Gig Time

The past few weeks have seen us take in not one but three gigs! Which certainly ended the dry spell for us. The first was local band The Whip, guitar based electro style music at the Academy 2. I can't remember the last time I went to a gig there that was so packed, with such a friendly vibe. The crowd seemed to be mainly students (maybe the £7 ticket price had something to do with it), and it was impossible to stand for more than a minute without someone pushing past to/from bar/toilets/wherever! Having seen The Whip only once before at D:percussion 18 months previously, I knew they sounded good live, but I was still pleasantly surprised. The album just doesn't do them justice IMO, the music sounded much more upbeat and danceable than it does via CD (or maybe you just need to play it really loud?) and they had cool lighting and the obligatory smoke machine to add to a club type atmosphere. I can't remember the entire set lit ut particular highlights were Sister Siam, Save My Soul, Dubsex and of course Trash.
The only complaint of the night (which was shared by several other fans) was the 'limited edition USB wrist bands' - gone are the days of having a live CD to buy 20 minutes after the gig, it's all gone digital now - like a lot of people at the gig, I bought mine before the gig - standard tickets were £7, ticket and wristband £20 - making the wristband £13 - the price of a CD in a high street music store. These were marketed as something you had to buy in advance, but on taking a trip to the merch stall it turns out you could pay for them on the night - for £9! I heard a lot of fans complaining to the poor merch guy that night, but that aside, a very fun night out.

A Place to Bury Strangers at the Roadhouse - have to admit, I'd never heard of them until about 4 weeks before hand, we went for Steven's birthday and it was a nice surprise to find that for an £8 ticket, there were actually several bands on all night. I wont even pretend to remember their names or recall any song titles, all I can recall was an eclectic crowd and a variety of guitar based bands that generally got the crowd going, although APTBS were the highlight and obviously the band most people came to see - worth checking out a few tracks via their myspace page (above).

Indie Darlings Glasvegas were our final gig of the year - I had mixed feelings about whether they could live up to the hype and my own expectations for a live gig. Whenever I think of Glasvegas it's their very raw and unpolished Home Tapes that springs to mind, so whilst I was anticipating a similar rawness, I was secretly hoping something a little more 'we're past recording in our bedroom' sound.
And I was not disappointed, at all.
Every tune was an anthem to sing along to, and sing along we all did, it was one of the most uplifting gigs ever. Like when you see 20,000 people singing along with Oasis for Wonderwall on TV - it was like that for every song, but with only a few hundred other people, very intimate and James' voice was outstanding. Favourite songs for me were Daddy's Gone and the grand finale of Geraldine.
My gig of the year.