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ventaDropkick Murphys @ The Astoria
Arriving at the Astoria, I was suddenly assailed by the doubt that nags at a gig when you don't know the exact line-up. It's possible, because I've done it, to watch an entire support act, like 'em or hate 'em, with no idea at all who they are. A small, handwritten poster advertised merchandise for the Disasters and Frenzal Rhomb, suggesting that I at least could deduce the names of the supports.
A band arrived on stage. Their first song (if we ignore their actual first song, which was about 4 1/2 seconds long, dedicated to Kylie Minogue, and consisted entirely of the lyric "While you're asleep I shit in your cunt") exploded into an energetic burst.
All you need is, all you need is...
They'd reached the chorus, and I surprised myself by singing the words.
All you need is, all you need is...
I had no idea why I knew it or, at this stage, what it was I needed.
All you need is, all you need is...
And fortunately, my subconscious supplied the information just as it supplied the last line:
Is a punch in the face.
Punch in the Face by Frenzal Rhomb; a track I always rather liked off a (remarkably good for a freebie) compilation I got with a pair of Doc Martens' bought when I was a student.
Frenzal Rhomb were, then, quite promising. At least one good track, a guitarist who ran around like a maniac, and plenty of energy. Sadly, they didn't really deliver. Apart from being of the school who thinks the audience will like you more if you swear a lot, they also hadn't quite got the idea that if everyone on stage talks at once, the words pretty much get lost. The guitarist did whip out a couple of bits of fifteen fingered screaming guitar wank, but despite his behind-the-head, standing-on-a-speaker playing style, I suspect that the stuff was actually technically rather simple... over all, they gave an impression of much more enthusiasm than musicianship.
Which is, of course, not necessarily a bad thing; in this case, it just made them sound shoddy. High school band where both the guitarist and the singer want to be the front man.
I guess I missed The Disasters. They must have been on very early.
After a somewhat protracted amount of faffing, the Dropkick Murphys made it on stage. And despite their "we're so Irish we've got Irish coming out of our Irish ears, we're from Boston[*]" stance, their set opened with a piper playing Scotland the Brave. Each to their own.
The Dropkick Murphys are yet another of these bands consisting of a bunch blokes (all of whom sing except the drummer), loud, shouty and guitary. Except where the likes of Less Than Jake went for a ska take on things, and Reel Big Fish went for punk, Dropkicks went for folk. Irish folk music. With a kind of punk flavour. And believe me, if you haven't seen an Astoria-full of mohawks and noserings piling about to Black Velvet Band you simply haven't lived. In a sense.
The first thing I noticed was the enormous enthusiasm of the crowd. Practically the whole place was jumping from the word go, and by the time the played Heroes From Our Past, about three songs in to their set, if you were in the standing section then you were either in the middle of a pit, or on the front line. I don't think I've ever seen quite so many people shoving each other about - absolutely noone, on the whole floor, was standing still.
I hadn't actually realised how many traditional songs they did, and was quite surprised when The Fields of Athenrye came up. I also realised (as I warbled along with "...it's far too long, they should ban the bloody song, I'm so fed up with The Fields...") that I've completely forgotten the proper words.
Sadly, it does appear that this is something you can have too much of. It dawned inexorably on me that, fundamentally, after a while of hearing them thrash through a number of songs, it all starts to feel a bit like being a member of a several-thousand-strong group of people wandering back from the pub. Blokes yelling, two to a mic, is not actually that tuneful sometimes, and, to be honest, it did start to veer into dull. I'm not sure the sound was all that great, and the somewhat muddy feel to it meant that, with the songs I didn't know, the sound was very samey.
And then the band solved the problem of overcrowding on the ground floor by inviting an enormous number of the audience onto the stage. Which, to be honest, didn't really help the drunken sing-song impression.
I think overall I'd still count it as a success; I did enjoy most of it. In future, I think I'd better arrive slightly late. Or drink more. Possibly both.
I also note with interest that the Astoria has introduced weird projector screens, onto which you can write messages by texting them (at 50p a go). I don't know if this is a new innovation, it's the first time I've seen it anywhere. I can safely report that I saw at least 347 variations on "My mate X is gay, he likes it up the arse" - nice to know that that's still a stalwart of British humour.
However, there were also occasional gems - a strange message battle between groups of people from Reading and Basingtoke, and reports of where people were from. Devonshire was "in the house" apparently, and there were people from Consett eating pasties (they claimed).
There was also at least one proposal of marriage went past (I wonder if it was a joke, or an impulse someone is already regretting, or the genuine article), one confession of having slept with someone else's girlfriend, several pulling attempts, and innumerable declarations of love. Some people advertised their own bands, or gave URLs to visit.
And, of course, the surreal:
Luke wants the ladies' wank (complete with apostrophe, which was what made it so odd)
Jen is the best dog-sitter (and a later one said she was quite good at looking after cats, too)
I'm suffering independent toffee loss (I'm wondering if this is a euphemism I'm not following here?)
It seems strange that people would keep texting messages to the board while the headlining band was on, but it did make for an entertaining distraction in the deadzone between bands.
[*] Mass. not Lincs.
Arriving at the Astoria, I was suddenly assailed by the doubt that nags at a gig when you don't know the exact line-up. It's possible, because I've done it, to watch an entire support act, like 'em or hate 'em, with no idea at all who they are. A small, handwritten poster advertised merchandise for the Disasters and Frenzal Rhomb, suggesting that I at least could deduce the names of the supports.
A band arrived on stage. Their first song (if we ignore their actual first song, which was about 4 1/2 seconds long, dedicated to Kylie Minogue, and consisted entirely of the lyric "While you're asleep I shit in your cunt") exploded into an energetic burst.
All you need is, all you need is...
They'd reached the chorus, and I surprised myself by singing the words.
All you need is, all you need is...
I had no idea why I knew it or, at this stage, what it was I needed.
All you need is, all you need is...
And fortunately, my subconscious supplied the information just as it supplied the last line:
Is a punch in the face.
Punch in the Face by Frenzal Rhomb; a track I always rather liked off a (remarkably good for a freebie) compilation I got with a pair of Doc Martens' bought when I was a student.
Frenzal Rhomb were, then, quite promising. At least one good track, a guitarist who ran around like a maniac, and plenty of energy. Sadly, they didn't really deliver. Apart from being of the school who thinks the audience will like you more if you swear a lot, they also hadn't quite got the idea that if everyone on stage talks at once, the words pretty much get lost. The guitarist did whip out a couple of bits of fifteen fingered screaming guitar wank, but despite his behind-the-head, standing-on-a-speaker playing style, I suspect that the stuff was actually technically rather simple... over all, they gave an impression of much more enthusiasm than musicianship.
Which is, of course, not necessarily a bad thing; in this case, it just made them sound shoddy. High school band where both the guitarist and the singer want to be the front man.
I guess I missed The Disasters. They must have been on very early.
After a somewhat protracted amount of faffing, the Dropkick Murphys made it on stage. And despite their "we're so Irish we've got Irish coming out of our Irish ears, we're from Boston[*]" stance, their set opened with a piper playing Scotland the Brave. Each to their own.
The Dropkick Murphys are yet another of these bands consisting of a bunch blokes (all of whom sing except the drummer), loud, shouty and guitary. Except where the likes of Less Than Jake went for a ska take on things, and Reel Big Fish went for punk, Dropkicks went for folk. Irish folk music. With a kind of punk flavour. And believe me, if you haven't seen an Astoria-full of mohawks and noserings piling about to Black Velvet Band you simply haven't lived. In a sense.
The first thing I noticed was the enormous enthusiasm of the crowd. Practically the whole place was jumping from the word go, and by the time the played Heroes From Our Past, about three songs in to their set, if you were in the standing section then you were either in the middle of a pit, or on the front line. I don't think I've ever seen quite so many people shoving each other about - absolutely noone, on the whole floor, was standing still.
I hadn't actually realised how many traditional songs they did, and was quite surprised when The Fields of Athenrye came up. I also realised (as I warbled along with "...it's far too long, they should ban the bloody song, I'm so fed up with The Fields...") that I've completely forgotten the proper words.
Sadly, it does appear that this is something you can have too much of. It dawned inexorably on me that, fundamentally, after a while of hearing them thrash through a number of songs, it all starts to feel a bit like being a member of a several-thousand-strong group of people wandering back from the pub. Blokes yelling, two to a mic, is not actually that tuneful sometimes, and, to be honest, it did start to veer into dull. I'm not sure the sound was all that great, and the somewhat muddy feel to it meant that, with the songs I didn't know, the sound was very samey.
And then the band solved the problem of overcrowding on the ground floor by inviting an enormous number of the audience onto the stage. Which, to be honest, didn't really help the drunken sing-song impression.
I think overall I'd still count it as a success; I did enjoy most of it. In future, I think I'd better arrive slightly late. Or drink more. Possibly both.
I also note with interest that the Astoria has introduced weird projector screens, onto which you can write messages by texting them (at 50p a go). I don't know if this is a new innovation, it's the first time I've seen it anywhere. I can safely report that I saw at least 347 variations on "My mate X is gay, he likes it up the arse" - nice to know that that's still a stalwart of British humour.
However, there were also occasional gems - a strange message battle between groups of people from Reading and Basingtoke, and reports of where people were from. Devonshire was "in the house" apparently, and there were people from Consett eating pasties (they claimed).
There was also at least one proposal of marriage went past (I wonder if it was a joke, or an impulse someone is already regretting, or the genuine article), one confession of having slept with someone else's girlfriend, several pulling attempts, and innumerable declarations of love. Some people advertised their own bands, or gave URLs to visit.
And, of course, the surreal:
Luke wants the ladies' wank (complete with apostrophe, which was what made it so odd)
Jen is the best dog-sitter (and a later one said she was quite good at looking after cats, too)
I'm suffering independent toffee loss (I'm wondering if this is a euphemism I'm not following here?)
It seems strange that people would keep texting messages to the board while the headlining band was on, but it did make for an entertaining distraction in the deadzone between bands.
[*] Mass. not Lincs.
