Gigs and concerts

[SuperBacon]

11 minutes ago, FLips said:

If you're at the Manchester one I'll keep my eyes out for the miserable and confused looking Dad smuggling fizzy drinks in his coat.

" I thought it was Mountain Dew Valley!"

[FLips]

Finally got around to booking a couple of tickets to the Bootleg Beatles as well in a couple of weeks. Everything's coming up Milhouse today.

[Frankie Crisp]

Went to see Michael Kiwanuka on Sunday at a tiny venue just outside of town, which is establishing itself for album release gigs. It’s a fantastic place and an off-shoot of where The Beatles made their name before The Cavern and Hamburg, so is bringing in much bigger names that it has any right to. Vocally and musically, Kiwanuka was incredible - a small setting for that voice was perfect - but he did 45 minutes. Get to fuck.

Saw Kate Nash in Camden last night. That kid knows how to put a show on. Her and her arse have been in the low-flying news this last week or so, and rightly so. During the gig she gave a 3-4 minute dressing down of the shitshow that is artists getting done over for gigs and making a loss on every tour, unless you sell out stadiums. A very impassioned couple of hours and, as always, she tore the house down. Smashing venue, too (Koko).

[Monkee]

Saw Blackgold again last night at The Garage supporting Pitchshifter. I love those guys, can’t get enough of them. That’s the 4th time I’ve seen them live and they just keep getting better.

A then saw a Rage Against The Machine tribute band and a Killswitch Engage tribute at Electrowerkz that were great. Brilliant club night but I’m too old for 3am finishes and am knackered today.

Edited November 30, 2024 by Monkee
Typo

[Panhead]

I saw Sleep Token last Monday. I thought it was going to feel a bit soulless, but they were absolutely amazing. I think it's the only time I've seen a band where I actually wouldn't have preferred to be seeing them in a smaller venue. The lights etc were made for an arena. 

[Tamura]

Going to see Discharge, Antisect, Axegrinder and about a dozen other bands in Birmingham on Saturday.

[FLips]

Bootleg Beatles were decent enough. They looked and sounded probably as close to the genuine article as you're going to get and they had really funny banter, warning us all not to encourage Ringo. I would maybe have preferred to have seen them with a more predictable setlist, as the theme was "Beatles films" so you only got songs from Hard Days Night, Help, Magical Mystery Tour, Yellow Submarine and Let it Be so there was a few (what I would consider) early deeper cuts I didn't know, and a lot of ommisions I would have loved to have heard.
They did do a non-film encore of While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Hey Jude and The End which was really good. Shocking though how many punters seemingly had never heard of an encore before and completely bought Paul saying Let it Be was their final song, whacking their coats on and just leaving.
In an album setting I'm not a big fan of Hey Jude or All You Need is Love, but in a live setting it was a blast to be in a room full of people all singing along.

I'm very much a bigger fan of the Sgt Peppers - Abbey Road era of Beatles, so particularly enjoyed I Am The Walrus, Hello Goodbye, Eleanor Rigby and all that lot. George did Love You To as well and played the (I think) Sitar which might have been my moment of the night. He started singing Isn't It a Pity at one point too and went "Oh I haven't written that one yet" which I was genuinely gutted about as it's one of my favourites.

The only real negative of the show was more due to the crowd than anything. There was overall a mix of old and young but mostly old, one heartwarming moment coming when a Grandad held his young Grandaughter on his shoulders to turn at look at everyone's firefly-style lit up phones behind them for Across The Universe. That'll be a memory she'll cherish I'm sure. She was up there again for Hey Jude waving her arms around.
Our little section was a nightmare though.
Us two sat in the centre and directly to our right was a bloke who got scolded by security for filming.
Behind us was a couple who seemingly never heard any Beatles songs before and would say the name of the song every time they finally figured it out "OH IT'S HEY BULLDOG".
To our left was some middle aged couple but the woman was sloshed before the show even started, would talk to her fella loudly during any song she didn't know which was surprisingly a lot of them, and then got bollocked by security for dancing in the aisles and proceeded to screech at anyone else doing it "YOU CAN'T DANCE IN THE AISLES YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED" or one time when she hilariously stood up and started dancing on her own and after a while loudly went "JUST ME THEN" and sat back down. Proper Karen haircut, she seemed like a nightmare. Probably works in HR.
In front of us was an older couple and the woman towards the end of the show stood up and Granny danced for nearly every song, a lot of pointing and waving, she was also drunk we believe. She had a good time though. Next to her was some bloke there who spent the entire show taking photos of the back of the heads of the crowd in front of him for some reason but was too old to know how to use his phone so didn't zoom in on any of the ones he took of the stage. At intermission he randomly turned to us and went "Hiya, how are yas?". Fine thanks.
Then next to him was a dad and his son but the son was the lankiest streak of piss in the building and sat slap bang in front of me so I had to tilt my head half the show to see around his daft broccoli haircut.

All in all though we both came away having enjoyed the night and took the nearby crowd in it's stride, laughing about it afterwards. Definitely stealing some of that old woman's dance moves.

[textonly]

18 hours ago, FLips said:

Shocking though how many punters seemingly had never heard of an encore before and completely bought Paul saying Let it Be was their final song, whacking their coats on and just leaving.

When I was young, leaving before the encore was borderline unfathomable. Nowadays it's pretty standard unless it's a real favourite or a spectacularly great gig. I'm old, I'm tired, I just heard a load of songs - is a few more really a good enough reason for me not to be in bed sooner? I think not!

[johnnyboy]

13 hours ago, textonly said:

When I was young, leaving before the encore was borderline unfathomable. Nowadays it's pretty standard unless it's a real favourite or a spectacularly great gig. I'm old, I'm tired, I just heard a load of songs - is a few more really a good enough reason for me not to be in bed sooner? I think not!

I've used Setlist.fm a few times to see what's being played on a current tour and have left on a favourite rather than the obscure, or pants, cover being trotted out in the encore.

[Lenin]

Just back after ten days in Budapest and saw BI-2 in the Erkel Színház theatre a week last Thursday. It had been twenty years since I last saw them in St Petersburg but with the release of their 2022 album and fall out from the Ukraine war I'd gotten back into them.

Two and half hours of absolute bangers - their back catalogue is so good and Leva is easily one of the best overall performers around at the moment. Vocals are always spot on, always interacting with the crowd and the musicianship from everyone was incredible.

Literally bumped into Jan (keyboards) walking out of a hotel and exchanged pleasantries the morning of the gig. Thoroughly nice bloke.

Going to see them again in Germany next year as a result. Brilliant!

[Scratch]

I wrote (I think in the celebrity spotting thread) how me and my mate had been invited by Kölsch to be his VIP guests for his headline set at Fabric last year. Since then, we’ve remained in contact and he invited us to do the same at Koko just before Christmas.

We got to spend the whole time next to him on stage whilst he performed to a packed crowd, and it was the most amazing experience I think I can remember having.

Just as we’d found at Fabric, Kölsch was the most welcoming soul and was genuinely pleased we’d made the drive to spend our night with him, whereas it very much feels like the gratitude should be flowing the other way.

We were given access to his PA who was lovely and kept checking in on us, making sure we had enough drinks. She then turned up with a very tall, thin bottle of whiskey courtesy of the man himself, and so we enjoyed a few shots mid-mix (I later found out the whiskey was rather expensive, but not being a regular whiskey drinker, I wouldn’t have known).

Things wrapped up dead on 6am and we stuck around speaking to some of the sound engineers, all of which were far friendlier than they had any right to be at 6am.

We left together at around 7am once the crowds had cleared and as we were saying his goodbyes, he asked if we fancied joining him in Berlin that evening for more of the same. After checking (and getting reassurance that he was serious), I spent most of the drive home checking for flights. It was, however, the day that flights were being grounded to the storm, and it was looking less and less possible, much to our disappointment. We let him know and he understood.

But he’s said we can join him whenever he’s playing, so we’re looking at different dates for another meet up this year.

We both felt a need to let him know that we didn’t take any of this for granted at all, but he genuinely seems to enjoy our company and said he’s thankful for us taking the time. So who’s to argue?

Here are some pictures I got of the night. Koko was an amazing venue and had a brilliant atmosphere, so it’s somewhere we’d definitely go back to regardless of who might be playing.

It’s also reignited my interest in making my own music, following my return to DJing and performing again after 25 years away.

My first release went live on a few of the streaming platforms today and should be available on all (including Spotify) in a couple of days. It’s on Amazon and Tidal below already though.

https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/88ch/cold-koko/

https://tidal.com/track/412503164?u
 

 

[Carbomb]

On 12/21/2024 at 9:46 AM, Lenin said:

Just back after ten days in Budapest and saw BI-2 in the Erkel Színház theatre a week last Thursday. It had been twenty years since I last saw them in St Petersburg 

Your name change has been absolutely inspired. I'm just loving the idea of the actual Lenin back in the 1910s on a pre-revolution road trip to see bands in St. Petersburg and Budapest.

[Abe_Knuckleball_Schwartz]

Nine Inch Nails are rumoured to be playing a couple of shows in the UK in June, tempted to get tickets never seen them before

[wordsfromlee]

1 hour ago, Abe_Knuckleball_Schwartz said:

Nine Inch Nails are rumoured to be playing a couple of shows in the UK in June, tempted to get tickets never seen them before

They are always great. I wished I'd gone to see them at Eden Project a couple of years ago.

The rumoured dates are 17th June in Manchester and 18th in London at the O2.

[Merzbow]

I feel like I need to see The Nine Inch Nails again now that Lynch has passed, plus there's been a fair bit of great new music since I saw them in 07. I really like the Bad Witch era and the EPs.