Out and about with thesvenhunter (Top 10 Gigs)

Member Name: thesvenhunter

Product:	Top 10 Gigs
Date:	27/07/02 (221 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: better than CDs

Disadvantages: You may have to talk to people

10: Babes In Toyland + Some local band Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms 2001
Atmosphere 14 performance ? entertainment 25 circumstances 22 Total 61%
OK, this first one only just made it in and is included purely on the basis of craziness and novelty value. I had arrived in Portsmouth early to meet my then girlfriend and venture to the promenade where we were to sit with her ex boyfriend and his new girlfriend and drink until the venue opened. Some vodka-based concoction lay in wait and some Don Pavral wine was purchased. Finding no corkscrews for sale in the convenience stores we had to open the bottles by shoving the corks in very hard. I could not do this but my then girlfriend’s ex had no trouble at all. The drinks were consumed and gradually the tension withdrew into the hazy drunken atmosphere that ensued.
When we got to the venue – an average one, reasonably convenient to get to – I was just about feeling hammered and so I bought further drinks, thinking I could handle it. They could, I couldn’t. I recall sitting down on the floor throughout the support band. I have no idea who they were or what they sounded like. At some point during the interval I was sick everywhere and then either left or was thrown out by security guards, I can’t remember which. This was pretty much the end of the experience.
So I have still only heard one song by Babes in Toyland, it’s called ‘Hello’ and it is absolutely fantastic, however I am strangely not regretful of having missed out on them due to the fact that I had fun in an odd sort of way and they are riot grrls after all and would no doubt have got my goat.
So, what are the chances of that happening eh?

9: Lapsus Linguae Barn Stage, Truck Festival, Nr Oxford 2002
Atmosphere 19 performance 14 entertainment 20 circumstances 13 Total 64%
I was stewarding with a friend of mine and the night before the festival began we wer
e wandering around the site looking for things to do because we felt a bit lazy. All we did that night was help push Lapsus Linguae’s van which had broken down. They seemed nice enough, but a bit quiet. The next day as we waited in the barn stage it became apparent that they were actually mean mothers who had a problem with the sound guy and kept getting annoyed with him for not turning up the piano and the drums, even though they sounded fine to me. They were four skinny, rough looking Scotsmen clad in leather trousers and black vests bearing the band logo. They all looked pissed off and were sharing a large bottle of White Lightning (the foulest cider known to humanity).
They played an extremely interesting and talented, yet very shambolic set. The piano/keyboard and bass were swapped between the two frontment with each alternate song. The guitarist looked like Bernard from Black Books and the drummer wore a comedy blonde wig. Someone shouted some taunt at him and he looked murderously unamused. As unamused, that is, as a murderer who takes his work, and his wig, very seriously indeed. The piano playing was beautiful and the guitar work could have been Shellac covering Rammstein, in a barn. The music was decidedly as anti-pop as possible and had moments of great beauty amongst a general sound of planned chaos. It was loud and violent yet occasionally faltering and vulnerable. At the end of the second track, vocalist/bassist #1 sneered “hey let’s have three cheers for the audience” and the band glared straight ahead, clapping slowly and dribbling. They occasionally spat huge mouthfuls of cider into each other’s faces and when the sound guy came onstage to stop a mic from being trodden on they pushed him off again. When the last song began, vocalist/bassist #2 launched into the usual unintelligible screaming and simultaneously launched himself into the nearest member of the audience, knocked him down and shouted in his face for ab
out 30 seconds.
The band were very good, but their crazy antics, entertaining as they were, made it difficult for them to fulfil the potential suggested by their unorthodox music. Nobody these days can be pigeonholed, but Lapsus Linguae can’t even be put in the hole that’s empty of pigeons because they’re busy breaking the wings of any free birds.

8: Chilly Gonzales Trash Club, London 2001
Atmosphere 12 performance 23 entertainment 21 circumstances 12 Total 68%
Trash is an indie club and its full of indie people who come to dance to The Smiths. If people tell you anything else about it – how cool and unique it is cos its in London, don’t believe them. All indie clubs are essentially the same, just like all normal clubs. Consequently, Trash isn’t the best place for Chilly to be and he probably knows that and knows he has to really perform to win the crowd over. That’s what any good rapper should be able to do, and what most rappers can’t and don’t do. Personality is probably of equal importance to vocal ability in rap music. Now I know very little rap and it’s generally not my thing anyway, but that much seems obvious.
Chilly Gonzales filled the tiny excuse for a stage. He was a huge, looming figure of a man dressed in a full pink suit with a white shirt and hairy chest complete with gold chain shining through. His hands held the mic like it was a tiny injured bird and he spat out his rhymes like hot coffee all over that injured bird. (OK I’ll stop with the metaphors). HE glared down at the crowd through his bushy dark eyebrows. Down, not because of the stage he was on but because of how enormous the man is. He’s a Canadian Jew who moved to Germany few years back, partly as a publicity stunt which he boasts about in the fantastic song ‘Higher than you’ from his 2nd album. The thing that makes Chilly so entertaining is d
efinitely his personality. He is a great rapper too and his lyrics are fantastically clever, witty and often very dirty (eg. The song ‘Cum on you’) But it his whole persona that really works for him. He is one of those people that you just feel like you should listen to. You’d feel like that if he just walked into a room, but in that room he was on a tiny stage in a packed room in an indie club, wearing a pink suit, holding a microphone.
It’s hard to explain how good he was but he had me, and virtually the whole crowd, hooked for his entire set. Very few people have done that to me, even fewer rappers. Shame there were still some people saying “I don’t like rap anyway.” They really missed out.

7: New Model Army Double anniversary gig, London Astoria 2000
Atmosphere 23 performance 22 entertainment 14 circumstances 10 Total 71%
Travelling to the big city with just one other person to a huge event like this was always going to be daunting. But if you’ve seen New Model Army fans then you’ll understand why this gig in particular was one hell of a prospect. The Astoria is quite a big, decent venue and to get out alone you would have to leave a trail of breadcrumbs to guide you through the labyrinth passageways. Thankfully you just follow the herd at a gig this packed. Both nights were similar in everything but the songs played and the quality was consistently high over both nights. The crowd absolutely loved it – I was the only one not singing along to every word of every B side. Which made me rather nervous. The crowd filled in for the lack of violinist available to play the beautiful intro to ‘Vagabonds’ and several thousand voices sang loud and proud. You can’t help but enjoy seeing a crowd show such love for a band. And seeing a band working none stop for 2 hours, 2 nights in a row. The amount of stuff they played was incredible, they played 9 of my 10 fa
vourites (I didn’t expect Chinese Whispers anyway) and the finale of ‘Green and Grey’ on the second night was really breathtaking.
Have you ever seen someone sitting on someone’s shoulders at a gig? I always find that pretty impressive. Well on the second night of this gig, not only were about four huge tattooed men STANDING on the shoulders of the crowd below, but they, in turn, were supporting another huge tattooed man who was standing on their shoulders. It was an amazing sight to behold and made me very glad indeed that I was a bit further back.
New Model Army’s songs are perfect for live performance. There are countless epic, rousing anthems that sound even more powerful with so many voices backing them up. (Vagabonds, Eleven Years, Vengeance, White Coats etc.) And then there are the slow songs, not so many of them but they break up the set beautifully and they are some of the finest things NMA have to offer as well. (Marrakesh, You Weren’t There, Nothing Touches.)
If it was so amazing for me to see them there and then, what the hell must it have been like for those who have been following them for those twenty years?

6: The Proclaimers Main stage, Fleadh Festival London 2002
Atmosphere 25 performance 21 entertainment 16 circumstances 10 Total 72%
The Proclaimers, like several of the older acts in this top 10, I never thought I would see live. I was really pleased when I found out they were playing at the festival, but not nearly as pleased as I should have been. I simply had no idea they could be so good.
It was another one of those times when I felt really out of place. Stood at the front of a huge crowd that had assembled behind me and my friend within a matter of minutes, wearing three lions on my shirt amidst a sea of people waving Irish and Scottish flags. The Proclaimers began their set by joking about how they had beaten up their English bus driver on account of h
is smugness after an England world cup match victory yesterday. So, singing along to Cap in Hand (a song about English mistreatment of Scotland) and surrounded by some tough looking Scots I didn’t feel too comfortable. Fortunately they didn’t show any negativity, one of them even took a photo of us, I can only assume this was through sheer bemusement. The Proclaimers are another of those bands with songs that really benefit from the live experience. I mean, I knew 500 Miles would deafen us all but the really, really amazing moment was an acoustic version of Letter From America. It is a truly beautiful song anyway – but hearing every last person in the crowd singing along with them brought a tear to my eye. People held aloft mobile phones for relatives at home to hear but how could you ever really appreciate what it felt like to be among all those voices? It was truly magical. And not only that, but after such a long break from recording and performing, to hear just how bloody brilliant “There’s a Touch”, the comeback song sounded – I couldn’t believe it. It was a short set but pretty much faultless and so, so appreciated by everyone there. It was really moving.


5: Idlewild + Ikara Colt + Aereogramme Exeter University Lemongrove 2002
Atmosphere 21 performance 21 entertainment 17 circumstances 20 Total 79%
I wasn’t even going to bother going to see Idlewild live until I found out who was supporting them. I loved 100 Broken Windows and liked what I had heard of the earlier stuff but I didn’t really consider myself a fan. Anyway, I went because it was just ten minutes walk up the hill and a lot of people I knew were going and how glad am I that I did go? Well, very glad as it happens.
Aereogramme – never heard of them before but some big hairy scottish men rocking like bastards over some Grandaddy style noises can never be a bad thing. They were a really great and v
ery passionate band and deserved more enthusiasm from the audience. Ikara Colt – I’ll come to them later but needless to say they were absolutely fantastic and can not be equalled by any other band I’ve seen live.
Finally, Idlewild. Well they were great too. I never realised before just how many good songs they have written. The live take on “idea track”, my favourite song by the band, was unrecognisable to me at first but absolutely brilliant none the less. The whole crowd was moving like one big ocean of Idlewild fans and the band gave it their all for the whole set.
Several bonuses to be noted as well. The drummer from Aereogramme lent us 5p to get some water AND I found out I had been on the guest-list for some reason so we got in free to the Bristol gig the next night, which was at least as good.

4: Billy Bragg + Western Electric Some awful place in London 2001
Atmosphere 20 performance 25 entertainment 19 circumstances 16 Total 80%
Now Billy Bragg is my favourite solo artist and this was the first time I saw him live so I was bound to enjoy myself. Bragg is a fantastic songwriter – I love his voice, I love the raw power of his guitar work, I love his clever, witty, touching lyrics and I even quite like his politics, and politics is well renowned for being boring as hell and that’s a fact.
This was one of those very personal gigs, like the opposite of the Proclaimers experience – the set was amazing and it really felt like he was playing every song just for me. Not only that, but he played so many songs too! It was one of the longest sets I’ve ever seen I think and it was nice to see people start dancing in the aisles to ‘Greetings to the new brunette’. However my highlight had to be the solo performance of ‘The Saturday boy’ – definitely one of my favourite songs ever and beautiful live where Billy filled in for the absent trump
et by whistling the solo.

3: Ikara Colt + Parkinsons + Eighties Matchbox Beeline Disaster ‘tour with no name’ Exeter Cavern club 2002
Atmosphere 19 performance 23 entertainment 20 circumstances 25 Total 87%
Well, Ikara Colt are quite simply the best live band I’ve ever seen and I have seen them 6 times now and each time they get better and better. This was the only time I’ve seen them headlining and overall, this was the best gig. The three bands were all brilliant and the tour has subsequently achieved some sort of cult status due to praise in the NME that was well deserved.
By this time the band vaguely recognised me so I didn’t feel to stupid getting them to sign my football before the gig (would you?). I didn’t see the first band, regretfully, but they sounded bloody good anyway so I made sure I didn’t miss the Parkinsons and I’m glad of that now. Most of the band hail from Portugal and they got together in London to perfect (for want of a better word) their own brand of proper punk music performance. I have never seen a band that so closely resemble actual real punk music – hence the band are absolutely brilliant live and quite good on CD. They have a tendency to get rather naked too which is always fun. Sporadic stage invasions by drunken youths kind of added to the effect as well.
Ikara Colt’s music is the most energetic, raw, stylish musical assault on the senses that it is possible to experience live. They are pretty much perfect. Jon’s moody aloofness and rapid fire bass-lines, Claire’s designer cool barbed wire guitar playing, Dom’s psycho sweaty duracel-bunny-on-speed drumming and Paul’s snarling, stylish, unashamedly English vocals. They are one of the few bands that make me talk like a bad journalist. (No honestly). I don’t know if this is because I have read so much about them or because they are so damn extreme that word
s can not fully describe the experience of seeing and hearing them live. There is only one way to move to their music – up and down at a rate of knots. You really can’t help it. Their most explosive, definitive track is ‘Escalate’ and they often play this first live. It’s about a minute long and by the end of it I had a stitch and was already soaking with sweat.
Again, this resulted in a free gig in Bristol too, which I went to alone and danced to alone. There aren’t many bands I would do that for.

2: Pogues + Dodgy Reunion tour, Birmingham 2001
Atmosphere 24 performance 23 entertainment 22 circumstances 22 Total 91%
Ok so we’ve had my favourite songwriter and my favourite live band. But above them both – here are the Pogues – my all time favourite band. I didn’t believe it when I heard that they were going to play live again. I assumed I was just born too late and unlucky. In fact I didn’t believe it when we got to Birmingham, or even when Dodgy started playing their support slot. I really couldn’t believe it until they got onstage and launched into a blistering, raucous rendition of ‘Streams of Whiskey’ – Shane MacGowan’s tribute to Irish poet Brendan Behan – and to the general theme of alcoholism.
The set was amazing. There isn’t a single song by the Pogues that I don’t like really – and they certainly know how to please a crowd. There was the sheer love and admiration of the NMA gig here, as well as the amazing crowd participation I saw at the Fleadh – here with old favourites like ‘Dirty old town’ and ‘A rainy night in Soho’. The atmosphere was truly magical for the whole gig. Hearing “White City” live just didn’t seem like real life at all. I knew almost every word to every song that they sung – which is something I didn’t even realis
e before seeing them live.
Something that really astonished me was how much they put into it and how good it sounded. I never even dared imagine they would still be this good live. Shane’s voice was perfect! James Fearnley was jumping right off the bass drum while still playing his accordion. And it goes without saying I suppose that Shane seemed to have a different glass/bottle in his hand for every song. Why do I like the Pogues so much? I suppose it’s the fusion of styles in their music. The beauty of Irish folk, the energy and excitement of punk and the honest cool of rock ‘n’ roll. (The ‘n’ bit is very important there cos it shows the whole “don’t give a damn” attitude. You know, I can’t even be arsed to write AND that’s how much I don’t care.)
It was a shame I didn’t manage to force more people into it cos I know they would have enjoyed it as much as my mother and I and many hundreds of others did. The one single tiny drawback for me was the fact that they didn’t play my all time favourite song ever – ‘Sayonara’. But it’s not that little thing that puts this in second place. I will try, and probably fail to explain to you, and myself just why the next gig was even better than this.

1: The Handsome Family + Hawksley Workman The Brook, Southampton, 2001
Atmosphere 23 performance 25 entertainment 25 circumstances 22 Total 95%
I love that venue for a start. Only been there once. Maybe it disappeared into the mists of time after we left? Probably not. It’s a small place, sort of square shape with a tall roof and a balcony above the bar area, looking down on the narrow stage which stands about a metre and a half above the floor where the lovely round wooden tables are spread out. There’s a strong, but not suffocating smell of all sorts of smoke in there. Pipe smoke, cigar smoke and ciga
rette smoke. You can’t help smoking in a place like that it seems the natural thing to do. The Guiness tasted lovely too and it’s not often I drink it.
I had somehow managed, after assuming I was to make the trip alone, to persuade 5 other people to accompany me to see The Handsome Family that night. It’s always nice to be in that position. Kind of nervous I suppose when most of them had no idea what the hell was going on and only one or two had even heard any THF before. The support slot would presumably be some sort of arduous dull 2nd rate folk/country music so we’d clap politely and look at our watches.
Hawksley Workman was sent by God to entertain us I swear. What is it with Canadians? Him and Chilly are pretty much the two most entertaining people I have ever seen. Hawksley workman looked amazing. That was obviously the first thing we noticed. He really had fantastic dress sense (I have probably only ever said that about four male people, bear in mind) and brilliant stubble + gold earring + messy dark hair pirate thing going on. From his first few words it became obvious that this was not going to be dull and nobody would be looking at their watches. He was a very witty, extremely charismatic individual. Born to exist under a spotlight. Arrogant I suppose, but you couldn’t dislike him even if you wanted to. And when he started singing… Hawksley Workman also has the best voice I have ever heard live. Maybe simply the best voice I’ve heard but I would have to do some arduous thinking and memory searching to commit myself to such a statement. So powerful and so emotional. Jeff Buckley can f*** off with his overblown rubbish. HW is “where it is at.” And his songs were beautiful too. Never before have I so quickly fallen in love with music. Never before has there been a man who could so quickly win over his audience. He played guitar masterfully too and was accompanied by just one man on piano –
; one Todd Lumley (I think). Todd said one word throughout the entire set and that was “cream” when Hawksley asked him what was one thing that he liked. At several points Hawksley just got distracted in the middle of a song and wandered off to talk to the audience while Todd carried on, unfazed until he returned. For the last track, Hawksley got out two large poles with dolls heads impaled on the tops and danced about madly banging the floor with rhythm that any drummer would envy. Seriously I can not praise this man enough. We had got so much more than our money’s worth by the time he bade us goodbye and we were speechless for the first half of the interval.
So, beat that THF. I should begin with a brief introduction to the Handsome Family. They were by no means an unlikely prospect and I knew before the gig that this would be something pretty special. I had only got into them about a couple of weeks before so I was pretty smug when I found out they were playing Southampton very soon. I had heard the compilation album “down in the valley” and the new one “in the air” both of which immediately enchanted me with the ethereal beauty of the music and the dark humour and words of wisdom in Rennie Spark’s lyrics. They were the sort of lyrics I had always been trying to write – and still am! Here’s a few choice cuts to give you the feel of them. “Sometimes I can’t wait to come down with cancer, at least then I’ll get to watch TV all day” – Drunk By Noon “Evel Knievel shot up from dead grass, I loved him better each time he crashed.” – Tin Foil “I wanted to tell you all the ways that I loved you – but instead I got sick on the train. But darling don’t you know it’s only human to want to kill a beautiful thing.” – A Beautiful Thing.
They tell brilliant stories with their lyrics. That’s part of their spell. They̵
7;re not just great lines you can quote – they exist as whole little tiny universes on their own. Brett brings them to life with his beautiful guitar work and harmonica and whatever else happens to be lying around. Rennie plays bass, Autoharp and some keyboard thing you blow into that has no right to sound like one of the greatest instruments ever made. They came on stage, Brett muttering to himself and Rennie arguing with him about something and that’s pretty much the way it stayed. Their only accompaniment was a minidisk player which contained the drums. “A tiny little man with a drum kit” Rennie assured us. The little man frequently started the wrong songs which caused Brett to mutter and spill beer all the more. Meanwhile Rennie kept us entertained with tales of her (imaginary?) disturbed childhood and warned us not to look into the eyes of the racoons on her T-shirt after the last person who had done it went mad and killed lots of people. The songs were pretty close to how they sounded on CD but all the more real for being heard live. And their songs are some of the best ever. They aren’t just a good band they are well up there with the Pogues anyway and on the basis of this faultless performance along with the unexpected luxury of Hawksley Workman in support and a great atmosphere – this was quite easily the best gig I have ever been to.

OK if anyone made it this far thanks a lot for reading, hope you didn’t get bored and if you get the chance go see any of these people live. They are great.

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