GIG REVIEW - Muse at Royal Albert Hall

Before we start talking about Muse, it might be worth mentioning a few words about The Futureheads. They were very, very solid and the new stuff sounds very good, with highlights being The Beginning Of The Twist and Radio Heart. They also played some good choice cuts from their first album, including Carnival Kids and Man Ray, both amazing album tracks that never saw the light of day as singles, and the obligatory Hounds Of Love cover.

Right, onto Muse.

I didn't really know what Muse would do for this show, but if anything I thought the setlist might be a bit underwhelming. In truth, it was the same setlist template that they had for their shows in Australia and New Zealand last Autumn...but it's amazing how three songs can change a gig from being merely a good one to a great one.

Fury - A b-side from the days of Absolution that I think should have been on the album instead of The Small Print, this was an excellent surprise. I knew they played it down under last year but I didn't know how much longetivity there was for that song live. It was an immense, dramatic and powerful performance.

Bliss - This song never fails to be disappointing live. The place went nuts when it came on and the sight from where I was seeing balloons falling all around the Royal Albert Hall was amusing. The fact that Matt played the last night whilst at the same time popping a balloon onstage in a highly theatrical manner made it even more glorious.

But nothing compared to the genius of...

Megalomania - This is the end result of mixing Muse and a big bloody organ. A song that hasn't been played since 2002 and in the past has sounded very underwhelming, because of the lack of a proper organ to play it with. Last night, it sounded biblical (and what a blatantly obvious similie that was!). Absolutely huge sounding and there are no words that could justify how I felt when they played it.

Except for maybe a YouTube video which I shot, which you can find at the bottom of this post.

The setlist in full:

Take A Bow
Map Of The Problematique
Supermassive Black Hole
New Born
Butterflies & Hurricanes
Fury
Feeling Good
Invincible
Hysteria
Starlight
Time Is Running Out
Stockholm Syndrome

Encore:
Megalomania
Plug In Baby
Knights Of Cydonia

Not to forget a whole load of riffs all over the place that made the setlist seem longer. The lack of any piano songs other than Feeling Good is also disappointing, but I can live.

The photo at the top of his post was taken by someone who wants to be known as Crazy Bob and you can view his set of amazing photos here.

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GIG REVIEW - 65daysofstatic at Indig02

A quick review this one.

I was lead to believe that there were two support bands. There were FOUR OF THEM. Four bands over two and a half hours? That's just something my brain can't really deal with. So, here's my summary of all four in one sentence:

Dark Captain Light Captain - Gentle, calming music but didn't really interest me much to be honest.
Pilgrim Fathers - Using weird noises that really amounted to nothing, and at one point the singer sounded like Kermit The Frog being strangled.
Gay For Johnny Depp - Utter shite musically but thoroughly entertaining nonetheless.
Errors - The potential is there for them to be good but I got distracted far too easily.

65daysofstatic came on at about 10pm and rocked the Small Dome for a good solid hour. One thing that was different from the last time I saw them do a full set (that will be at the Camden Electric Ballroom last November), was that there were loads more rave/dance elements added. These were mostly in the form of intros and outros, but they sounded absolutely amazing. The outro at the end of Radio Protector into A Failsafe is just the stuff of genius.

The setlist was mixed up a bit too. No encore but the set was filled with lots of songs from their debut album, The Fall Of Math. The fact that they opened with 'well-known' song Retreat! Retreat! caught me by surprise but it was one that was pleasant. Their second album, One Time For All Time, was represented reasonably well. Await Rescue is one of the best songs in the 65daysofstatic armoury due to its galloping pace. Once again though, the choice of tracks from their current album, The Destruction Of Small Ideas, was a bit poor. Only A Failsafe and Dance Parties really stood out, perhaps reflecting the fact that it really is the band's weakest album to date.

But, this band are amazing live. If you get a chance to see them in your local area, please do. You won't be disappointed by the loud, euphoric noises that these four men from Sheffield generate.

The setlist was:

Retreat! Retreat!
Await Rescue
Install A Beak In The Heart That Clucks Time In Arabic
Default This
These Things You Can't Unlearn
Primer
Fix The Sky A Little
65 Doesn't Understand You
Another Code Against The Gone
Dance Parties
Radio Protector
A Failsafe

Also, the sound at the IndigO2 venue was amazing. Far better than I had expected it to be, considering the rubbish sound issues in the main 02 Arena.

All the good pictures of the support bands can be found here on my Flickr account. No pictures of 65daysofstatic because of anal security but at least I got some photos before the idiot told me to put my camera away. Because obviously a compact Canon, which I disable flash for gigs anyway, is a major irritation for a band...yup.

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GIG REVIEW - The Cure at Wembley Arena

First, a disclaimer. I was stupidly ill before I went to the gig. A really, really bad cold which had left me with a sore and stuffy nose, a sore throat and, at points during the gig, a tendancy to just want to vomit. This fate was avoided thankfully. But yeah, if I have slight grievances that make me sound awfully grumpy then that might explain why.

Of course, it wasn't just The Cure who I was vaguely interested about. The support band was 65daysofstatic. This is a band who I rank very highly, due to their own fantastic brand of instrumental post-rock. Even if their current album is a bit pants, they still have two amazing albums before that (The Fall Of Math and One For All Time) are fine examples of heavy music with dramatic and exciting soundscapes. The fact that they were playing Wembley Arena, probably, as they said onstage, for the only time in their career, was quite staggering and something I didn't want to miss.

The setlist was brief but somehow they managed to convey their massive noise into the arena perfectly. They are a band meant for these places, but they will never ever get to that status on their own terms. Starting with Drove Through Ghosts To Get Here and ending with the truly magical Radio Protector, it was a set that was truly hypnotising in sound. A couple of technical gremlins aside, it was as perfect a support slot as you could get. I'm now pumped up for their own headlining London show at the Dome (albeit, the smaller arena) on the 11th April.

The Cure came on just after 8pm. I'm not familiar with much of their music (only the hits really) but over the whole set they did somehow keep me engrossed, which, when considering I was highly ill, was some achievement. The setlist itself is the main talking point. It was a three and a half hour long setlist. That's just impressive when you think that the ages of the band are well into their 40s and, for some members, pushing 50. I would have watched it all, had it not been for needing to get home at a decent time, so I had to leave after the second encore. But I felt satisfied at that point, so it wasn't a loss at all.

The setlist itself was peppered with songs throughout their back catalogue. They also played a surprising amount of well-known hits. I didn't think they would play songs like Friday, I'm In Love or Lovecats but it was well received. Standout songs for me were Plainsong, End Of The World, In Between Days, Disintegration and A Forest. They did start off though with a lot of songs that were from their darker side. They should have done what they did for the rest of the set and just nicely mix up the light side and the dark side of The Cure. Big blocks of either didn't really work for me.

The lightshow was executed perfectly. They had a lot of lights, so it worried me a bit before they started because I thought they might go for a manic approach, which my head wouldn't be able to deal with. But, the lights were used in a variety of different ways to suit whatever song they played. Visuals were also used, but ONLY when they were needed and they didn't detract from the performance of the band, who were very tight all evening. Basically, nothing was overused. That is what makes a good stage show in my opinion.

Overall, very decent and watchable performance. But a tip incase you do go and see them at some point. Only see them if you can stomach the duration length. I can understand some grievances about a show of this length.

This was the setlist:

Plainsong
Prayers For Rain
A Strange Day
Alt.end
A Night Like This
The End Of The World
Lovesong
To Wish Impossible Things
Pictures Of You
Lullaby
From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea
Hot Hot Hot
Please Project
The Walk
Push
Friday I'm In Love
In Between Days
Just Like Heaven
Primary
A Boy I Never Knew
Shake Dog Shake
Never Enough
Wrong Number
One Hundred Years
Disintegration
At Night
M
Play For Today
A Forest
The Lovecats
Let's Go To Bed
Freak Show
Close To Me
Why Can't I Be You?
Three Imaginary Boys
Fire In Cairo
Boys Don't Cry
Jumping Someone Else's Train
Grinding Halt
10:15 Saturday Night
Killing An Arab

The pictures on this post are taken from this Flickr account, so do check his photos. Good stuff!

I'm probably gonna do a feature post about concert lengths at some point this week, so do watch out for that.

The Cure

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GIG REVIEW - Apocalyptica at Kentish Town Forum

You might be asking why the hell I went to see Apocalyptica on Friday night, especially when you bare in mind that I hadn't heard any of their music apart from the comic extravanganza that was Eurovision 2007. It's simple really:

1) My girlfriend is Finnish.
2) A friend of my girlfriend flew in from Finland for a short holiday and we decided to give her an idea of the British gigging scene...by seeing a band from her own country.

Makes sense now? Good.

Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to see much of the support band, Oceansize. Someone from uni today, who has his own music blog for you to read if you click this link, said that they weren't really that good live but on record they sound great. So far his theory has been proved right. The couple of songs I did see didn't really interest me that much, but I'm gonna download something by them soon to see if they do indeed sound good on record.

Then it was onto to the main act. I think musically they were very tight and accomplished. I don't think that their set persuaded me to buy any of their albums but I did enjoy myself because they gave it their all and really lapped up the crowd support (more on that in a bit). And that is sometimes what I need after a long, long day of work and travel. Something that, whilst I wouldn't ever get into fully and would never really consider seeing again, was fun. I thought the way that one of the guys pronounced the venue name ("Foooooooruuuuuum!") was very funny. Bless their English.

The crowd were another reason as to why the gig was good. Most people say London crowds are tame and I've seen plenty of examples of this. The crowd at the Fooooooooooruuuuuum though were brilliant. They even played their part in singing along to the tracks that would normally have lyrics - the best examples of such sing-a-longs include Seek & Destroy and the cover of Metallica's Enter Sandman.

The sound quality was also surprisingly good. For some reason, when I last went there to see Franz Ferdinand in August 2006 - a gig dampened by piss poor sound, I was expecting the worse, but I could hear everything properly. Awesome.

The setlist, courtesy of someone I asked on Last FM:

Worlds Collide
Refuse/Resist
I’m Not Jesus
Grace
Master Of Puppets
SOS
Path
Betrayal
Bittersweet
Helden
Life Burns
Last Hope
Seek And Destroy
Inquisition Symphony
--
Enter Sandman
Hall Of The Mountain King
--
Seemann

No pictures from me unfortunately this time because, from where I was, I didn't think I would get anything remotely close to decent. Best pictures I've found so far though can be found here.

Apocalyptica

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GIG REVIEW - The Cribs at Brixton Academy

Just to add some context, the tour The Cribs are on (well, just finished actually since last night was the end of it all) is an NME tour that is supposed to also showcase three hotly-tipped new bands. It was also a bargain - only £20 for 4 bands.

THE TING TINGS

I think it is fair to say that I had low expectations of this band before they came on. I've read some pretty scathing reviews and I thought it would be yet another two-piece band with no talent. I was partially misguided. The first three songs played, including Fruit Machine and Great DJ, at the very least threw out my low expectations. But, as they continued along their just-under-half an hour timeslot, I felt as if, whilst this punchy, hard-hitting poppy indie rock wasn't as bad as first feared, it wasn't enough to make them stand out of the crowd of similar bands.

DOES IT OFFEND YOU, YEAH?

By far the best support band of the evening. Does It Offend You, Yeah? is a dance act in band form and it works. Not only that but they got the crowd warmed up to the point where you'd even think they were headlining. The band themselves were lapping it up, especially Morgan, the guitarist/synth player, who is a Brixton boy through and through. The songs were awesome too. We Are Rockstars, Let's Make Out and Battle Royale were all favourites with the crowd and they had an impressive lighting show to back the songs up. Towards the end there was a stage invasion with all the other bands on the tour as they proceeded to destroy their guitars and keyboards. They left me impressed and eagerly anticipating their forthcoming debut album.

JOE LEAN AND THE JING JANG JONG

Why this band were placed above Does It Offend You, Yeah? dumbfounds me. They were what I predicted - a boring, uninspiring indie pop band with no great songs of note. It's also another band who place style and look over substance. Songs like Lucio Starts Fires (apparently a 'hit' in the indie circles) were below-par for me. Not only that but the crowd were pretty flat and were very underwhelmed. If they succeed this year I'll be surprised. But I just see them as another indie band with a crap band name.

THE CRIBS

The Cribs definitely did not dissapoint. They were well up for it tonight and you could see that on stage they can mix tight muscianship with bouncing energy. The crowd went bloody crazy. The no crowdsurfers rule at Brixton Academy completely and utterly broken by the hordes and the hordes who rode the waves.

Setlist wise, it was full of the best cuts from their recent album (Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever) and some older cuts from their self-titled debut and The New Fellas. Our Bovine Public and Girls Like Mystery mixed well with stuff like Mirror Kisses and Another Number. Women's Needs was a highlight, not just for Ryan's spinning around on the floor sideways whilst playing guitar ability. The Wrong Way To Be also featured a good old fashioned trashing of microphones, equipment vandalising and Ryan jumping into the crowd.

And then, Johnny Marr comes out.

Not so much a surprise, since he's done it on several tour dates but it was still an awesome way to finish off the evening. Not only that, but he did five songs with the band, including a cover of Panic by The Smiths. I'm not a massive Smiths fan but Panic is at the very least a tune. Also, Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth made an appearance...on a side screen. He was the vocal contributor to album track Be Safe and, whilst he couldn't make it there in person, he recorded a video clip especially for the tour. Just a shame that someone seeminly forgot to turn up the volume.

What was also fascinating about the whole time that Johnny was on stage was how friendly he was with the band. He and Ryan were playing each other's guitars on Moving Pictures and when he originally came on stage, Ryan just grabbed him for a matey hug. I wondered whether it was friendly enough to even consider in my mind that he is now a member of The Cribs. Then when I got home, I saw this article, which explains a lot.

The setlist:

Don't You Wanna Be Relevant?
Our Bovine Public
Girls Like Mystery
What About Us
My Life Flashed Before Me
We Can No Longer Cheat You
I've Tried Everything
Women's Needs
Men's Needs
Mirror Kissers
Another Number
The Wrong Way To Be
Panic
Moving Pictures
Hey Scenesters!
Be Safe
I'm A Realist

You can check out all of my pictures on Flickr right now!

The Cribs

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Radiohead at 93 Feet East

Let's start at the beginning.

So yesterday morning after we had watched Jeremy Kyle I was checking my news feeds and I stumbled across the news of yesterday's Radiohead gig. For the next hour, I was absolutely torn as to whether to go or not. Purely for the reason that if I went and didn't get into the gig I would be quite disappointed...but in the end, me and my girlfriend decided to go for it. If we missed out, we had a Pizza Express voucher waiting to be used, of all things to fall back on.

So we left on our journey which took us on bus, train, tube and foot to the venue location which was the Rough Trade store at Brick Lane. There were already about 100 people in the line already so we settled into the queue, talked to randomers - what you would usually do if faced in a situation where you have to queue for others.

I also made a couple of excursions into the Rough Trade store. The first trip was to buy the Radiohead single on CD and vinyl. The second was just to look around. Both times I was in there there was some soundchecking taking place. The second time I was in there I am pretty sure I spotted Phil, the drummer of Radiohead, talking to someone. I stood literally for about two seconds and then walked out because I was too chicken to even ask. What a missed oppurtunity.

So we waited until about quarter to six when the wristbands were being given out. Me and Aino got ours as did the people who we were talking to throughout the day. At that point, we suddenly realised how much of a fuss this had become. There were loads more than 200 people there (I think that was the amount of wristbands given out). Doors were supposed to open at 7pm. Twenty minutes after that, we were told by a bouncer that the venue was changed to 93 Feet East, literally round the corner from Rough Trade, and it would be at 9pm. We went to that venue before the mass stampede and were pretty much told to bugger off.

So me and my girlfriend went to an Internet cafe at the top of Brick Lane and stayed there for about an hour. Whilst we were there, we noticed some couple followed us there. The guy of this couple actually asked if he could jump in the queue but we said fuck off. He then loitered around the queue and was generally very creepy. We found out towards the end of our cafe stint that they were making fake wristbands so that they could try to get in. So, once we made our way back to 93 Feet East, we told security and they thanked us.

It was still very hectic in that area when we got back. Loads and loads of people without wristbands were there and a few photographers from the press as well. There was even a dude with an acoustic guitar singing Radiohead with others. Weird. We joined the queue to get in and as it turned out we were the last group to be allowed in. We waited for a further hour in the garden near the bar and briefly cheered when we saw Thom making his way into the building.

At around just after 10pm we were allowed in slowly. People with fakes were being turned away. We got in and made our way as close as we could to Jonny's side of the stage. The band came on at 10:15pm and the set began as me and Aino took our places setting on the table top of the bar. Finally.

The gig itself was absolutely brilliant. The whole of In Rainbows was played as the main set. Considering a lot of their usual gear (Thom's piano, Jonny's Ondes Martenot, Jonny's synths, kaoss pads and tons more) was not used they were on the money. Obviously, some temporary measures had to be put in place. Thom's piano on All I Need was replaced by an electric guitar, the piano on Videotape was replaced with a Rhodes keyboard and Jonny's Martenot sounds were replaced by just an electric guitar.

Highlights of that part of the set included Bodysnatchers, which was made of RAWK, Nude, Weird Fishes/Arpeggi, Reckoner and Jigsaw Falling Into Place. Even though Videotape is now probably my favourite Radiohead song I prefer it with piano.

They came did a five-song encore. Thom came out first to do a solo acoustic version of Up On The Ladder, which is on the discbox CD. Very, very nice. And then it was onto the oldies. You & Whose Army? from Amnesiac was excellent, The National Anthem from Kid A was frantic but the real treat was the last two songs - My Iron Lung and The Bends. It made the hours of waiting worthwhile. Both songs were amazing and went down a storm with the crowd.

The band looked incredibly happy and they were really enjoying it. Joking with each other throughout the gig, as well as the crowd. This is the first small gig that the band have done since their appearance on the Later program in 2001 and I still find the idea of a small Radiohead gig surreal. But it was totally worth it.

I think the police and the security team need a shout out too. They handled last night incredibly well given the circumstances and I don't think they put a foot wrong. They were also quite jovial at times and very friendly and helpful.

That's pretty much it. If you haven't checked out the gig yet then your YouTube link is here.

Setlist in full was:

15 Step
Bodysnatchers
Nude
Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
All I Need
Faust Arp
Reckoner
House Of Cards
Jigsaw Falling Into Place
Videotape
-----
Up On The Ladder
You & Whose Army?
The National Anthem
My Iron Lung
The Bends

Radiohead's official website
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