I've come to wish you an unhappy birthday
Oct. 2nd, 2003 09:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaTuesday night was MTV2's 5th birthday party. It had it at Brixton Academy. Jamie and Claudia promised me there'd be cake. There wasn't.
Instead, there was just a bunch of bands.
The Rapture
Owing to the doors of the venue opening at 6, by the time I'd made it across Reading, to Paddington, and across London to Brixton, the first band was well and truly over. So I have no idea. If their album is anything to go by, they probably sounded a bit like early 80s-Cure.
The Thrills
If you'd invited me down the local pub to see your best mate's band, and they'd sounded like The Thrills, I'd have been dead impressed. Sadly, you expect a bit more from a band playing somewhere like this.
As far as I can tell, they are inoffensive, and sound a little like everyone else. ChrisC and Jamie tell me they sound exactly like The Bluetones (with whom I'm not terribly familiar).
The Darkness
I've read a little bit about The Darkness, and was expecting a certain amount of silliness, but, above all, irony. Wrong. The Darkness have decided that there is still a niche in this world for spandex-clad, big-haired glam-rock, and are going for it unreservedly. And they mean it, and they seem to be having an enormous amount of fun.
And so, in the grand tradition of the likes of Mötley Crüe, we have songs with big, fat riffs you could build houses on, squealing vocals and, of course, silly trousers. I enjoyed them immensely - looking round the audience at one point at the end of a song, everyone I could see was grinning happily.
And of course, the reason that their glam is going to be better than it was in the 80s is that these days we have decent radio mikes. So when you get to the 5-minute guitar-wank solo, it turns out that the guitarist is actually in the middle of the audience, being carried along on someone's shoulders. Respect.
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bateleur, if you aren't aware of this band, get your bum down to your local record shop at your earliest possible convenience. I think you'd like them. Although, to be honest, I'm expecting a recording to the vastly inferior to the live performance.
The The Music
Since I only knew two singles, I'd availed myself of ChrisC's offer to borrow the The The Music album. And listened to it, and decided that knowing the two singles was probably enough, as the rest of the album sounded pretty much the same. There is very much a The The Music "sound", and, while I quite like it, I find it a little samey after a time.
I enjoyed their set, though not quite as much as the entirely manic bloke just behind us. The building already seemed to be beginning to empty out by this time... we managed to walk down towards the stage when The The Music came on without any of the usual pushing and shoving.
The Jane's Addiction
Surprise Headline Act Number 1. I can't help noticing that the other four bands are bands du jour. The Jane's Addiction are more of a band de la derniere siècle.
As with all the rest of the evening's bands, I'm not hugely familiar with their music, I only really know Ritual de lo Habitual. And I don't think that helped; much of their stuff is, I suspect, difficult to appreciate live if you don't know it.
Oddly, the mixing desk appeared to be on the stage, being operated by the singer (who, incidentally, gets the evening's Dave Vanian award for unnecessary leaping about the stage). And I'm not sure he got it right... a lot of the time, the vocals were so far down in the mix as to be inaudible, and too much of the guitar was lost as well.
I'd been looking forward to seeing these guys and, to be honest, I was a little disappointed. Kudos to them for having the Biggest Drumkit In The World (Ever) - so much so that Jamie and I gave it a round of applause as it was wheeled in - and also for using a steel drum. And I quite enjoyed the set, but it was in many ways just a bit lacklustre. And Been Caught Stealing (three songs in) was really something of a disappointment, being, among other things, near-unrecognisable at first.
On the way down to London, I realised that I didn't have a book or anything with me. Fortunately, the previous occupant of my seat had left me their paper. Unfortunately, this left me with an unpalatable choice: nothing to read til Padding, or read the Daily Mail.
To be fair, I haven't read the Daily Mail much, and am mostly anti it on hearsay, so thought it ought to be given a chance. As far as I can tell, it's poorly written, dogmatic[*], alarmist and patronising. I wasn't impressed. Worst of all, the letters page contained a reader-submitted limerick which is one of the poorest I've ever heard.
A bloke on the tube seemed to have a tabloid-sized copy of the Independent, though. Cracking idea, that - broadsheets have always been a bugger to read, unless you happen to be a gibbon.
[*]on reflection, I meant didactic here. But quite possibly dogmatic too.
Instead, there was just a bunch of bands.
The Rapture
Owing to the doors of the venue opening at 6, by the time I'd made it across Reading, to Paddington, and across London to Brixton, the first band was well and truly over. So I have no idea. If their album is anything to go by, they probably sounded a bit like early 80s-Cure.
The Thrills
If you'd invited me down the local pub to see your best mate's band, and they'd sounded like The Thrills, I'd have been dead impressed. Sadly, you expect a bit more from a band playing somewhere like this.
As far as I can tell, they are inoffensive, and sound a little like everyone else. ChrisC and Jamie tell me they sound exactly like The Bluetones (with whom I'm not terribly familiar).
The Darkness
I've read a little bit about The Darkness, and was expecting a certain amount of silliness, but, above all, irony. Wrong. The Darkness have decided that there is still a niche in this world for spandex-clad, big-haired glam-rock, and are going for it unreservedly. And they mean it, and they seem to be having an enormous amount of fun.
And so, in the grand tradition of the likes of Mötley Crüe, we have songs with big, fat riffs you could build houses on, squealing vocals and, of course, silly trousers. I enjoyed them immensely - looking round the audience at one point at the end of a song, everyone I could see was grinning happily.
And of course, the reason that their glam is going to be better than it was in the 80s is that these days we have decent radio mikes. So when you get to the 5-minute guitar-wank solo, it turns out that the guitarist is actually in the middle of the audience, being carried along on someone's shoulders. Respect.
bateleur, if you aren't aware of this band, get your bum down to your local record shop at your earliest possible convenience. I think you'd like them. Although, to be honest, I'm expecting a recording to the vastly inferior to the live performance.The The Music
Since I only knew two singles, I'd availed myself of ChrisC's offer to borrow the The The Music album. And listened to it, and decided that knowing the two singles was probably enough, as the rest of the album sounded pretty much the same. There is very much a The The Music "sound", and, while I quite like it, I find it a little samey after a time.
I enjoyed their set, though not quite as much as the entirely manic bloke just behind us. The building already seemed to be beginning to empty out by this time... we managed to walk down towards the stage when The The Music came on without any of the usual pushing and shoving.
The Jane's Addiction
Surprise Headline Act Number 1. I can't help noticing that the other four bands are bands du jour. The Jane's Addiction are more of a band de la derniere siècle.
As with all the rest of the evening's bands, I'm not hugely familiar with their music, I only really know Ritual de lo Habitual. And I don't think that helped; much of their stuff is, I suspect, difficult to appreciate live if you don't know it.
Oddly, the mixing desk appeared to be on the stage, being operated by the singer (who, incidentally, gets the evening's Dave Vanian award for unnecessary leaping about the stage). And I'm not sure he got it right... a lot of the time, the vocals were so far down in the mix as to be inaudible, and too much of the guitar was lost as well.
I'd been looking forward to seeing these guys and, to be honest, I was a little disappointed. Kudos to them for having the Biggest Drumkit In The World (Ever) - so much so that Jamie and I gave it a round of applause as it was wheeled in - and also for using a steel drum. And I quite enjoyed the set, but it was in many ways just a bit lacklustre. And Been Caught Stealing (three songs in) was really something of a disappointment, being, among other things, near-unrecognisable at first.
On the way down to London, I realised that I didn't have a book or anything with me. Fortunately, the previous occupant of my seat had left me their paper. Unfortunately, this left me with an unpalatable choice: nothing to read til Padding, or read the Daily Mail.
To be fair, I haven't read the Daily Mail much, and am mostly anti it on hearsay, so thought it ought to be given a chance. As far as I can tell, it's poorly written, dogmatic[*], alarmist and patronising. I wasn't impressed. Worst of all, the letters page contained a reader-submitted limerick which is one of the poorest I've ever heard.
A bloke on the tube seemed to have a tabloid-sized copy of the Independent, though. Cracking idea, that - broadsheets have always been a bugger to read, unless you happen to be a gibbon.
[*]on reflection, I meant didactic here. But quite possibly dogmatic too.
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no subject
Date: 2003-10-02 03:21 am (UTC)That in itself would spell disappointment for me. But then I've often been accused of having an unreasonable addiction to cake.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-02 03:25 am (UTC)Or at least an unreasonable approach to spelling :)