I saw a photo which purported to be of Peter & Paul McCartney at a Swift gig. It didn't look quite right but here is the link.
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Your last gig.
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Just back from Elbow.
What a great gig. The new songs work incredibly well live!
I was unaware that Pete Turner was sick and couldn't play!
Nathan Sudders appparently was called up last minute. He did a great job.
Little plus: possibly the best crowd ever encountered at a gig.
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Good call. Saw them at the O2 and it was fantastic.
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My first visit to PsychFest, absolutely brilliant. For those who don't know it's a one-day festival in each of Brighton, Manchester and Edinburgh. I attended in Edinburgh and saw 6 bands in total at Summerhall and the Queens Hall in this order from 11am-11pm:
Gruff Rhys (of Super Furry Animals) - presenting himself as a corporation 'GR Logistics' complete with company logo
TTSSFU - musician Tasmine Stephens, a solo recording artist but who's assembled a live band. Indie/shoegazy, I liked it especially as I'd managed to squeeze it in between acts as a 'maybe'. I later chatted with them, they were really nice. I'll be seeing them again in November as support to English Teacher in Glasgow.
Hotwax - thrashy punky with some sophistication, loud and very enjoyable.
Voka Gentle - not sure how to describe them, they're kind of an effects-heavy mishmash of genres which I like and in fact they were the highlight of the day for me. One I'll definitely be seeking out on record and stage.
NewDad - I already knew I liked their jangly indie-pop and they didn't disappoint.
Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs - screeching metal with a psychedelic edge, ear-shredding distortion and a manic live show that really whipped the crowd up and brought the day to a blistering end.
I thoroughly enjoyed the day and will be very interested in going to this event again, maybe next year. I chose well from a line-up of about 30 acts so I was very pleased, there wasn't a weak moment.
All this was the day after the Oasis tour sale shenanigans and the outrageous pricing. I had a whole day of excellent varied live music for a total of £30 which I'll take in preference every time.
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Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs
I really like the name of this band (no irony).
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I really like the name of this band (no irony).
It somehow works. If it were one pig more or fewer it wouldn't work. There's something about odd numbers that sounds better, eg five pigs would also work.
They're often abbreviated to 'Pigs x7' when written down.
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Just saw St. Vincent at Massey Hall in Toronto. Fantastic show. She is totally inhabiting every single second of her performance.
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The Last Dinner Party, Glasgow O2 Academy. Hugely enjoyable evening, helped by two very good support acts, Kaeto followed by Lucia & The Best Boys. The latter are locals and got an incredible reaction from the crowd, amazing energy that carried through the rest of the evening. TLDP were lively and played a great set. The richness of their material shone through with moments of tranquility, searing guitar noise and a lot in between. Definitely a band I'll see again, it'll be very interesting to do that when they've got another album's worth of new material to play.
I was one of the oldest, most Y-chromosomed and least lacy-white-skirt-wearing people there.
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Crowded House, Glasgow Hydro. I've seen them before but not for a long time. Support was from Neil Finn's son Liam who was very good. He then came back on and played guitar for CH. They played a good selection and included one Split Enz track as they seem to have been doing on this tour, sometimes it's I Got You but on my night it was Message To My Girl which was one of the highlights.
They did a few from their latest album and a decent spread of material from their earlier work and the well-known hits. Surprisingly the two best-known featured very early, they opened with Weather With You and did Don't Dream It's Over about halfway through. When You Come is a solid favourite of mine and was the high-point of the set for me with a brilliant rendition.
Every time I've seen them I've enjoyed their on-stage banter which is among the best and funniest I've seen and they didn't disappoint this time.
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I saw only two concerts since my last post. Smashing pumpkins at a *tiny* venue in cottage country in Ontario. It was phenomenal. There is something really special about seeing a relatively big band in a very small place. It was about 500 degrees in there and I was a few feet from the band. Their power live is extraordinary, especially Jimmy Chamberlain's drums, but also Corgan's guitar. He did a long fiery solo on an extended non-album track they do called Gossamer. I thought he was going to break the guitar or injure himself, and it ended with him collapsed on the ground on his knees watching the rest of the band finish.
Then I went to a gig I hadn't planned on going to, but friends suggested it and I wanted to hang out. It was the Green Day saviors tour. My friends actually wanted to see the Pumpkins because they were playing support. They were great as always, and it was great to hang out with friends. But we missed the other support acts which I would have liked to see (Rancid and the Linda Linda's). And I didn't know Green Day that well apart from a couple of the big hits that never induced me to explore further... Now I *detest* them. It felt like they played 200 Green Day songs and they ALL SOUND THE SAME. The musicianship is workmanlike at best. The front man's big move that inexplicably got the crowd cheering was to stop and open his eyes really wide and swivel his eyeballs to the side as if something really exciting was going to happen and then another boring, hyper song that sounded exactly like all the others would start. The best part was when they invited someone from the front up to sing a song. Otherwise it sucked the will to live out of me and I will never, ever, ever waste my time or money on them again. Fucking terrible. 0/10.
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The front man's big move that inexplicably got the crowd cheering was to stop and open his eyes really wide and swivel his eyeballs to the side as if something really exciting was going to happen and then another boring, hyper song that sounded exactly like all the others would start.
That's one of the most baffling things anyone's ever said about a gig*. Green Day fans sound very easily pleased.
*Apart from a friend describing the Residents singer causing shock among the audience at removing his giant eyeball mask... only to reveal he was wearing a football helmet, with his face heavily make-upped and with giant bushy false eyebrows, whereupon he then waved his arms slowly up and down while repeatedly screeching "EEEEEEEEEEEE! OOOOORRRRRRR! EEEEEEEEEEEE! OOOOORRRRRRR!" But at least that sounds more entertaining than the Green Day singer widening and swivelling his eyes.
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I saw the Dire Straits Experience for the third time last night. I was front row centre & even got the second guitarist's pick. The only actual member of Dire Straits is saxophonist Chris White but Terence Reis is uncannily like Knopfler, both vocally & as a guitarist. They are so good to watch & they cover all bases from acoustic songs like Wild West End to the awesomeness of Private Investigations. I'm so connected to Dire Straits that it was nice to let it all out for once.
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Terence Reis is uncannily like Knopfler
Headband?
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Green Day fans sound very easily pleased.
It was like being in a stadium with thirty thousand former college bros reliving their college bro youth. If that makes sense. I'm sure lots of them are wonderful people but their band is terrible, imo.
Your story about the singer with the mask reminded me of seeing a fairly obscure Irish band called Whipping Boy. The singer came out wearing a big mask of some sort, I recall something like a burlap sack. He ripped it off halfway through the opening song to punctuate a transition, which was a surprisingly effective bit of showmanship. They were brilliant though. I remember a bicycle being used as a prop in the last song too. It was a long time ago, but I remember him lying on the ground idly peddling the bike, which was upside down. The song was about mental illness I think.
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Your story about the singer with the mask reminded me of seeing a fairly obscure Irish band called Whipping Boy. The singer came out wearing a big mask of some sort, I recall something like a burlap sack. He ripped it off halfway through the opening song to punctuate a transition, which was a surprisingly effective bit of showmanship. They were brilliant though. I remember a bicycle being used as a prop in the last song too. It was a long time ago, but I remember him lying on the ground idly peddling the bike, which was upside down. The song was about mental illness I think.
The Whipping Boy thing in turn reminds me of seeing Gang Of Four and the singer 'playing' a microwave oven during (the brilliant) He'd Send In The Army.
The 'shocking' thing about The Residents singer taking his big mask off was that they never revealed their faces or identities (or at least still hadn't at that point). But alas, in this case it merely uncovered another layer of disguise.
My friend describing that moment, underlined by his dramatic enacting of the arm movements and screeching noises, is very memorable for me in that as a result I had one of the most prolonged outbursts of uncontrollable hysterical laughter I've ever had, leaving me in such a weakened breathless state that he and the others present became quite concerned.
It was nearly matched a few years ago when I watched a Mission Impossible film on TV, in which Tom Cruise scribbles a face on his hand, essentially looking like 🙂 and asks Jeremy Renner to ID it, to which Renner immediately gives him a name and rattles off a detailed bio and how dangerous the guy is. This time it was my partner who was at first exasperated then quite worried about my welfare after I laughed myself near comatose for almost 15 minutes.
Anyway, gigs.
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The Whipping Boy thing in turn reminds me of seeing Gang Of Four and the singer 'playing' a microwave oven during (the brilliant) He'd Send In The Army.
The 'shocking' thing about The Residents singer taking his big mask off was that they never revealed their faces or identities (or at least still hadn't at that point). But alas, in this case it merely uncovered another layer of disguise.
My friend describing that moment, underlined by his dramatic enacting of the arm movements and screeching noises, is very memorable for me in that as a result I had one of the most prolonged outbursts of uncontrollable hysterical laughter I've ever had, leaving me in such a weakened breathless state that he and the others present became quite concerned.
It was nearly matched a few years ago when I watched a Mission Impossible film on TV, in which Tom Cruise scribbles a face on his hand, essentially looking like 🙂 and asks Jeremy Renner to ID it, to which Renner immediately gives him a name and rattles off a detailed bio and how dangerous the guy is. This time it was my partner who was at first exasperated then quite worried about my welfare after I laughed myself near comatose for almost 15 minutes.
Anyway, gigs.
Two of the finest things in life: a good gig and laughing so hard you can't breathe. Not necessarily best combined! 🍻
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Headband?
He has shoulder length grey hair and unlike Knopfler he isn't going bald. So no.
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I just saw Springsteen last night in Toronto. It was terrific. He has an emotional intensity, vocal strength, and stage energy that would be remarkable for any performer, never mind a 75-year old. The setlist featured 28 songs, including almost all of the Born to Run album, a few nuggets from the first 2 albums, and a smattering through the rest of his career. The band was all in fine form, with Max Weinberg being a particularly impressive powerhouse over nearly 3 hours.
