4 posts tagged “i'm here now!”
About last night: We had a bit of a mad dash to get to the the Astoria on time. A helpful (and amusing) post on the Cardiacs website informed us that, because the venue was going to have a club that night "allowing some of God’s more delicate creations to hoof about to “ironic” music", the gig would start at the "well-mannered" time of 7pm.
Quite frankly the Astoria has been getting up my nose for some time. It's surly bouncers, poor layout and their habit of treating their patrons like doorway dossers as soon as the band finish has resulted in something quite strange: the majority of London's gig goers don't give a shit that the place is going to be knocked down and replaced by housing for rich idiots.
We got to the venue in good time, and had drinks in our hands just in time for The God Damn Whores. Featuring Ginger from The Wildhearts, Jon Poole from same and also Cardiacs, and a huge hairy bloke who used to be in Wolfsbane I suppose they could be considered a supergroup of sorts. They played a set of songs that was a strange mix of heavy rock party music and twitchy stop-start art-pop. Jon Poole makes a pretty good front man (being a loud and enthusiastic nutter with a love of swearing) and those guys can certainly play. So yeah, I was pretty impressed.
And then, after a short break, Cardiacs came on. I have to say that I only recently got into their music. I had been aware of their existence for quite some time and figured that I'd probably like them, but only took the plunge recently. Since then I've barely been listening to anything else, so you could say I was really excited about this gig.
For those who don't know, their music is a mix of prog-rock, punk and psych. If you could imagine Robert Smith's more childlike moments mixed in with King Crimson and then speeded up a bit, not only will you feel nauseous but you might be a bit closer to understanding what they sound like. Actually that's a terrible description, what was I thinking. Go to YouTube and find out for yourself.
Now, me and Mrs Geezer go pretty much everywhere together apart from work and the toilet. Naturally we go to all of our gigs together even though we have quite different tastes in music. Tonight I was concerned about what she would make of this strange brew of disparate influences. After about four songs she turned to look at me with an expression that said "you rushed me out of the house for this!" Ooops.
I, on the other hand, loved every minute of it. Everything was perfect. The sound was excellent, they played brilliantly, and it was sonically and visually superb (big thumbs up to whoever did the lighting).
Go and check out Cardiacs: you'll either be completely baffled or be blown away.
About last night: What better way to spend Halloween night than watching comedy monsters Lordi, You remember them right? The guys who won Eurovision?
Before that though was support band Turisas. These mad Finns dressed like vikings having a wardrobe malfunction and played a kind of heavy metal drinking music. They call it battle metal which has to be one of the stupidest subgenres to emerge in recent memory. They were good fun and proved that the only thing better than an accordion is two accordions.
As you can clearly see in the photo above, Lordi have a rather elaborate stage setup. They also have a very drawn out intro - three minutes of a terrible song on tape followed by lots of ominous bell ringing, a talky intro tape and then finally a band. Who was it again? Oh yes, Lordi. I'd nearly forgotten.
The stage show is elaborate, with ear splitting pyrotechnics and wacky things constantly happening on stage. In fact there's no escaping the fireworks. After ten minutes the whole place stank like a swimming pool, after half an hour we were all watching the gig through a thick fog.
Having said that, their whole show is very funny and clearly hugely popular with the whole audience. If you like your rock music half way between Alice Cooper and Rob Zombie (with a big slice of cheese) you should go and see them
What the hell was this: I take crap photos at gigs and moblog here as they happen. Later I add the reviews. Well, every boy needs a hobby.
About last night: OK, so I'm so late with this update it's ridiculous but anyhoo.
This was a punk all-dayer and somehow we managed to miss half the bands even though we only turned up two hours after doors opening.
We caught the end of the Anti-Nowhere League (it was a shame we missed them, they're entertaining). We then saw the Angelic Upstarts who looked like the five ages of Ray Winstone. Can't say I enjoyed them much.
Next up was Sham 69 who were very good. Sadly they did a song about 9/11 that made my brain itch but otherwise a good effort.
Finally The Damned. They often tailor their shows to the audience and sure enough it was a punkier set. There was very little on-stage banter, which is unusual for them (Monty the keyboard player didn't even winge about having drinks thrown at him).
Other than the bands I think it's fair to say that the venue was cramped, the audience (while not aggressive) were a pain in the arse and getting drinks was a bit of a nightmare. Yep, The Sheperds Bush Empire is not my favorite venue.
Does this post seem a little rushed?
What's all this then? Well, as you can see in the comments in this post from halonine I had a cunning plan to post photos live from gigs that I go to. This plan didn't go entirely to plan last night because The Mean Fiddler is in a basement and so there was zero signal there. I sent this as soon as I got outside. Anyway, I thought it might be cool to add a little more about the gig itself.
About last night: The evening started with the usual irritations. After getting into the lift at the tube station and waiting for the doors to close and begin the descent, a wanker holding a beer can got in just as the doors were closing and held them open. He let his friend in who then blocked the doors again to let yet more wankers in (all with beer cans). Wanker number one then says "I wonder if Pete Doherty will actually show tonight?" to which wanker number two retorts "I just want to get smashed." Oooohh Tarquin, you're such a rebel! So much so that you get your thrills vicariously through a sad-sack junkie who lives in a hovel.
Jeesh.
Anyway, the gig. I have no idea who the support band were, they were just the usual rabble who turns up and trundles through one inane song after another. This gave me and Lady Geezer of Dodgenshire the opportunity to ponder the unponderable: questions like "Does Shane McGowan brush his tooth?"
When Wednesday 13 rocked up we installed ourselves behind the mixing desk. The lines you can see in the above photo are the cage surrounding the desk. Also the desk is like some kind of Buck Rogers affair with LCD panels and more lights than a mobile disco.
This is about the third time I've seen Mr 13 and I think this was his least interesting performance out of those. Don't get me wrong, it was fun but they didn't seem to be going through the motions. Strangely enough this was probably the fullest show he's done at this venue so clearly he's becoming more popular in this corner of the world. Good for him, he does this shit better than most.
