Friday, October 28, 2011
Sing Us A Song That We Know To Be True
There's only so many ways you can have a go at 'I've seen this band I like a few times and now I've seen them once again and I still like them' before even writing it gets boring, so it's good when something reshapes that position ever so slightly. In a brief fit of extravagance I'd bought a few tickets and then had a couple of other gigs come up around the same time and suddenly I'm a bit busy.
With other stuff being fitted in around making it to the gig, at least the electronic communications possibilities of the modern world make it simple to catch up with expected stage times and avoid rushing only to sit around waiting for hours. In an uninteresting coincidence it's seventeen years to the day I first visited this venue, and though a couple of rooms have gone through slight changes of name over that time, and it turns out it's also the single venue I've visited the most (among two hundred and odd).
Something different to challenge my tastes is never a bad thing, and support act Louise Distras provides plenty to challenge me. Just her voice and a guitar make for a powerful combination, but sometimes the power gets in the way of the song; there's no denying the passion but when the voice goes beyond the mighty rasp of Bonnie Tyler at her most momentarily foghornish into a slightly unfocused roar it produces something that I'm not going to buy so I can sing along with it on my own. There's nothing wrong with what she's got to say for herself, it's just my middle-aged ears would prefer a slightly different delivery!
New Model Army fit into a category something like 'bands I know I like but don't rush to buy every single album on release day', and the last time I saw them it was a trifle unsatisfactory, largely due to that particular venue I gather. This is a short flurry of only five gigs, and that alone makes it rather more of a special occasion than just another show in a long tour.
There are songs from the last couple of albums that I don't have, naturally, but there's more than enough familiar material to keep me engaged between the people on the shoulders of the people on the shoulders formation acrobatics displays.
Purity sounds immense, and the encore starting with Get Me out and finally ending with No Rest threatens to take the roof off the place. Today was a good day.
Setlist in full:
Island
No Greater Love
Christian Militia
Rumour & Rapture
See You in Hell
Today Is a Good Day
Disappeared
The Attack
States Radio
Autumn
Orange Tree Roads
Rivers
Knife
Purity
Ballad of Bodmin Pill
Whirlwind
---
Get Me Out
High
No Rest
'Sing Us A Song That We Know To Be True' is a line from Purity.
_
With other stuff being fitted in around making it to the gig, at least the electronic communications possibilities of the modern world make it simple to catch up with expected stage times and avoid rushing only to sit around waiting for hours. In an uninteresting coincidence it's seventeen years to the day I first visited this venue, and though a couple of rooms have gone through slight changes of name over that time, and it turns out it's also the single venue I've visited the most (among two hundred and odd).
Something different to challenge my tastes is never a bad thing, and support act Louise Distras provides plenty to challenge me. Just her voice and a guitar make for a powerful combination, but sometimes the power gets in the way of the song; there's no denying the passion but when the voice goes beyond the mighty rasp of Bonnie Tyler at her most momentarily foghornish into a slightly unfocused roar it produces something that I'm not going to buy so I can sing along with it on my own. There's nothing wrong with what she's got to say for herself, it's just my middle-aged ears would prefer a slightly different delivery!
New Model Army fit into a category something like 'bands I know I like but don't rush to buy every single album on release day', and the last time I saw them it was a trifle unsatisfactory, largely due to that particular venue I gather. This is a short flurry of only five gigs, and that alone makes it rather more of a special occasion than just another show in a long tour.
There are songs from the last couple of albums that I don't have, naturally, but there's more than enough familiar material to keep me engaged between the people on the shoulders of the people on the shoulders formation acrobatics displays.
Purity sounds immense, and the encore starting with Get Me out and finally ending with No Rest threatens to take the roof off the place. Today was a good day.
Setlist in full:
Island
No Greater Love
Christian Militia
Rumour & Rapture
See You in Hell
Today Is a Good Day
Disappeared
The Attack
States Radio
Autumn
Orange Tree Roads
Rivers
Knife
Purity
Ballad of Bodmin Pill
Whirlwind
---
Get Me Out
High
No Rest
'Sing Us A Song That We Know To Be True' is a line from Purity.
Labels: gigs, New Model Army
