Gig review and B&E
Sep. 19th, 2003 10:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaAs you might remember, getting into our house can be rather exciting at times.
As it was this evening - key stuck in back of door, my back-door key safely in the house, Andy and Frances both on holiday... none of the usual suspect windows open. Extensive attempts to reach the key through the letterbox failed (but made nice dents in my arm) - unscrewing the letter box off the door doesn't help either. Which I should be glad of, really.
Fortunately, just as I was clambering onto my rickety pile of garden table, bin and recycling box in an attempt to get across the roof and through my own bedroom window, I spied from my vantage point the nice neighbour with the ladders coming home. And through the window I went, with not inconsiderable struggling, and the lamentable smashing of the nice ceramic oil burner![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
leathellin gave me a few years ago. Guess I'll have to get the old one back out again.
Things to be noted:
Get a keyring, put the bloody back-door key on it.
Shut my bedroom window when out - there must be some burglars my size or smaller.
There's nothing like being stuck half way through a highly visible window, little legs kicking, to make you realise just how many sirens there are round Cowley.
By dint of squeaking out of work bang on time last night, and walking into town instead of doing something time-consuming like catching a bus, I made it into the centre of London to meet ChrisC with time for a meal before heading out to Brixton. A quick burst of Thai food in a place next door to last week's Japanese restaurant - pleasant enough, and I can report that sticky rice does indeed do exactly what it says on the tin. (And incidentally, how did we express that concept in the days before the Ronseal adverts ?)
(I'm not really sure the following constitutes a proper review, actually, it's more me wittering about a gig...)
I haven't been to Brixton Academy in ages, and I'd actually forgotten what a hole it is in places. It should sort its toiles out, for a start. However.
We arrived just in time to get drinks and amble down towards the front before the support came on. And wait... what's that music playing ? It's Johnny Cash. Not quite what I'd expect before a punk gig. And oh, there's no doubt this is a punk gig. The rips, spikes, tartan, safety pins, etc are out in force.
The support band is Stretch Armstrong, a US 5 (?) piece. The singer (as well as looking disturbingly like ChrisS-B) is an over-eager puppy who bounds around and keeps exhorting the crowd to "make some noise!" in a manner which I consider to be excessively American. The music is fairly unremarkable as far as I can tell - and writing today I can remember pretty much nothing about it.
About half way through their set I started to feel really ill, and retired to lounge against a wall in the lobby. And there is much fun to be had t-shirt spotting... a lot of Rancid shirts, obviously some people didn't read yesterday's entry. A good crop of old-skool punk bands, a moderate crop of nu-metal (especially System of a Down). A bewildering array of Dropkick Murphys shirts (whoever they are... yes, I can google, but does anyone actually know anything about them?) and "Ska Wars" everywhere.
ChrisC won the most-unlikely-shirt contest by spotting someone wearing a Texas t-shirt. I maintain that a Miss Sixty top runs it a close second.
Special kudos to the following t-shirt slogans:
"UK garage is gay wank"
"Lutheran Trinity Church Day Camp"
And despite all this clothing-related excitement, I felt a lot worse, and wandered off to the toilets, wondering if I could cope with being such a cliché as to puke at a Rancid gig. While standing in the queue (and seriously considering passing out), I discovered that I was easily out-clichéd, as a 16 year old repeately leapt up and head-butted a wall, quite crumpling his spikey barnet in the process.
A bit of sitting down in the relative quiet of the bar, and I decided I'd be OK to go and watch Rancid. While we were heading back in through the door, there was the blindingly jangling noise of a band going "we're here, we've picked up our instruments, we're ready to go!", and they kicked off with Ruby Soho while we tried to battle our way forwards.
During the first few songs, we ended up in that uneasy zone between the standing-still-and-listening people, and those who wanted to PIT LIKE MANIACS. And so it was elbows and fists and whoops-there-goes-his-pint and trying to stay upright, while I thought to myself that there was no way a crowd was going to sustain this level of energy for an entire gig. And then the crowd got itself filed by type properly, and we ended up happily in the section labelled "we're going to bounce about, and we'll occasionally catch the people who come piling out the pit unexpectedly".
And no one got any less energetic. As you might expect, Rancid's songs are relatively short, and they blistered out one after another with very little break between. The ska influences mean that they manage to keep the edge and the shoutiness of punk, without compromising on melody. And even if the bass player is not, as announced by Frederiksen, "the best bassist in the world", then the 15-fingered screaming bass solo in the middle of Maxwell Murders suggests that he's at least a contender.
And despite the fact that Stretch Armstrong sounded muddy, Rancid come over with a clear, tight sound. Brixton always seems to me to have an unusually large stage, but they manage to fill it, one of the guitarists coming right out to the audience, while the other and the bassist fill up the rest of the space. And not once does the feeling of energy, or the enthusiasm of the audience, dip even slightly. America can do punk, after all.
Strangely, very few songs off the new album get played (maybe three?), with the vast majority of the songs coming from the 1996 ...And Out Come The Wolves. They are, however, joined on stage by David Courtney for David Courtney. And the rapped middle section of Red Hot Moon appears to be done by one of their roadies...
And then... the last thing you expect... A Billy Bragg cover. To Have and To Have Not. And a hefty proportion of the audience seemed to know it. Googling suggests this is because Lars Frederiksen does this with his other band, but it still surprised me.
And suddenly, even though it seems they've only been on stage around 15 minutes, they're off. And on for an encore (Time Bomb and Avenues & Alleyways), and it's raining? Oh no, it's just some bloke who's pinched a fire extinguisher, and is busy hosing down the audience.
And I felt absolutely fine throughout, which suggests that in the future I should just get on with life and stop grumbling about feeling ill :)
As it was this evening - key stuck in back of door, my back-door key safely in the house, Andy and Frances both on holiday... none of the usual suspect windows open. Extensive attempts to reach the key through the letterbox failed (but made nice dents in my arm) - unscrewing the letter box off the door doesn't help either. Which I should be glad of, really.
Fortunately, just as I was clambering onto my rickety pile of garden table, bin and recycling box in an attempt to get across the roof and through my own bedroom window, I spied from my vantage point the nice neighbour with the ladders coming home. And through the window I went, with not inconsiderable struggling, and the lamentable smashing of the nice ceramic oil burner
leathellin gave me a few years ago. Guess I'll have to get the old one back out again.Things to be noted:
Get a keyring, put the bloody back-door key on it.
Shut my bedroom window when out - there must be some burglars my size or smaller.
There's nothing like being stuck half way through a highly visible window, little legs kicking, to make you realise just how many sirens there are round Cowley.
By dint of squeaking out of work bang on time last night, and walking into town instead of doing something time-consuming like catching a bus, I made it into the centre of London to meet ChrisC with time for a meal before heading out to Brixton. A quick burst of Thai food in a place next door to last week's Japanese restaurant - pleasant enough, and I can report that sticky rice does indeed do exactly what it says on the tin. (And incidentally, how did we express that concept in the days before the Ronseal adverts ?)
(I'm not really sure the following constitutes a proper review, actually, it's more me wittering about a gig...)
I haven't been to Brixton Academy in ages, and I'd actually forgotten what a hole it is in places. It should sort its toiles out, for a start. However.
We arrived just in time to get drinks and amble down towards the front before the support came on. And wait... what's that music playing ? It's Johnny Cash. Not quite what I'd expect before a punk gig. And oh, there's no doubt this is a punk gig. The rips, spikes, tartan, safety pins, etc are out in force.
The support band is Stretch Armstrong, a US 5 (?) piece. The singer (as well as looking disturbingly like ChrisS-B) is an over-eager puppy who bounds around and keeps exhorting the crowd to "make some noise!" in a manner which I consider to be excessively American. The music is fairly unremarkable as far as I can tell - and writing today I can remember pretty much nothing about it.
About half way through their set I started to feel really ill, and retired to lounge against a wall in the lobby. And there is much fun to be had t-shirt spotting... a lot of Rancid shirts, obviously some people didn't read yesterday's entry. A good crop of old-skool punk bands, a moderate crop of nu-metal (especially System of a Down). A bewildering array of Dropkick Murphys shirts (whoever they are... yes, I can google, but does anyone actually know anything about them?) and "Ska Wars" everywhere.
ChrisC won the most-unlikely-shirt contest by spotting someone wearing a Texas t-shirt. I maintain that a Miss Sixty top runs it a close second.
Special kudos to the following t-shirt slogans:
"UK garage is gay wank"
"Lutheran Trinity Church Day Camp"
And despite all this clothing-related excitement, I felt a lot worse, and wandered off to the toilets, wondering if I could cope with being such a cliché as to puke at a Rancid gig. While standing in the queue (and seriously considering passing out), I discovered that I was easily out-clichéd, as a 16 year old repeately leapt up and head-butted a wall, quite crumpling his spikey barnet in the process.
A bit of sitting down in the relative quiet of the bar, and I decided I'd be OK to go and watch Rancid. While we were heading back in through the door, there was the blindingly jangling noise of a band going "we're here, we've picked up our instruments, we're ready to go!", and they kicked off with Ruby Soho while we tried to battle our way forwards.
During the first few songs, we ended up in that uneasy zone between the standing-still-and-listening people, and those who wanted to PIT LIKE MANIACS. And so it was elbows and fists and whoops-there-goes-his-pint and trying to stay upright, while I thought to myself that there was no way a crowd was going to sustain this level of energy for an entire gig. And then the crowd got itself filed by type properly, and we ended up happily in the section labelled "we're going to bounce about, and we'll occasionally catch the people who come piling out the pit unexpectedly".
And no one got any less energetic. As you might expect, Rancid's songs are relatively short, and they blistered out one after another with very little break between. The ska influences mean that they manage to keep the edge and the shoutiness of punk, without compromising on melody. And even if the bass player is not, as announced by Frederiksen, "the best bassist in the world", then the 15-fingered screaming bass solo in the middle of Maxwell Murders suggests that he's at least a contender.
And despite the fact that Stretch Armstrong sounded muddy, Rancid come over with a clear, tight sound. Brixton always seems to me to have an unusually large stage, but they manage to fill it, one of the guitarists coming right out to the audience, while the other and the bassist fill up the rest of the space. And not once does the feeling of energy, or the enthusiasm of the audience, dip even slightly. America can do punk, after all.
Strangely, very few songs off the new album get played (maybe three?), with the vast majority of the songs coming from the 1996 ...And Out Come The Wolves. They are, however, joined on stage by David Courtney for David Courtney. And the rapped middle section of Red Hot Moon appears to be done by one of their roadies...
And then... the last thing you expect... A Billy Bragg cover. To Have and To Have Not. And a hefty proportion of the audience seemed to know it. Googling suggests this is because Lars Frederiksen does this with his other band, but it still surprised me.
And suddenly, even though it seems they've only been on stage around 15 minutes, they're off. And on for an encore (Time Bomb and Avenues & Alleyways), and it's raining? Oh no, it's just some bloke who's pinched a fire extinguisher, and is busy hosing down the audience.
And I felt absolutely fine throughout, which suggests that in the future I should just get on with life and stop grumbling about feeling ill :)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-09-19 03:43 pm (UTC)Feeling ill - you've hit on the cure but the cause will still be there (and guess how I know that?).
no subject
Date: 2003-09-22 01:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-22 02:38 am (UTC)Things to be noted:
Get a keyring, put the bloody back-door key on it.
What about "take your keys with you when you go out". How hard can that possibly be?
no subject
Date: 2003-09-22 03:17 am (UTC)Hence I want a split ring so I can tie them together.