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I'll pay the bills with this guitar
Well, there's been a bit of a dirth of gig reviews on here of late, mostly down to a dirth of gig-attendance on my part. I'm not sure quite why that's happened, but am now doing my best to remedy it.
On Friday night,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hendybear and I braved the Autumn chill to see Seasick Steve and The Zodiac the shiny new Carling Academy.
I've not been to the Zodiac since it had its facelift, and initial impressions are mixed. Firstly, it's all nice and new and clean-looking. Which is good. But the layout of the venue is a little weird, to say the least. I believe the Academy now has three separate venues (one still called the Zodiac), and I'm not entirely clear which one I was in - I infer the largest one, which is at ground level and appears to be largely in the old tile shop.
The hall is long and narrow, with the entrance at one short end and the stage at the other short end. The two bars are opposite each other on the long walls, and the sound desk is clapped in the middle of the floor between them. Result: total bottle neck in the middle of the hall as people push to get forward to the stage, over to the bar, back to the toilets or (it would seem) to wander aimlessly around.
Having such a narrow venue (it's about the same width as the old upstairs hall, but much longer) means that you always seem to be a long way away from the stage. We shoved our way through the surprisingly densely packed crowds to about halfway, then gave up. If you're keen to see an act, get there early.
My attention was first brought to Seasick Steve after Hendybear saw him on one of Jools Hollands' shows. From his description, I expected a youngish man. Since then, Seasick Steve's long, railroad jumping, hobo existence has been on every magazine page and I knew to expect someone older. I'd still never heard one of his songs.
I still don't know whether to believe Seasick Steve's colourful history, or whether it's manufactured by a record label. I very much hope it's true, although he does seem to be almost too picture-perfect in his singlet, dungarees and ZZ Top beard.
Early on in his show, I realised I was being very confused by his guitar playing. It sounded like ordinary, pretty good, guitar playing, but then it also sounded like someone playing slide. Judicious peering revealed that he did indeed have a bottleneck over his ring finger, and he was playing a mixture of chords and slidey stuff. Hendybear told me after the show that this is one of the things that guitarist have been commenting on - I know very little about guitars so hadn't actually realised it was unusual, just noticed that the sound seemed a little different.
Seasick Steve doesn't have the world's most amazing singing voice - he sounds like a tube busker. What he does have, though, is the most amazingly rythmic style of singing and playing. Even knowing none of his songs, I found myself wanting to dance along to what where on the face of it rambling blues numbers.
I've yet to encounter any of his stuff recorded, but live it's great. Seasick Steve appears as a genuinely likable character, who really is surprised and delighted that people are willing to pay to come to his gigs. Definitely worth going to see if you can find a ticket left unsold somewhere.
On Friday night,
hendybear and I braved the Autumn chill to see Seasick Steve and I've not been to the Zodiac since it had its facelift, and initial impressions are mixed. Firstly, it's all nice and new and clean-looking. Which is good. But the layout of the venue is a little weird, to say the least. I believe the Academy now has three separate venues (one still called the Zodiac), and I'm not entirely clear which one I was in - I infer the largest one, which is at ground level and appears to be largely in the old tile shop.
The hall is long and narrow, with the entrance at one short end and the stage at the other short end. The two bars are opposite each other on the long walls, and the sound desk is clapped in the middle of the floor between them. Result: total bottle neck in the middle of the hall as people push to get forward to the stage, over to the bar, back to the toilets or (it would seem) to wander aimlessly around.
Having such a narrow venue (it's about the same width as the old upstairs hall, but much longer) means that you always seem to be a long way away from the stage. We shoved our way through the surprisingly densely packed crowds to about halfway, then gave up. If you're keen to see an act, get there early.
My attention was first brought to Seasick Steve after Hendybear saw him on one of Jools Hollands' shows. From his description, I expected a youngish man. Since then, Seasick Steve's long, railroad jumping, hobo existence has been on every magazine page and I knew to expect someone older. I'd still never heard one of his songs.
I still don't know whether to believe Seasick Steve's colourful history, or whether it's manufactured by a record label. I very much hope it's true, although he does seem to be almost too picture-perfect in his singlet, dungarees and ZZ Top beard.
Early on in his show, I realised I was being very confused by his guitar playing. It sounded like ordinary, pretty good, guitar playing, but then it also sounded like someone playing slide. Judicious peering revealed that he did indeed have a bottleneck over his ring finger, and he was playing a mixture of chords and slidey stuff. Hendybear told me after the show that this is one of the things that guitarist have been commenting on - I know very little about guitars so hadn't actually realised it was unusual, just noticed that the sound seemed a little different.
Seasick Steve doesn't have the world's most amazing singing voice - he sounds like a tube busker. What he does have, though, is the most amazingly rythmic style of singing and playing. Even knowing none of his songs, I found myself wanting to dance along to what where on the face of it rambling blues numbers.
I've yet to encounter any of his stuff recorded, but live it's great. Seasick Steve appears as a genuinely likable character, who really is surprised and delighted that people are willing to pay to come to his gigs. Definitely worth going to see if you can find a ticket left unsold somewhere.