The Big Gig Thread 2019

[Hot Pepsi]

Yeah, but I’m not going to go.

[Sits]

Sorry HP, I shouldn’t be putting a downer on it. I mean, it’s Bob Dylan.

[Sits]

Saw him in 97 and he was great. Saw him in 02 and he was awful.

[Hot Pepsi]

I saw him here 20+ years ago and 30+ years ago and thought it was OK. This is going to be in a better venue: the big auditorium rather than a basketball arena.

But still, it’s too expensive.

[WOM]

Bob Dylan is coming here in November. But the cheapest tickets are over $60. Not feeling it.

He's dreadful in concert.

[Hot Pepsi]

Indulge me for a minute. As I've reported on here over the years I've taken my son to many gigs over the years, often with the same group of his mates.

Tonight him and one of the mates promoted their first gig - three local young acts, headlined by a band featuring another of the gang on drums. For added throwback, the opening act (solo singer) was a lad he played junior football with til around the age of 11.

The place was packed and a great time was had by all.

Son is the one on someone's shoulders below, think the arms are aloft in triumph and relief more than anything else.

He took to the stage himself at the end, thanked the bands and declared very loudly that they were "taking over the fucking world". See that, that's my boy.

Fantastic

[Hot Pepsi]

Bob Dylan is coming here in November. But the cheapest tickets are over $60. Not feeling it.

[MsD]

Pete Williams was excellent last night, and the place was way more than half empty, or less than half full, which seems a shame.

Honestly recommend checking out his album and his gigs as he's touring at the moment.

[MsD]

There are still tickets for Pete Williams at the Lexington on Sunday, for a tenner.

He sent a personal email to thank me for buying a ticket.

[Felicity, I guess so]

Went to Edwyn Collins at the Boiler House in newcastle last night. I bought the new album at the stall, so hadn't heard any of the new stuff in advance- sounds intriguing in that it contains songs he wrote, or half-wrote, before the stroke.

Other than that the same nostalgic pleasures of hearing OJ and early solo songs performed live plus the real warmth of seeing him still performing. In addition I met two different groups of people I hadn't seen for years, so I drank rather too much.

1st visit to that venue and it's a good one, apart from sending Tony the Mariner to deposit his work bag ('large rucksack' according to security) in a local newsagents for a fiver.

[Sits]

Nice one WFD and WFP (Walt Flanagan’s Pup).

[Furtho]

That's great stuff, WFD, nice one.

Being a big loser indie throwback from way back when, next up for me are The Chesterfields in London on Friday 20th September. I'm really looking forward to it. Almost equally exciting is that the support acts are The Waltones and, I can scarcely believe this, rural Somerset's answer to Billy Bragg, Rodney Allen.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Indulge me for a minute. As I've reported on here over the years I've taken my son to many gigs over the years, often with the same group of his mates.

Tonight him and one of the mates promoted their first gig - three local young acts, headlined by a band featuring another of the gang on drums. For added throwback, the opening act (solo singer) was a lad he played junior football with til around the age of 11.

The place was packed and a great time was had by all.

Son is the one on someone's shoulders below, think the arms are aloft in triumph and relief more than anything else.

He took to the stage himself at the end, thanked the bands and declared very loudly that they were "taking over the fucking world". See that, that's my boy.

[MsD]

Had a lovely time to watching Martin Newell in my friend Graham Bendel's lovely film about The Cleaners from Venus, Upstairs Planet, tonight. He performed an acoustic set afterwards, which was unexpected (by the audience, anyway) and fabulous. I've only been vaguely aware of him, (although my neighbour swears he's played Ilya Kuryakin to me loads of times) he's bloody marvellous and super-talented. John Cooper Clarke was there, and is referred to in the film - Martin Newell reads JCC's poem about him. I thought he might do a turn, but it was enough of a night. I could have stayed for the after-drinks but I've got a bit of a cold.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Glad your day went went ad hoc.

The Cure at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow last night. First Scottish date for The Cure in 27 years - could be apocryphal but there is a tale that the last one was a bit below par and they weren't keen to go back, but I suspect it's more to do with their touring patterns in the UK. Massive crowd, and bespoke merch (with the number 27 featuring in places). The park was a complete mess by the time we got there, and even worse as we left, and the Foo Fighters are there tonight so it's not going to get any better.

The Cure were immense, 135 minute set leaning heavily on Disintegration, and the upbeat pleasers for the more casual fans in batches in the middle and end. We'd seen them earlier in the summer and they did change the running order a bit. Daughter slept in her new Cure t-shirt, I was supposed to be going without her but I got her a ticket as a surprise, she didn't know she was going until the day before.

Leeds festival for us (and son, and other strays) next weekend, forecast changing around a bit but currently looking quite good.

[MsD]

Horace Andy and Adrian Sherwood last night, at the Leytonstone Ballroom. A lovely old venue, and a great, uplifting performance. I felt awful when I got there, and was very late. Luckily, they were running late too, so Horace Andy didn't take the stage till 10.30 or so.

[MonkeyHarris]

'Free' admittance with the Indiestad pass meant I reluctantly attended the glorified church hall in Amsterdam to see The Chats last night. Listened to a few of their tracks online beforehand and thought I'd give them two songs before lobbying to leave so we could return home and stream Parasite, that Korean film a mate of mine keeps going on about.

Punk is dead and these are just a group of juvenile mouthy Aussies with terrible haircuts making novelty records, I told my lass. She indulged me with a smile and led me towards Paradiso. Glad she did. The Chats were excellent. They came on to the theme tune from Rocky, which I've never liked but sounded amazing at a thousand decibels, entering at 'Gettin' strong now'.

Been a while since I've attended a gig with a proper mosh pit and people stage diving. Had almost forgotten how exhilarating angry and aggressive music can sometimes be. And they could really play. Their patter between songs was also amusing: 'This song's about chlamydia. Who here has chlamydia? Hands up those with a sexual disease." All three members of the band put their hands up. We stayed until the encore of what was quite a short set. Would definitely see them again. Made me wish I was attending the Lowlands festival this weekend so I could see Slaves.

[brian potter]

Last weekend I went to Brighton for my annual trip to David Gedge's festival At The Edge Of The Sea.

Friday night was opened up by John, a duo who are both called John. Their music wasn't much more creative than their band name, Very shouty and quite probably angry, but I couldn't make a word, so after a couple of songs I retreated to the bar to catch up with a number of people I only see once a year at this festival. The Wedding Present played the Bizarro set that they have been touring for a few months now, as well as their new single released last week. Mighty fine stuff.

Saturday runs from 3-10, using the two rooms in the venue ensures continuous music with short sets of 30/40 minutes in each. Of the bands that I saw, Cinerama kicked the afternoon off from the main stage. Next up was Si, Irene from Japan, a fairly decent indie fayre but nothing too ear catching. Harker, a local Brighton band, provided a noisy and enthusiastic set of post punk rock. Sink Ya Teeth had a bass heavy electronica vibe to them, they were quite interesting but a looping back track that sounded the same on each song let them down a bit. My favourite band were Chorusgirl, a frantic buzzy set of indie dreampop had me popping straight to the merch desk for their 2 albums, a great new find. I skipped both The Ukrainians and The Fallen Women, before returning for The Wedding Present closing proceedings off. The festival set spanning the entire back catalogue, including a cover of Our Lips Are Sealed.

You can't beat watching your favourite band play two sets (three, if you include Cinerama) over a weekend. Exhausted, sore and aching for a couple of days afterwards seems a small price to pay.

[Benjm]

The latter, I think, SB. Of the two I vaguely remember Gin Blossoms only and I was still a fairly voracious reader of the music press in the first half of the nineties.

I forgot to mention that I went to see '80s electro pioneers Newcleus at the Jazz Café last week. They were very entertaining, wikki wikki wikkis and all. They had two out of three original core members, Chilly B having departed to the big block party in the sky back in 2010. The venue looked close to capacity, which isn't bad for an act whose signature single came out in 1983.

[San Bernardhinault]

The missus bought us tickets to a gig tonight (so she could get out of another obligation)... It's a double header of Collective Soul and the Gin Blossoms. When I told her that I knew only one song by each band, she seemed utterly astonished. She said they were basically a continual background to her early 20s. I'm now wondering if I was just completely out of touch in the mid-90s, or if they're something that never really made it across the Atlantic. I suspect it's the latter and that Britain was listening to crappy, but mostly upbeat, Britpop, and may not have had any desire to hear a second wave of self-absorbed grunge.

[ad hoc]

Oh and I should add: young people are fucking brilliant. If there is a future after my generation fucked everything up it will be a much better one

[ad hoc]

So yesterday was our big day out. Daughter #1 had been there working for 10 days and was somewhat festivaled out as you might imagine. Daughter #2 was as excited as a kid on Christmas morning (though as a 13 year old self-styled emo kid she tried hard not to let the mask slip). After she finally got released from the pain of being with her parents she spent much of the day at the main stage. Crowd surfed to Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes and is now an avowed fan (I saw the last few songs of their set and mentioned to her that I thought as a singalonga number "I hate you and I wish you would die" seemed a little harsh). Then later was the big attraction - Twenty-one Pilots, the reason we were there. They certainly have a young and dedicated fan base. The number of teens all merched up was pretty impressive. Anyway she obviously enjoyed it immensely. I have no idea where in the thick of the crowd she was but it was obviously very close in.

I watched them too, from a more objective distance, and to be honest they put on a really good show. Their music does very little for me but they worked hard and satisfied the needs of the thousands of dedicated fans who had showed up.

Also saw Johnny Marr who successfully reclaimed songs like How Soon Is Now and This Charming Man from that racist twat who cowrote them. His set was a bit short to be honest but that was my main complaint. Foo Fighters on the other hand could easily have lopped an hour off theirs and I'd have been happier. It's obvious that some people love them but it just felt completely meh to me.

Other bands I watched - Idles who were really fucking energetic and I have to say really good. Can't ever imagine buying a record but they were excellent (as were Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes). Black Mountain who were prog and intense (but very enjoyable for all that) There was a thunderstorm on when they were playing after the main stage had finished, and it would have been amazing outside in that weather. A Turkish band called Yasak Helva who were most enjoyable and a Russian /Jewish /Gypsy band called Dobranotch who were a laugh.

All in all it was a good day out. Couldn't make it through to Khruangbin as hoped as they didn't come on until 1am and all of us were buggered.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

I let mine do Kendal Calling without me last week (she's 16). The weather was horrendous on the Saturday so she bailed and brought her stuff home, and then went back on the Sunday and stayed in her mate's tent. I went to pick her up on Monday morning at around 8.30am, and she'd been up til 4am. When she got home she slept til 7pm (and even then I had to wake her up).

[ad hoc]

My other daughter (who is 20) is volunteering for the week, so she'll get the full experience. I suspect she may be absolutely knackered by the time we show up on the last day

[ad hoc]

yeah we're just doing the single day (despite repeated pleading)