GigReview

British Sea Power again. This time at The Junction, Cambridge. As is typical at this venue, the crowd was a mixture of old buggers like me, and young teenagers. I always find this odd. With Cambridge being a student town you would expect students to attend these local gigs, but so far they’ve been absent.

Tonight’s support were Bo Ningen. A Japanese heavy rock inspired group who love playing with noise and feedback. I’d seen them support BSP at Tan Hill Inn and although I missed some of their set, loved the numbers I saw. Again, they were great. I’m not sure why they’re great, but they’re one of those bands who just bring a smile to your face. They just seem to be enjoying themselves and don’t really care if you are. (Which means you usually are). I’m not sure they’ll ever move from being a support act. I just can’t see them winning over the masses. But they’re a great way to warm up the crowd. (And in the case of one young lad who was with his dad – I think some sexual confusion. He seemed rather concerned when his dad told him the lead singer who was wearing a dress and has very long hair, was a bloke)

If you look around my blog, you can see that I’m a fan of BSP. So cutting to the chase, they were pretty good tonight. The sound was pretty decent overall. Yan’s vocals were stronger than a recent gigs, however, Hamilton’s vocals at times were a little low in the mix.

With a young audience, there was the standard teenage uncontrolled ‘moshing’ at all times. I’m too old for regular moshing (dodgy knee and all that), so I tend to stand at the edge of the moshing area. But the kids even moshed through some of the slower numbers which suggests that many didn’t know BSP’s music. Hopefully BSP’s performance will have converted a few of them.

At nearly 2 hours long, it allowed the time to mix old and new. I’m not sure the balance was completely right for this particular audience and I felt there was a lull in the crowd (not BSP) when they played the slower numbers such as Luna. Which is a pity because some of these new songs worked really well live. ‘Luna’ I thought was excellent, though maybe should have been even earlier in the set. ‘Zeus’ gets better every time I hear it and ‘Who’s In Control’ is a great opening song. But I was disappointed that they didn’t give ‘Baby’ an airing. But overall, the new material worked really well.

So when is their next gig?

It’s a few years since I last saw HMHB. They’re one of those bands that don’t play live often and when they do, choose out of the way venues (well for somebody who lives near London). Tonight they again avoided the big smoke and headed for the august surroundings of Cambridge.

The venue, ‘The Junction’ sits in a ‘leisure park’, one of those no go areas for anyone over 25. But this was Cambridge after all, and it all looks very civilised. The venue is small and intimate, perfect from HMHB. As usual the crowd was male and old.

There was no support for HMHB. Instead it was straight on to the main event. HMHB came on about 8:30 and for nearly two hours blasted through a number of crowd favourites and newer tracks.

The gig was the usual relaxed affair. With the usual air of ‘amateurishness’ and regular banter with the crowd, a HMHB gig always feels like your part of the gig. A slick HMHB just wouldn’t work.

The set list covered the majority of the band’s output, with songs from most of their albums. For me it wasn’t necessarily as ‘crowd pleasing’ as it could have been. HMHB played a number of songs of Csi:Ambleside, such as ‘National Shite Day’, ‘Bad Losers On Yahoo Chess’ and ‘Evening of Swing (has been cancelled)’ are all good songs, but a number of firm favourites such as ‘Four Skinny Indie Kids’ and ‘Secret Gig’ weren’t included.

As usual crowd pleasers such as ‘Joy Division Oven gloves’ went down a storm. Although fewer people than normal had brought theirs, it didn’t stop the crowd from joining in with song.

A HMHB rarely fail to deliver and despite the set list, tonight was no exception.

Photos

Half Man Half Biscuit photos on Flickr

Videos

Trumpton Riots

Joy Division Over Gloves