Thursday, January 25th, 2007
Having been moved from local venue Scala all the way across town to the ‘Bush, tonight’s gig outing isn’t off to a great start. And with a college exam tomorrow I should be studying for, this better be worth it! Its not that anyone’s twisted my arm to come along tonight, after all who’d miss out on a one-off performance of the best album of last year. But I’m just a little sceptical about whether a live show can do it justice.
Three or four songs in, I’m starting to think maybe I shouldn’t have bothered. Maybe they shouldn’t have bothered? If this was a play I’d call it say the acting was a bit wooden. But then something strange happens. Isobel speaks! Some crowd interaction? A joke? A freakin disco ball?! All of which accompanies a new song (huh?!), to which we’re told to clap along if we’re “cool enough in London”. I’m not convinced we are. Right at the death they come within a maracca shake of rescuing the whole night, with a rousing rendition of Ramblin’ Man, although bizzarely rather than bowing out on a high they descend into a five-minute bluesy dirge before leaving the stage.
A charmingly shambolic performance from Ms Campbell, accompanied by an unsurprisingly cool and understated presence from Lanegan. In the end, about as good a show as I expected. Still though, what a fuckin’ album.
Saturday, December 16th, 2006
Cool band called Foals I saw last night at the Old Blue Last christmas party. Kinda like bloc party but louder and fuzzier!
myspace.com/foals
Tuesday, November 28th, 2006
With this gig taking place in a church (a real one, there was a mass this morning at 11), I could write a full review littered with religious puns, but instead I’ll just give you the few important details. Tonight consisted mainly of Noel Gallagher, an acoustic guitar, a seat in the front row, and me.
Sunday, September 3rd, 2006
The problem with The Datsuns is that they’re extremely good at what they do, but not very good at much else. What they do is play furious rock ‘n’ roll like the bastard sons of Led Zeppelin and, well, Led Zeppelin. But these days when it comes to producing a catchy single or filling larger venues than their last tour (which leads us to The Luminaire Club in Kilburn tonight), they could do better.
But really that’s their record company’s problem, not mine, I had a fucking great time and it looked as if they did too. And how could we fail in a venue where I can lean on the monitor for most of the set and high five the guitarist during the encore. Thankfully most of the first album makes an appearance tonight, along with the good ones from the last album and several new tracks which sound decent enough. A power cut during set closer Freeze Sucker leads to an impromptu acoustic performance from the drummer, but another 50p in the meter and a few minutes later we all go home very happy indeed!
http://www.thedatsuns.com
Friday, May 26th, 2006
Black clothes, pink hair and more tattoos than you can shake your devil horns at. It’s all about the Despair Faction tonight at Camden’s Electric Ballroom, a venue sporting four walls unreasonably close to each other to host a band of AFI’s stature.
After enduring 35 minutes of what my mate describes as ‘Ambient Doom Metal’ from the support band, AFI take the stage. Fuck these people are excited! Accidental showman Davey Havok struts from the smoke to lead the tribal chant that is Miseria Cantare, and after a blistering three song intro, addresses the crowd with almost sarcastic modesty: “Thank you London, we are AFI, thanks for comin to check us out”.
With the new album due in four days, this show was the perfect opportunity to showcase some new tunes. But hey it’s not as if all 500 people in the room aren’t going to buy it anyway, so let’s just do two new ones and leave more time for some old stuff! As catchy as it is when you hear it on MTV, current single Miss Murder sounds pretty weak when stood right next to gems like Days of the Phoenix and Silver & Cold. The new new one sounds a bit fiercer and more promising though!
By the encore i’ve managed to wrestle my way to about a foot from the barrier, praying for some icing on this toothsome, gothic-punk cake. And just when I thought it wasn’t going to happen, Jesus Havok blesses us with his trademark crowd walk. Awesome.
www.afireinside.net
www.despairfaction.com
[tags]afi, gig, camden, electric ballroom, london[/tags]
