Gig Reviews

so lacklustre · Post by **so lacklustre** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 9:30 am

I'll start off with last nights trip to see The Beautiful South. I'm not a big fan, and only really got to like them through my partner. I had bought their latest album, Gaze, in anticipation of this concert and thought it quite good without being outstanding. I therefore attended this concert with no great expectations but have come out being a bigger fan than I was. Paul Heaton entertained throughout, the new female singer was good and the sound and setlist were pretty good also. The setlist had just about the right balance with five tracks from the new album, a couple of tracks from previous albums, and the rest being some of their numerous hits, apart from Don't Stop Movin', yes a cover of the SClub7 song, funked up and quite good fun, with Heaton giving it his all. The band included a three piece brass section that sounded really good. The highlights for me included Song For Whoever, and the final three songs before the interval which were 36D, Perfect 10, and Good As Gold.

Venue: Bournemouth International Centre
Date: 17/11/2003
Length: 90 mins including encores
Setlist (approx): Life Vs Lifeless; Pretenders; We are each other; A little time; Let go with the flow; Old red eyes is back; Pretty; 101% Man; One last love song; song for whoever; dont marry her; Rotterdam; Just a Few Things; 36D; Perfect 10; Good as gold. 1st Encore: Don't Stop movin'; You keep It All In. 2nd Encore: Woman In The Wall.

laughingcrow · Post by **laughingcrow** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 6:51 pm

'One last love song' is one of my favourite songs of all time...I wish Id got tikcets for Glasgow, but noone would come with me dagnabbit!

Jackson Doofster · Post by **Jackson Doofster** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 7:30 pm

Woman in the Wall. What a great macabre song that is!

so lacklustre · Post by **so lacklustre** » Sun Dec 07, 2003 8:06 am

Venue: Portsmouth Guildhall (UK)
Date: 06/12/2003
Length: 110 mins including encore
Setlist (approx): Most of Stanley Rd, plus his other well known solo tracks, plus four Jam tracks: Tales From The Riverbank, That's Entertainment, In The Crowd, & Town Called Malice. Also Long Hot Summer from Style Council days.

This concert rocked. Weller was on top form and clearly enjoying himself. The atmosphere was really good. The venue was excellent, we had standing tickets and despite being sold out the standing area was not overcrowded. Everyone enjoyed themselves. I've rarely heard so many people raving about a concert on the way out. The band were tight and were also enjoying themselves. This was not part of a new release tour so Weller was just playing favourite backtracks and crowd pleasers. It was loud but soulful and the sound quality was good. The best rocking concert of the year.

laughingcrow · Post by **laughingcrow** » Sun Dec 07, 2003 12:02 pm

Venue: SECC, Glasgow on the 30th November.
Radiohead, supported by the Asian Dub Foundation.

Well, the Asian Dub Foundation were crap...a load of asian guys jumping around wearing 'hip hop' gear doing bad rap, and even trying to be political by rapping about George Bush Jr...just bad.

Radiohead were great though, and although I made my way through the sweaty/spotty youths to the back of the moshing (yes, people moshed to radiohead) area, I still was pretty close to the stage. Thom Yorke danced and laughed like a manic anarchistic pixie, Johnny Greenwood played a great little solo on 'Go to sleep' with a stuttering effect on his guitar pedal, and they played quite a few crowd pleasers too. Highlights were 2+2=5, Myxamatosis, Karma Polica, Idioteque and No Surprises...if only they'd played Pyramid Song though.

setlist:
01 there there
02 2+2=5
03 lucky
04 myxomatosis
05 where i end and you begin
06 backdrifts
07 fake plastic trees
08 paranoid android
09 sail to the moon
10 i might be wrong
11 climbing up the walls
12 my iron lung
13 sit down. stand up
14 scatterbrain
15 the national anthem / hunting bears
16 no surprises
17 idioteque

Encore #1:
18 the gloaming
19 go to sleep
20 just
21 how to disappear completely

Encore #2:
22 kid a
23 karma police
24 everything in its right place

martinfoyle · Post by **martinfoyle** » Sun Dec 07, 2003 12:18 pm

Saw Radiohead on thursday and have much the same feelings as Crow. Incredible show, and they did Creep. The buzz that went round the packed crowd when we heard the first notesof that tune was easily the most spontaneous I've ever heard. Gig of the year by a long way.

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Mon Dec 08, 2003 7:05 pm

Because they generally don't do it, right? I recalll they did at the open air Oxford gig, and how rare that was. Why is the wonderful 'Wolf At The Door' not on the setlist. Surely it's the best thing on HTTT?

I wish I'd seen the 'Head. They were playing Earl's Court the night I saw Bowie. It was very funny coming back from London on a train full of mostly students happy after Radiohead, a smaller minority who'd been to Marilyn Manson, all with mandatory piercings, one classic blokey student type with black nails as a concession, and me on a cloud from seeing Bowie.

In The Crowd must have been brilliant. How exciting to hear a classic like that from that classic LP. 'And my only link is pots of Walls ice-cream...'

I'm off to see the Buzzcocks on Wed in Camden. It wasn't my idea, and I'm worried that my ears will hurt too much, but to hear Pete and the lads do Ever Fallen still has to be something special.

Poppet · Post by **Poppet** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 10:46 am

re: buzzcocks might hurt the ears:

earplugs might help. it's my new concession to the passage of time.

Post by **BlueChair** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 10:48 am

pfft, earplugs

What's the loudest concert everyone's been to? I think mine was Lou Reed. He was LOUD.

mood swung · Post by **mood swung** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 10:48 am

I went to an actual live NASCAR race a couple of years ago--earplugs were mandatory. a red neck was optional.

noiseradio · Post by **noiseradio** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 10:54 am

Probably the loudest show was Smashing Pumpkins. My ears rang for two days.

Poppet · Post by **Poppet** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 11:05 am

i used to date a stock car driver. i don't remember the track being that loud, but perhaps i was just too in 'lurve' to notice.

or too stupid. something.

mood swung · Post by **mood swung** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 11:09 am

it was Bristol--very small track (1/2 mile or so) in a big bowl. it was like 10 trillion very very angry bees swarming...or 10,000 chainsaws.

so lacklustre · Post by **so lacklustre** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 11:14 am

Late seventies I went to a Motorhead concert (Ace of Spades tour I think), don't tell anyone else though.

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 7:58 pm

Buzzcocks weren't that loud, and they were bloody fantastic. they came on, launched into a sparkling Boredom and didn't look back for the rest of the gig. All the classics were there, including the hilarious Fast Cars ('I hate fast cars'), and of course What Do I Get? and, to end, bien sur, Ever Fallen? No Sixteen Again, sadly. Too old for that. They didn't stop at all for the first 15-20 minutes, just one song into the next. They were tight, sparky and absolutely loving being there and the huge response the audience gave them. Hilarious to see the audience, many of whom were clearly 'class of '77'. Some were still punks, some had cardigans, some had laptops in shoulder bags. I rediscovered the tremendous Promises and various others. A great night out.

laughingcrow · Post by **laughingcrow** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 6:37 am

Last night I went to see this two man American band that Ive been banging on about for ages...The Mountain Goats.

Totally brilliant acoustic set. This bloke John Darnielle is one of the best lyricists in the US right now without a doubt, but he's criminally unknown. Two men with guitars in a tiny wee venue, and the atmosphere was ace!

Go to amazon.com and listen to him, or check out his website to read the lyrics...I honestly can't reccomend this highly enough. Very dark, clever lyrics....genius!

http://www.themountaingoats.net

Boy With A Problem · Post by **Boy With A Problem** » Wed Apr 21, 2004 6:31 pm

Just got back from -

Wreckless Eric at the Railway Inn in Winchester -

Fantastic/weird show - First of all, this is a really small place - I can't imagine more than 75 people fitting in there - maybe 40 turned out tonight. Eric came on - just him and a guitar - and immediately started talking about the first record he ever bought - bantering with the audience - he went on for about five minutes before he launched into a song about the famous producer Joe Meek - called "Joe Meek" (he was the producer on the first record that Eric ever bought - by the Tornados - not Telstar, but the lame follow-up and later on he almost bought some recording equipment off of Meek, but didn't because he was afraid it wasn't going to work) - then he did about a 12 minute version of Reconnez Cherie - complete with a mid song story about how he thought he was really clever writing a song in French - but as it turned out it doesn't really translate and how later on he lived in France for 9 years. It was that kind of a show. He played Final Taxi as a request to the American he met in the toilets (me - but it was outside of the toilets - I don't talk to people in the toilets - he embellished - and I didn't even request Final Taxi - didn't even mention it - after the show I bought his book (which he read from at a couple of points during the gig) and I chastised him for suggesting that I struck up a conversation in the toilets - so he signed the book - "never in the toilets" . Anyway he played a bunch of songs I was unfamiliar with - but with incredible intensity. And he ended the whole thing with Whole Wide World and was cajoled into coming back on for Take the Kash and Semaphore Signals. There were about 15 people there at the end - including a funny lady who engaged me in conversation across the platforms as we waited for trains heading in the opposite direction.

verbal gymnastics · Post by **verbal gymnastics** » Thu Apr 22, 2004 4:26 am

Boy With A Problem wrote:...the Railway Inn in Winchester

Great place! I was in Winchester at Easter and I'm going to a wedding at the Royal Hotel in October.

By the way, why can't you spell Hampshire correctly?

laughingcrow · Post by **laughingcrow** » Thu Apr 22, 2004 5:13 am

I went to see George Thorogood and the Destroyers last night....was good, not great. Did all the hit(s). Really good showman though...he performed a Nick Lowe song that Nick wrote for Dr Feelgood ('That's It, I Quit') as well!

mood swung · Post by **mood swung** » Thu Apr 22, 2004 7:39 am

VG, isn't that the phonetic spelling?

and LC, you're making me feel incredibly old this morning cos I'm thinking youth AND good concerts are wasted on the young.

Boy With A Problem · Post by **Boy With A Problem** » Thu Apr 22, 2004 11:54 am

The sad fact is that I was born and graduated from High School in New Hampshire. I actually have a much tougher time spelling Massachusetts.

laughingcrow · Post by **laughingcrow** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 5:02 pm

I just got back from seeing Bob Dylan (first time Ive seen him

) live at the SECC...was ace! No setlist Im afraid all you Dylanophiles, but Im sure there'll be one for me to edit this post with tommorrow...He did an hour and a half, then a half hour encore, all the time stood at the keyboard or playing the harmonice...no guitar from Bob.
The highlights for me were Stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again, Like a Rolling Stone, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, and a really wicked Hendrix/Dylan hybrid of All along the watchtower to close!!

ADDENDUM...for those who might be interested (Blue and B&M especially)

The Wicked Messenger
The Times They Are A-Changin'
Cry A While
Tryin' To Get To Heaven
It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again
Man In The Long Black Coat
Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum
Boots Of Spanish Leather
I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)
Forever Young
Honest With Me
Every Grain Of Sand
Summer Days
(encore)

Don't Think Twice, It's All Right (acoustic)
Like A Rolling Stone
All ALong The Watchtower

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hear John Darnielle now!!!!!!! he is a cult genius