jamjar

My first update in many, many years, and it's a concert report for shows I saw about a month ago. Since

megolas and I kind of failed utterly at doing our post-show reports separately, we've done them together.

For the record, tickets to Fall Out Boy and Bloc Party were found via Scarlet Mist, a free face value fan-to-fan ticket-swap service for Music Festivals and Concerts. Anyone in the UK, it's definitely worth checking that website out if you're after something sold-out. Their motto is "We don't have to deal with Ticket Touts, Scalpers, Whores and Mercenaries. We can do this ourselves."

Sadly, the zoom on my camera wasn't working so while I took many pictures, they're all kind of bad. If you're interested, you can see them here. The mosaic looks cool, at least.

The Cobra Starship ones are slightly better since a bunch of them were from The Water Rats show.

Fall Out Boy, Cobra Starship, Shiny Toy Guns [2/03/07, Hammersmith Apollo, London]

Jam:

The queue went around the block, and then some and was filled with people who made me feel old. We were there by 7 (we had seats, so we didn't need to rush) and got in for the last song of the Shiny Toy Guns, which was fine since I was mostly interested in Cobra Starship and Fall Out Boy.

Gabe is a source of sweetness and light, and the fact that he had the audience chanting at his requesting and making symbolic gestures in accordance with his will is a good thing and not to be feared. He talked about how great we were, how much love he could feel, how he Loved us and because of that, he'd give us a song about when you love someone so much that you just want to keep them locked in your basement.

The audience was okay with that.

It's possible that I'm naturally more susceptible to the pull of Gabe "eyes of a psycho, hips of a twink" Saporta than Meg. Also, Cobra Starship are kind of a dancy band, Gabe especially, even though he'd sprained his ankle in Brixton the night before.

Vicky fell over at one point and Gabe went over to check on her, commenting that heels are hard to dance in, and he knows because he was wearing them before they went on. Gabe is, it should be pointed out, a loving and generous cult leaders, more of a handing-out-flowers-to-strangers than a drink-the-koolaid sort of cult.

They played pretty much every track from the album, but not Hollaback Boy (Damn you, Gwen Stefani's lawyers!) and mentioned how great the other bands were at least twice which he pretty much always does. It does seem to be a thing with him, because every interview he gives that's longer than 20 seconds, he mentions at least one "I'm so lucky to have such great friends." or a "Yeah, and Patrick did that, and he's amazing."

Meg:

So old. I am so old! There were small tiny people in the queue wearing Nirvana t-shirts. They weren't alive when Kurt Cobain died! And also, they were all being very surprised at the length of the queue. In my day, we queued uphill, both ways in the snow wearing a coal sack with the band's name on it. :reaches for zimmerframe: Heh.

The queue was pretty long but we had seats so it wasn't that much of a problem. Caught the end of Shiny Toy Guns who seemed to be okay but not a band I'm interested in. Cobra Starship on the other hand were awesome. We threw fangs, they danced and sang like maniacs. It was great! Nothing is more hilarious than a hall full of people singing 'warmer in the basement'. They pulled a girl out of the crowd to sing Travis' rap for Snakes on a Plane, which was cute.

Fall Out Boy:
Jam:

Pete and Joe are spinny people. Gyroscopes have nothing on them. Also, Pete's desire to climb on tall things and throw himself off them is slightly worrying.

Sadly, my camera wasn't working very well, so the pictures are all kind of blurred. Good set list-- they did all my favourite songs, starting off with Our Lawyers Made Us Change The Name Of This Song, which was a good choice, nice and chanty for the audience to get in to. Patrick is very anchored on stage, pretty much tied to his microphone except for a few moments in a few songs. On the the plus side, that does give Joe and Pete someone to go back to and cling on (Pete did that whisper into his ear/lick his neck thing, which was nice to see live). The sound quality wasn't great, unfortunately. Some of the songs, you only knew what they were because you knew the songs already.

Nice to see Gabe come on stage, not least because it reminds you Fall Out Boy are really very small, and Gabe is really quite tall. He looms over them, but in a friendly way. Nice to hear Golden, not least because it really shows of Patrick's voice.

Pete did his "all shall love me and worship!" thing, the band had good energy and it was definitely worth the price of admission. Shame about the sound set-up really. If I didn't like the band as much as I do, I'd probably be less tolerant of that.

Meg:

First off, the front half sound management? Bloody awful. Bass higher than guitars, both higher than vocals (um, HELLO?) and urgh. Particularly annoying as the Hammersmith Apollo is not a bad venue and I'd been there two days earlier for Barenaked Ladies and the sound had been *excellent* then. So that was a bit of a bummer. (and, fyi, the clips I've managed to snag from youtube suffer badly from the amped bass vs shitty mobile phone cameras)

But they played the Kayne West remix of This Ain't A Scene before the backdrop came down and they were all standing around Andy's kit, high fiveing before bounding off to start. Excellent song choices, they played pretty much everything I hope they would, including Golden, which was just Patrick on the stage before Joe appeared near the end and got the crowd to clap together. At one point, Pete climbed the speaker stack and jumped off it (oh, *Pete*!)

Gabe came out to sing on Grand Theft Autumn for a bit (n'aww, serial killer eyes. Run, Patrick, run!) and they were all..touchy and n'aww for most of the show. Bless. When, you know, Joe and Pete weren't spinning around the place. There was even playing at Andy, which I approve of! I wish you could see more of Andy but that is the curse of being the drummer. Mostly he was shirtless though but sadly I was not close enough to appreciates the tats. Nnrrgh.

Pre-encore "entertainment" (and I use that word *loosely*) was Dirty being pile-driven through a table. I just. I can't *even*. Dirty is totally Pete's Id, man. It's scary.

Pete got a circle pit started for I Slept with Someone, which was moderately impressive (but boy, was I glad to be seated. I am too old for a circle pit) and did his screaming/messiah thing for Saturday, in which huge, burly security gods spent a lot of time trying to keep him on the right side of the barrier while the crowd did their best to haul him over to theirs in a sort of messiah-ish/Bacchic frenzy.

And then we escaped the masses and fled for the last train home.

Set List:

Our Lawyers Made Us Change The Name Of This Song
Of All The Gin Joints In All The World
Sugar, We're Going Down
The Patron Saint Of Liars And Fakes
Tell That Mick He Just Made My List Of Things To Do Today
Nothing Puts Baby In The Corner
Thnks Fr Th Mmrs
A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More "Touch Me"
Thriller
Grand Theft Autumn
XO
Golden
little bit of Panic!'s I Write Sins Not Tragedies
This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race

Encore:
I Slept With Someone In Fall Out Boy
"The Take Over, The Breaks Over"
Grenade Jumper
Dance, Dance
Saturday

Madeleine Peyroux [17/03/07, Hammersmith Apollo]
Jam:
Decent enough seats, except for the people. It was pretty much the most restless audience I've seen, and poor Meg was stuck sitting next to someone drunk enough that I could smell him from the other side of her. Fun! And weird, because Madeleine Peyroux, really not the sort of singer you expect people to be plastered going to see, or up and down the bar all night.

Nice selection and she comes off well on stage. Low key, but warm. I liked her cover of "The Heart of Saturday Night" particularly. I don't really know what else to say about this. The singer was good, the band was good, and one of the guys (bass, maybe? lead guitar - Meg.) had a bit of a fanclub in the audience. She sings live like she sings on CD. I was expecting it to be good, and it was, but also pretty unsurprising. That's not a criticism, just a comment.

Meg:

I enjoyed this gig but there's not really much to say about it. The audience were amazingly restless, which was just bizarre (and annoying as we had front-aisle seats and so I had to keep pulling my legs in to allow random people to wander around mid-gig.) She was on top form, excellent voice, good patter with the crowd but I found it really hard to relax completely because the guy who sat next to me smelt like he'd just got off a pub bathroom floor (uuurgh) and kept shifting around in his seat and grunting. Urgh.

The setlist was pretty much Half a Perfect World and she kindly translated the French as she sang.

Bloc Party/Biffy Clyro/Mahogany: [19/03/07, Brixton Academy, London]

Meg:
Early start for this one as it was the only gig we actually had standing tickets for and I like to actually, you know, see the band. The Victoria line tried to foil us but we managed to get down to Brixton Academy on time and joined the queue. We were pretty damn early so the queue was maybe 35 people. We got talking to the girls behind us and apart from a rather annoying charity mugger the queue went with no hassle. Didn't bring any bags so once they'd scanned our tickets and patted us down, we scarped straight for the front barriers and lurked.

The first support act was a band called Mahogany. They were *rubbish*. Also? No one actually needs *four* guitarists and *two* bassists unless you know, they're playing music that deserves it and Mahogany really weren't. Half the time I couldn't actually hear them because they stayed in one place and just seemed to play to themselves. Also, not endeared to me by having one of the bassists play to the speakers all through the set. Face the audience, dammit!

It started getting a bit more crowded after they finished, so Jam and I settled in to defend our barrier space and waited for the second support act. Second support was Biffy Clyro, a three piece rock band that I've heard of via my brothers. They certainly rocked facial hair - Panic! at the Disco, take note. But do not try to recreate! - and they were a much better support act than Mahogany, I'd probably see them again if they were supporting a band or I had free/cheap tickets.

After they were done, we were treated to the usual random music selection which unfortunately included Avril's new song (oh my god, the horror) and Britney's Toxic. Twice.

Bloc Party came out then and totally made up for everything. They were instantly with the audience, from the opening lines of Song for Clay to the last notes. It was amazing. Jam's pretty much covered everything but I really do have to give props to the security who made sure that those of us at the front weren't squashed and came around regularly with sports bottles of water to squeeze into our mouths (it was *exactly* like baby birds at feeding time!). No one was completely obnoxious but one guy did try to do the 'hand on the barrier, squeeze in' thing and immediately got blocked by Jam and I because, hello - you're 6'ft, we're not and also, we've been here from the start, thank you. I had to brace on the barrier and push back a few times when people were surging forward but man, I'm immovable when I want to be and the bruises on my forearms the next morning were worth it.

The songs and performance and everything was just, possibly one of the best gig experiences I've had. Hearing the whole Brixton Academy sing things like The Prayer back to them must have been amazing. I was singing snippets of songs all the way home (East London is a vampire, it sucks you dry!) and just beaming.

Kele came out to the barriers at one point and got sucked over. He was running out of mic cord so they had to haul him back in. Bless!

Jam:
The first band, Mahogany, came off like a soundtrack band, something you hear and don't register while Max angsts or fights or something similar. Also, they were weirdly self-contained. They didn't feel like they were playing to the audience or for the audience (one of the bassists just played to the speaker the whole time). Maybe they're better on CD? Decent drummer, though.

Biffy Clyro were so much more active and could carry off convincing (although worryingly Jesus/King Arthur-esque) facial hair. Beards really are something best left to the experts. They were obviously involved with the audience, wanting us to be there with them. You can feel when the band's reaching out. Not a band I'd buy tickets for, but not one I'd refuse a free ticket for either, because they might not be quite to my taste, but they rocked anyway. A good band to be in the audience for.

And then yes, the interlude music. Maybe I was ruined by Cobra Starship playing The Queen and I before they went on stage, but Avril Lavigne? No. Just, no.

So finally, Bloc Party, who were just a whole other level of goodness. I'll start by giving credit to the venue organisers, because the sound balance was spot on, which I really noticed after Fall Out Boy. The lighting was great-- beautiful, but not intrusive, fitting the songs perfectly. Even though Meg and I were at the front and had to defend our space -including from one utter tosser who was 6 foot something, and did not need to be anywhere near the front, especially in front of a girl who's hovering 5 foot- and the audience did push forwards a time or two, I didn't feel threatened ever, or in danger of being squashed. I'm not big, but I am good at doing the immovable object, which I didn't need to do anywhere near as much as I thought I would. I could dance a little, I could breathe, it was crowded but not worrying.

Also, the security at the front watered us. They had these squeezy bottles of water that they squeezed into open mouths, like a mama bird feeding the chicks. And they were good at keeping people from standing on shoulders or crowdsurfing.

So on to the band, and here I kind of of lose my words because they were just that good. Really. From the opening line of "Song For Clay", they just were so good and the audience was right there with them. You know that thing where three thousand off people are singing the same song, but you can still hear the band clearly? Yeah. That. More than that, they came off as just *happy*. They smiled at us, they smiled at each other a lot, Kele and Russell had a little banter, Gordon was pretty dancy. Not all over each other like some bands, but there was just a good atmosphere on stage, a couple of friendly hands-on-shoulders and lots of smiling.

Good song list. They had a nice mix of old and new, and aside from On, played pretty much every song I wanted to hear and in a good rhythm, not too many slow ones together or whatever. It's hard to describe a good gig, because what it is, is that the band played well, the audience loved them and was pretty decent with each other, the venue was good. That doesn't actually describe anything like the feeling, and when you try to, it kind of sounds crazy or even worse, *pretentious*. It's like being part of something that's just more, and it's a joy and a pleasure and really, I think religion and romance cornered all the good words to describe it.

Just a beautiful show and one that left me feeling so happy after.

Setlist:

Song For Clay
Positive Tension
Hunting for Witches
Waiting for the 7.18
Banquet
I Still Remember
This Modern Love
The Prayer
Two More Years
Uniform
So Here We Are
Like Eating Glass

SRXT
She's Hearing Voices
Pioneers
Helicopter

Cobra Starship at the Water Rats, which I went to see on my own. Damn Meg's family and their desire to spend time with her!:

I also went to see Cobra Starship at the Water Rats, two days after seeing them at Hammersmith. Yes, they're that good.. The Water Rats is your basic pub-theatre set up, where you can't be more than 10 metres away from the stage without being asked by the bar staff if you want draft or bottle. The thing that struck me, aside from the fact that the audience came pre-culted for Gabe's convenience. (He did the "okay, so for this song, I need you help, so if you raise your hands like-- oh, you're doing it already." The audience pretty much beat him to the chanting and the Cobra gangsign) was that they really do rock the live shows. At the Apollo and at Water Rats, you got the same vibe where they filled all the space available without seeming too big for the stage, they were really invested in the audience response, and they Love us. Gabe Loves us. He told us so.

Also, despite what the photos say, Gabe did not have glowing eyes of evil.

Really.

No, really.

At all:

Also learnt: Vicky T is the only member of CS to be born in the USA, but she's also dual citizenship with the UK. They have a good vibe on stage. Very audience focussed, comfortable in a lot of space and on a small stage, and generally good to hear and good to see live.