they rock. Their ‘dirty blues’ with big sexy riffs really works well live.

Hopefully both groups will record second albums and tour again in 2010.

Most surprising gig: NIN, O2

This was billed as a double header. ‘Nine Inch Nails’ playing after the reformed Jane’s Addiction’. I’ve never really liked NIN and went to this gig purely to watch ‘Jane’s Addiction’. But NIN blew me away. After 20 years of playing live, they really were very tight. The only disappointment with this gig was.

Worst Act: Jane’s Addiction, O2

I was really looking forward to seeing Jane’s Addiction. But they were really shown up by NIN. The gig was at the O2 and the big issue for me was Jane’s sound just didn’t fill the venue. Sometimes you can put it down to sound levels but in this case, the band just really weren’t very good!

Best support act: Sweethead

As always support acts can vary from great to truly awful. Sonic Youth’s support act at Scala were awful. But there were some that stood out.

I thought ‘The Horrors’ supporting Placebo were really good. I suspect I was only one though, most of the crowd didn’t seem to like 80s influence indie sound. The second band that stood out was ‘Sweethead’ who supported both the ‘Them Crooked Vultures’ and ‘Eagles of Death Metal’. On both occasions they managed to standout. Hopefully, I’ll see more of them.

2009 roundup

Welcome to my new gig blog. My new blog is meant to act as a scrapbook for the pictures and videos captured at gigs. Although I have a personal blog, it’s very much work related so I don’t want to clutter it up with gig related posts.

To get me started I’ve posted photos and videos from last year’s gigs.

I’m a big Zep fan. I was lucky enough to see Zep’s O2 gig and I’ve seen Robert Plant play live. So when I heard John Paul Jones had a new band and was touring, this was one concert I had to attend. Of course it helps when the rest of the band are so good!

For the first time this year, I was unable to get a ticket through legitimate means – so I had to hit ebay. Luckily the prices weren’t too bad, but hopefully next time there’s a big gig, people like me who managed to get through to the payment screens, have their payments taken.

The Vultures had decided to close their UK leg at the Hammersmith Apollo in the middle of December, at a time that happened to coincide with snow in London. The night before the gig was my work’s Christmas party and I was unluckily enough to be snowed in at work, spending the night in a sleeping bag in my office. But I had planned ahead and made sure I brought my ticket with me so that I could head off to the gig on the Friday morning.

The support act were Sweethead, the side project of fellow Queens of the Stone Age’s member, Troy Van Leeuwen. I’d seen Sweethead earlier in the year when they supported ‘The Eagles of Death Metal’. They’re one of the best support acts I’ve seen this year and I suspect they converted quite a few people in the audience who seemed to receive them warmly. The lead singer Serrina Sims, did a great job not only of carrying the vocals but also covering the numerous technical problems the experienced.

‘Them Crooked Vultures’ came on the stage around 9 and then the aural assault started.

I’ve not seen QOTSA or the Foo Fighters live. Although I have a few of the Foo’s albums, I’ve never really ‘got’ them. So haven’t seen Dave Grohl drum since Nirvana and boy does he drum. It’s a long time since I’ve seem somebody pound the drums like him. Swirling around this aural assault (and I made the mistake of standing too close to the sound stacks), is the irrepressible John Paul Jones, Alain Johannes on guitar and Josh Homme.

The Vultures, started off with the ‘Nobody Loves Me & Neither Do I’ which just seemed to slide us all into the mood. It’s an excellent choice for an opening song. With it’s numerous changes of pace helping to get the crowd going.

From their on in, it was 90 minutes of non stop rock. Concentrating mainly on their debut album, they did manage to introduce one new song that had John Paul Jones on mandolin. It seemed that all of the band, but especially JPJ, were enjoying themselves. I think JPJ is really enjoying being out on the road again playing in front receptive crowds and it appeared there were lots of Zep fans in the audience who agreed. It was great to see.

The set finished up with the neverending (in a very good way) and the night’s highlight, ‘Warsaw or The First Breath You Take After You Give Up’. Which allowed the group to jam away and take the song in several different directions building up to end a great night’s music

And that was it. No encores, just 90 minutes of aural delight. It wasn’t quite the best gig of the year, that honour went to the Dead Weather. But it was a close run thing. If they play the UK again. I’ll be there. But I suspect next time they tour the UK, they’ll be playing bigger venues than Hammersmith.

Photos from the evening on Flickr

Sweethead, Them Crooked Vultures

Infra-Red

Taste in Men

Follow the cops back home

Photos

Placebo

Cheated Hearts

Photos

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

The Dead Weather

Sonic Youth

Pixies

Even Flow

Alive

Black

Photos on Flickr

Pearl Jam