overlap

Having a past can make for an almighty albatross, but at the same time it's also the foundation for whatever happens next. Which is how last night saw me watching a packed crowd cramming themselves into any space to get as close to the stage as possible, the first time I've seen that since my last enormo-gig, I think. More on support bands with iffy names - I'm not convinced Saving Aimee is anything like a great name for a band, which is a shame, because they have the makings of of a great band, and the Aerosmith rip-off logo is something that should be easy to improve upon too. I know my future holds ever increasing opportunities for watching bands full of kids young enough to be my own kids, but I'd certainly be proud of what they are turning out if that were the case here. It'll be very interesting to see them in six months or a year once the debut album is complete - the singer has a great voice, they have the right mix of guitar and keyboard melodies that I go for, and they are shaping up as the perfect replacement for the mighty A in the field of boisterous pop-rock. The third song opens up with a load of keyboards and for the first thirty seconds it sounds just like (the song) American Heartbeat. Youthful enthusiasm and great tunes with guitar solos that echo the vocal melody lines - very promising, right up my street, and I want more. You can download Small Talk for free (on supplying an email address) from their website. The last time I saw Justin Hawkins he was on a twelve foot long fibre glass white tiger suspended from the rafters in front of several thousand people. This time it's a crowd of seventy-odd tightly gathered in anticipation such that wearing heels would have been a decent enough idea to get a reasonable view, but then my idea of rock chick chic ultimately lost out to the ageing pragmatism of sitting on the floor waiting for the stage to be occupied. It seems to me that whatever does happen next, he can't really win. If the new outfit turn out to sound like The Darkness he'll be pilloried for having no new ideas, and if they don't he'll be criticised for diverting away from what he became known for. Nevertheless he makes a lot of effort to introduce the other members of the band to avoid the appearance of it being just a single ego-vehicle, and with a distinctive voice like that he's in no danger of suddenly being mistaken for Tom Waits. As to what they sound like, well if you imagine The Darkness doing ZZ Top's Tush, you're in the right area. That is his voice, after all. There's a bit more grooving around the riff, and there's a few choruses currently residing in the where are they now file, but unfamiliar material is always going to come across as a bit uncohesive, especially when it's got to overcome preconceptions. Myspace-familiar tunes Heroes and Trojan Guitar offer exactly the sort of big dumb hairy sweaty rock you'd expect from Lowestoft's answer to Vince Neil, and they're obviously enjoying themselves. I'd rather see Justin happy on stage than in rehab, but I'm hardly rushing to see them support the reformed Extreme in the near future. I’m in no doubt that some people will, but it speaks for itself that with an extra restricted view despite being no more than five metres from the stage, I wasn't having such a fabulous time as not to be on the verge of leaving before they finished until a very eloquent chap’s repeated shouting of ‘Put your effing camera down you tosser!’ finally had said tosser obliging. When the most you can see is the head and shoulders of the band over people’s heads, some tosser endlessly waving a camera around like Tibetan prayer flags in a gale is at best unnecessary, and at worst enough reason to turn tail and go home.

Labels: gigs, Hot Leg, Justin Hawkins, Saving Aimee, The Darkness

Sometimes bands end up worth pursuing purely on a musical basis, and sometimes there's some other kind of appeal that leaves them with a place in my life. In this case, Stiff Little Fingers are a band I was introduced to by a good friend of mine many years ago. By the mighty powers of the internet I managed to track him down a couple of years ago, and he wasn't really desperately overjoyed to be found, but that's the way things go. Whatever, they remain a fine musical force, and Silver Lining is still one of my very favourite songs. From the first song, Wasted Life, which the appropriate title quote is from, and for well over the next hour, it's one classic tune after another. The return of Ali McMordie to the line-up means that there are two founding members of the band on stage, and it's largely based on Jake's voice and guitar, so it's 'authentic' enough if that sort of thing is an issue. Shows how far away another time and another place is that when I checked, it turned out I hadn't seen SLF for eleven years, but I'd recommend the double album singles collection All The Best to anyone as a musically robust document of the times. And saying that, it's not just the final encore song Tin Soldier that is as relevant as it ever was. Double amusement points for support band, Merthyr Tydfil's Foreign Legion. When was the last time you saw a drummer with several inches of bleach blonde mohican trying to keep it upright while belting all manner of musical hell out of the kit? No, me neither. I would have taken a picture had I been close enough, but I knew I was in for a treat from the moment of turning up to find signs up saying 'NO OBJECTS TO BE THROWN AT ARTISTS'! Jake and Ali

Labels: Ali McMordie, gigs, Jake Burns, SLF, Stiff Little Fingers

When I'd bypassed the door last sunday, I'd rather missed out on the front door experience. This time I joined the queue to find myself lined up waiting to get metal detectored into a gig for only the second time in my life, the first being somewhere altogether more well known for riotous behaviour. I may be living a very sheltered life, but this tickled me immensely and brought to mind the 1979 film The Warriors in which the phrase 'Warriors, come out to pla-aay!' features as an incitement to engage in some serious gang violence. Elbow are from Bury, which should be explanation enough. Support Jesca Hoop was introduced by Guy Garvey, and despite this warm recommendation, a single acoustic guitar and vocal performance was always going to struggle to occupy a crowd waiting for a flavour of the moment, eighteen year overnight success that has the touts outside only asking for people wanting to sell. Jesca's vocal style is somewhere between Julie Fowlis and Carina Round in terms of using the voice as an instrument rather than a mechanism to communicate via the lyrics. Since I particularly go for lyrical content, I can't say I'm a newly converted fan, but she tried hard to overcome the crowd's impatience even if it was really only the duet with Garvey that caught their imagination. Nice enough, but not really my thing. Elbow start with everyone on stage playing trumpets, and with second song Bones Of You they beat the crowd around the head with current single familiarity. It's like your favourite half dozen friends bursting through the door at a party you were concerned might not be the best, and effectively turning down the lights, sticking your favourite records on the stereo and loading in a couple of crates of your tipple of preference. In many ways Guy Garvey resembles less the moment's airbrushed and photoshopped new big thing, and more the landlord of your local where every night is a good night. The booze theme is amply referenced by the fact the merchandise stall is even flogging hip flasks, though after taking a huge slug from a bottle of water between songs, Garvey comments that the stage is a booze-free zone till the gig is done. This is a gig that very much sits in its own moment in time. I'm reminded of seeing The Darkness on the same stage, at a point where they really could do no wrong. Watching Garvey prowl around his mike stand, rocking forwards like a big old pop bear is watching a band who have everything under control and who know exactly what they are doing. It would be unfair to say they are cruising, rather they are performing at a consistently high level and deserve every prize they get. I'm just glad I caught them before a crowd of a thousand and some, big enough to get all the lights out of storage but keep the show feeling intimate rather than the several thousand arena crowds that are surely just around the corner. Nice.

Labels: Elbow, gigs, Jesca Hoop

Another one from the department of gigs booked some way in advance because there wasn't much else on the calendar for the week, and out of curiosity. As ever I'm amused to find that looking like you belong somewhere and acknowledging security personnel while your body language tells them you are not exactly waiting for their permission to be somewhere can get you into places you are not supposed to be. In this case it unintentionally got me into the gig bypassing the front door, and merely meant I didn't need to pick up the ticket I'd paid for, so it's not like anyone's being put in the poor house, but it still amuses me greatly. Support band Fight Like Apes are a completely new one on me. The name doesn't exactly promise great things, and it takes a couple of songs to make sense of exactly what is going on. Best comparative way to describe it is what you'd get if you put a cement mixer on a turntable spinning at half a revolution per minute in a room where in the four corners you had variously the following: the unlistenable industrial variant of Depeche Mode at any stage after the glorious popness of See You, Avril Lavigne and Alanis Morisette competing in the world championships for the screech-shouting style of vocal, Pop Will Eat Itself at their most sample-frenzied, and your local rock pub's poor Metallica covers band. They seem to be having fun, and some of the crowd seem to like it, but it's really not a good sign when a member of the band disrupts the set for sixty seconds to fetch a pair of glasses that flash in a couple of colours in the dark. The brutal variety of it all makes me wonder if they actually know what they want to be, though I'm sure they'll survive without my fanship, and maybe someone my age not getting it at all is something they'd actually consider a recommendation, I've no idea. It is possible headliners The Ting Tings might turn out to have just the one outstanding song, but I'm happy to take the chance. Before they come on I'm amused to realise that with this being a freshers' week gig, it's genuinely now the case that some of the crowd are literally half my age. Getting out of my familiarity zone is no bad thing, and I have heard good things about them, and I do find That's Not My Name intriguing, but I'm not so keen as to get myself right into the middle of the packed crowd. Watching from the side gives me a different view of the stage, and where FLA suffer for their variety, the consistency of the Ting Tings shows a band that flows naturally. The fact there are only the two of them on stage may help with that, but they make a captivating pair. Obviously there's not so much excitement can be projected from behind a drumkit, and by the time we get to Fruit Machine and Traffic Light, everyone is having a great time. I have enjoyed current single Be The One every time I hear it on the radio, which proves there's more than one song familiar to me, and the set reaches a perfect climax after a little over an hour, with them returning for the inevitable encore run through That's Not My Name. There's a hint of the space in the sparser bits of Toni Basil's Mickey in TNMN, and it is a fine example of the slightly blunt, slightly stupid but thoroughly glorious sound of a great pop single. Which is more than good enough for me, and especially when the fitting brevity of the set means I'm home before the 10.30 news is finished on the radio. One of the more interesting moments in going back to a venue I've not visited for a little while is the high glamour quotient in evidence among the crowd, on which perhaps more later. Here's Katie. See what I mean about taking in the side view. Ain't Faking This is a line from The Ting Tings' song Shut Up And Let Me Go

Labels: gigs, The Ting Tings