Who did you see live last?

[bartelby]

I saw Godflesh and Neurosis last night:in Birmingham Town Hall:

Godflesh:

Neurosis;

[Graham]

Looos awesome, Neurosis are one of those bands I really want to see but haven't been able to yet. 

Were you able to catch Yob?

[Muzz]

See you, Jimmy...

Night before last at the Garage in Glasgow, Jimmy Barnes. My favourite rock vocalist, whom I've rarely seen for a variety of reasons. Nine piece band, sound was great apart from the ridiculous subsonic-cannon kick*, which meant the bassist might as well not have bothered plugging in.

To the best bit: there is nobody amongst his peers who has retained the quality and intensity of vocal performance for more than 35 years as well as Jimmy: not a note was ducked, not a key dropped, not a melody compromised, and it appears in the Barnes way of thinking 99% is for bedwetters, under-achievers and fixed-wing pilots. Fantastic.

He still has the stage presence of a builder looking for a fight, tho...which is in itself a joy 😁

 

* Dear sound engineers, can we just move on from this now? I know it was a thing for a while, and naive punters go 'Oooo, you can feel it in your chest', but unless it's THAT sort of gig, it's just pointless and ruins 75% of mixes.**

** 'Hello Darkness my old BOOOOM, I've come to talk with you aBOOOOM,,,'

Edited July 20, 2019 by Muzz

[Frank Blank]

Samsara and Easy Stars All-Stars doing Dub Side Of The Moon at Concord 2 Brighton last night. Samsara were, as always, superb, brilliant reggae/ska with lovely brass Klezmer influences. Dub Side Of The Moon was hilarious and excellent but a shade too polished for me, Samsara won big in my book but then they always do.

 

 

Edited November 1, 2019 by Frank Blank

[4000]

7 hours ago, Muzz said:

See you, Jimmy...

Night before last at the Garage in Glasgow, Jimmy Barnes. My favourite rock vocalist, whom I've rarely seen for a variety of reasons. Nine piece band, sound was great apart from the ridiculous subsonic-cannon kick*, which meant the bassist might as well not have bothered plugging in.

To the best bit: there is nobody amongst his peers who has retained the quality and intensity of vocal performance for more than 35 years as well as Jimmy: not a note was ducked, not a key dropped, not a melody compromised, and it appears in the Barnes way of thinking 99% is for bedwetters, under-achievers and fixed-wing pilots. Fantastic.

He still has the stage presence of a builder looking for a fight, tho...which is in itself a joy 😁

 

* Dear sound engineers, can we just move on from this now? I know it was a thing for a while, and naive punters go 'Oooo, you can feel it in your chest', but unless it's THAT sort of gig, it's just pointless and ruins 75% of mixes.**

** 'Hello Darkness my old BOOOOM, I've come to talk with you aBOOOOM,,,'

I’ve been a musician since 1980 and I’m slightly embarrassed to say I’ve never heard of him! I’ll have to check him out.

[Baxlin]

Rainer Hersch and the Tringe Philharmonic Orchestra.   Who, you say?

Brilliantly funny classical conductor, and brilliant, but small orchestra, made up of members of 'proper' orchestras (eg the Halle).

But it was the final night of the Tringe Comedy Festival, (where famous and not-so-famous comedians finally polish their acts for the Edinburgh Fringe), so the accent was on humour.  In how many styles, for instance can you play a well known classical piece?  From Reggae through jazz to ragtime.....

A 100% standing ovation at the end.

(Milton Jones, Josh Widdicombe, Ragan whatsisname,  Ed Byrne, etc were also appearing on different nights)

[bartelby]

On 20/07/2019 at 10:39, Graham said:

Looos awesome, Neurosis are one of those bands I really want to see but haven't been able to yet. 

Were you able to catch Yob?

I’d not seen Neurosis for nearly 30 years. 

I didn’t see Yob as it was after the last train back to Coventry. But I’ve seen them before a few times. 

[Muzz]

16 hours ago, 4000 said:

I’ve been a musician since 1980 and I’m slightly embarrassed to say I’ve never heard of him! I’ll have to check him out.

He's apparently sold more records in Australia than the Beatles, and he's at least as big as ACDC over there. If you don't mind some polished AOR-type stuff, 1987's Freight Train heart is basically him and most of Journey, and a good place to start, but his range is wider than that. He would have been perfect for ACDC in 1980 (with all due respect to Brian J), but he turned them down...

I love this: terrible quality vid, but they're obviously having a lot of fun... 

 

[bartelby]

Last night was a weird mix, highlights were:

Daniel Higgs (Ex-Lungfish) gone quite eccentric and sadly seems to be a bit of a conspiracy theorist. But his use of language is still fantastic:

 

CZN a project involving my favourite percussionist Valentina Magaletti and a guy from a Portuguese band HHY and the Macumbas:

 

Big Joanie, London based trio reminiscent of Slant 6:

 

Matters, late 80s/early 90s electronic stuff with an interesting use of a ,Fender VI, style six string:

 

AJA - mad woman making a lot of noise. Highly entertaining:

 

HHY and the Macumbas - aforementioned Portuguese band. Lots of drumming and a guy with his back to the crowd waving his arms about (and triggering samples):

 

Today is the big day, including: Sly & the Family Drone, Mono, Anna Von Hausswolff and Dälek

 

Edited July 21, 2019 by bartelby

[casapete]

48 minutes ago, Muzz said:

He's apparently sold more records in Australia than the Beatles, and he's at least as big as ACDC over there. If you don't mind some polished AOR-type stuff, 1987's Freight Train heart is basically him and most of Journey, and a good place to start, but his range is wider than that. He would have been perfect for ACDC in 1980 (with all due respect to Brian J), but he turned them down...

I love this: terrible quality vid, but they're obviously having a lot of fun... 

 

His version of Steve Van Zandt's 'Ride the night away' is great. Jimmy recently joined Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul onstage for this tune when they were touring Australia earlier this year. My son-in-law is an Aussie , and couldn't believe how little known Jimmy was/is over here.

[BreadBin]

23 minutes ago, casapete said:

His version of Steve Van Zandt's 'Ride the night away' is great. Jimmy recently joined Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul onstage for this tune when they were touring Australia earlier this year. My son-in-law is an Aussie , and couldn't believe how little known Jimmy was/is over here.

I'm also ashamed to say I've never heard of him. Shame he didn't join AC/DC, that would have awesome 🙂

[bartelby]

Last night of the Supersonic Festival yesterday.

Highlights include:

Air Loom. A gentle start to the day’s proceedings:

 

Some post rock niceness from Haress:

 

The madness that is Sly & the Family Drone:

 

Japanese post rock from Mono:

 

And the phenomenal Anna Von Hausswolff:

Edited July 22, 2019 by bartelby

[TrevorR]

Fantastic evening out on Friday at Hampton Pool singing and dancing along with some cracking tunes courtesy of Bootleg Blondie and The ELO Experience. And groovy bass courtesy of our very own @casapete

[casapete]

Cheers Trev. Glad you had a good night, and your son as well. Thanks for the pics too -  my monitor was riddled with a strange feedback through most of the gig so I was trying to ignore it, hence the rather stern expression you captured so well. 😅 

[TrevorR]

2 hours ago, casapete said:

Cheers Trev. Glad you had a good night, and your son as well. Thanks for the pics too -  my monitor was riddled with a strange feedback through most of the gig so I was trying to ignore it, hence the rather stern expression you captured so well. 😅 

Yes, I saw you drift over to the monitor guys for a stern word every so often - only a bass player would have noticed. Sound out front was pristine though. And the atmosphere out front was great!

[Mickeyboro]

Strange Feedback? I always thought it was Strange Magic!😂

[Graham]

I saw Gruesome last night in Brighton, which turned out to be their first UK show.

I really enjoyed myself - it was a lot of fun, plus their bassist has superb right hand technique.

What I loved was a few songs in, I thought to myself "they're basically a tribute to the first three Death albums" then at the end of that song the singer said "we might tour and write our songs, but we are a tribute band to Death and Chuck" so, it's nice we were on the same page

[Monkey Steve]

Back from Bloodstock at the weekend

Bad start - I was laid low by the curry we had on the Thursday night, so missed all of Friday, feeling sorry for myself after throwing up all night.

Back up to speed on the Saturday.  Great start from the Cancer Bats on the main stage, and Evil Scarecrow put on a brilliant show, as usual.  New to me on the second stage Lotus Eater impressed (at least I think it was Lotus Eater - there were a few time and band changes...I'll check some of their songs on YouTube at some point).

Then problems with the weather.  The rain was OK all weekend - about ten minutes of really heavy rain early each afternoon, and after that it was nice and sunny.  But the wind, which didn't seem that bad from the crowd, was playing havoc on stage.  It also blew the sound around quite badly, and how well you could hear things depended massively on where you were stood.  On Saturday the video screens and one set of speakers on each side was taken down, and before Cradle of Filth were due on they lowered the whole lighting rig.  Cradle got bumped to the Sunday, and Anthrax played but went on almost an hour late. However, they did play the set of the weekend for me - nothing written after 1988, it was like they knew I was coming!

On to the Sunday and the day started with All Hail The Yeti.  Meant nothing to me, but a three piece musically, and owners of the best, most powerful bass sounds I heard all weekend.  My companions were less impressed than me by the music (two vox - the bass player doing clean and melodic, and the vocalist doing shouty and angry - bit like Alexisonfire) and wandered off to see who was playing in the other tents.

Ross the Boss was the unexpected highlight of the day.  Played for an hour, the first 40 minutes of which were slightly dated 80's metal, very, very Judas Priest in tone, but as though Ronnie James Dio had provided the first draft of the lyrics and had them rejected because there weren't enough sword or dragons in them.  Then they brought KK Downing to the stage for the last 20 minutes and finished with four actual Judas Priest songs.  Brilliant.

Dee Snider proved what a brilliant front man he is, even though the music isn't really my sort of a thing (and i could say the same about Twisted Sister when they headlined a couple of years ago - Snider made them the best band of the weekend), and then on to a couple that I was looking forward to seeing in advance.

I wanted to see Cradle of Filth because a few ex-members of the band are in my circle of friends and acquaintances, and the only time I've seen them previously was at midday at Download a couple of years ago, and they were awful, just laughably ridiculous, all corpse paint and leather in the midday sun, with Dani Filth barking away like a dog having it's tail run over.  The only other time I've seen Dani Filth was in Devilment, and they were pretty good (albeit with the same vocal issues), so I was happy to give Cradle another go.  Sadly, they were at the ridiculous end again, mostly because of Mr Filth and his comedy vocals.  His attempts at banter with the crowd fell very flat, and while I'm sure there were plenty in the audience who did enjoy them, they're not for me.

Then Queensryche, who I haven't seen about 25-30 years.  the good news - the new singer sounds exactly like Geoff Tate.  Exactly.  In a Geoff Tate sound alike contest I think he'd have Mr Tate himself sweating about whether he could win.  The down side...they didn't really engage with the crowd and it all felt a little flat.  technically very proficient, but apart from the singer the band just stood on stage, rooted to the spot.  I also didn't recognise half of the set (not having bought a Queesryche album since Empire) so that's probably more my fault than theirs.

Finally, the Scorpions.  Again, haven't seen them for years, since the Love At First Sting tour in fact, but they helped me by only playing two or three songs that they'd written since then.  They are very old.  Shows most on Klause Meine who I did want to take it very carefully lest he fall and break his hip.But Rudolph Schenker still struts and runs around like the rock star he is. All well played, and it was a very slick show.  The low points were Winds Of Change (time for a pee) and Mikkey Dee's vastly over-long drum solo.  But overall, great fun, and I'm glad to have caught them before their seemingly never ending farewell tour actually grinds to a halt.

Overall, as great as Bloodstock always is, a very relaxed, friendly atmosphere, with a small enough site and number of stages that if you don't like what you're watching at the moment, it's easy to get to another stage that will have something else on.  I saw a lot of bands in the second stage tent that were new to me, and liked quite a few other them.

However, I do have one criticism, which is the gathering creep of people bringing chairs to a festival.  Chairs FFS!

Now, I don't mean people with age or disability issues, or those who plant their chairs a good way off from the stage knowing that if they're going to do that then they should stay out of everybody's way.  This year at Bloodstock there were lines and lines of chairs planted right in the main arena in front of the stage - previously this has sort of self regulated by nobody setting up in front of the sound desk, which is more or less the back of the main arena (and you can easily see and hear behind that).  And loads of youngsters doing it.

I have three objections:

1. It clogs up the arena. It's actually pretty difficult to get in and out when there's a maze of chairs to negotiate your way through, and a good percentage of which seem to be empty at any one time because the occupant is off doing something else and like a German tourist by the swimming pool, has bagsied their spot for when the headliners come on
2. The occupants take up twice as much room as everybody else: they don't pack their seats away when they do actually stand up to watch a band, so they now occupy the same space as everybody else who is standing, plus the area left by their chair.  Without them twice as many people could be standing in that area
3. It's the least rock n roll thing since Brian Robertson wore ballet shoes on tour with Motorhead

And breathe...

[Slappindabass]

Mica Paris in fame the musical. Bloody awful show.

[Frank Blank]

16 minutes ago, Slappindabass said:

Mica Paris in fame the musical. Bloody awful show.

That’s a shame, she’s a great singer.

[gt4ever]

Super night at Shepherd’s Bush Monday to see Prophets of Rage, the band and crowd was in fine form!

 

[Barking Spiders]

On 14/08/2019 at 18:56, gt4ever said:

Super night at Shepherd’s Bush Monday to see Prophets of Rage, the band and crowd was in fine form!

 

Bollox, I didnt even know they're over here. I'd have gone to see them in a trice. Saw them at Download in 2017 and they were the best act of the festival IMO

[Si600]

On 14/08/2019 at 15:49, Monkey Steve said:

1. It's the least rock n roll thing since Brian Robertson wore ballet shoes on tour with Motörhead

Dunno how to get rid of your 1.!

Lemmy complained at us for sitting down at the Royal Theatre in Nottingham when I saw them there. So we all stood up as instructed 😁

[gt4ever]

7 hours ago, Barking Spiders said:

Bollox, I didnt even know they're over here. I'd have gone to see them in a trice. Saw them at Download in 2017 and they were the best act of the festival IMO

Yeah it’s the third time I’ve seen them and they’ve got better each time. I’m still aching all over and bruised, they make you forget how old you are 😂 

[Kirky]

In the last couple of weeks I've seen Flipper and Yo La Tenga, both at the Brudenell in Leeds.  I'm not that familiar with either of them.  Both were excellent.  Great to see Watt plying his trade again.