A few of my recent gigs...

Most of the gigs I've been to recently have been a bit of a drunken blur so don't get a full write-up. Last one was Antisect (The Fleece, Bristol 14/01/2012), where support Virus were my favourite part - I'd seen them before playing with Violent Arrest and Zounds (their logo would make a lot more sense if it was Violent Arrest's) and they were pretty fun. The day before that it was Peter and the Test Tube Babies (The Fleece, Bristol 13/01/2012), who were a lot of fun but your usual beer belly punk fare. Towards the end of last year I saw Varukers, Subhumans and Agent Orange who were all excellent, particularly Agent Orange. Nicest bunch of guys I've yet to meet in rock n roll!

The Darkness @ O2 Academy, Bristol (14/11/2011)

The Darkness

The Darkness recently reformed with their original line-up, after a hiatus of five years during which lead singer Justin formed Hot Leg and battled a cocaine addiction and the other members played in the Stone Gods. The band has a very dedicated fan base, evidenced in this tour selling out every venue booked, so the excitement to see the Hawkins brothers and co. return to the stage was palpable in the Academy.

Crown Jewel Defence - it's a dick joke, geddit?

The first support were Crown Jewel Defense. They were full of American gusto, but unfortunately were more scarf than substance. Their stage presence was a bit lacking, with long silences between their songs and then overblown "C'MON YEAAAH!"s when they did talk. Their songs didn't do much for me either, largely being quite cliche'd 80's influenced stuff.

Foxy Shazam - Eric running around the stage on all-fours not shown

Thankfully second support were the irrepressible Foxy Shazam. Foxy are a strange beast, a concoction of glam, post-hardcore and psychedelic pop, with a live show a bit like if Iggy Pop had been in Queen instead. They play and sing maniacally, vocalist Eric Nally slams the microphone into the floor, runs around the stage like a dog, falls to the ground and climbs on various bandmates' shoulders without missing a note, the trumpeter Alex plays upside-down and keyboardist Sky often plays with his feet. The liveliness of the show reflects the schizophrenic eccentricities of the music, alternating between effervescent and a sort of melancholy glamour. They played a few songs from their upcoming album among some brilliant tracks including "The Rocketeer" and "Oh Lord", and finished with a long jam ruminating on the story of a man drinking his worries away. Eric's intensity during this song makes you wonder how the band's touring schedule has affected them this year, with a long time away from home and family (especially for Eric who has two young sons).

Justin Hawkins emerging from the fog

The Darkness came out with classic opener "Black Shuck", and it didn't take long to see that they'd not lost any confidence in their performance. Dan Hawkins hunched over his guitar slugging out hot riffs, while brother Justin prowled the stage, climbing the drum riser to belt out the falsetto chorus of "THAT DOG DON'T GIVE A FUCK", and heavy chugging beats from Frankie and Ed. A quick one-two of "Black Shuck" into single "Growing on Me" got the crowd going even more. Seeming confident and glad to be back onstage, looking comfortable (or as comfortable as one could be under bright lights in a catsuit), they showcased their musical competence and ability to own a stage with aplomb. The set was well spaced with fan favourites and singles interspersed with album cuts. Sophomore album single "One Way Ticket To Hell and Back" was well recieved and by now the band were well in their stride. The band's stage presence felt natural and filled the stage well, with Justin moving about as much as possible, and guitarist and bassist changing positions. It was good to see Frankie looking relaxed, as returning original members can sometimes look uncomfortable in their refound positions. Justin remained the only mouthpiece throughout however, but joked with his bandmates and his banter with the crowd was enough to engender a strong rapport.

Dan Hawkins engulfed in fog

The rest of the band left the stage after "Out of This World" for Justin to play a stripped down and intimate version of "Holding My Own" with just an acoustic guitar as armour. Had the Academy's rather oppressive regulations allowed it, there surely would have been about a thousand lighters held aloft. The band returned to blast out "Love is Only A Feeling" which sounded as good as ever. Throughout the gig, both guitarists flicked plectrums out into the audience between songs, leaving many fans with a memento. A rather idiosyncratic emerged in a cover of Radiohead's "Street Spirit" given the metal treatment, complete with exuberant solo. This led into "Giving Up", described as a song about how heroin "is a bit moreish". The band finished the first part of their set with an early christmas present of their festive single "Christmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End)", with Justin in a candy-cane catsuit and confetti snowing onto the stage, the bouncers and the audience.

Let the bells ring out, and the confetti collect on bald bouncers' heads.

After a brief break, the band returned for a four track encore, starting with instrumental "Bareback" before launching into a rousing cover of "Tie Your Mother Down" by Queen, proving a good homage to The Darkness' roots. It would have been impossible for them not to play the indomitable "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" and by now the audience had reached fever-point, with crowd-surfers and dehydrated fans sailing out of the pit in a flurry of bouncers arms. In a show of care for their fans, Dan pointed a bouncer to look after a fan who was worse for wear to be taken out. However, those who had thought it was the last song and thus opportunity to end up on the other side of the barricade missed a extended rendition of "Love on the Rocks" that saw all the band build up a meaty jam, Frankie's bass most noticeably. Several solos lighter, Justin jumped into the crowd and was led through the crowd still eking out notes from the higher frets of his guitar. He returns to the stage eventually and the band end with a typically massive rock ending with a jump of the drum riser into a massive open chord. The band join together and bow out to a long applause, with picks and plenty of Ed's drumsticks finding their way into the crowd's open hands. While Justin is only one member of the band, he and (his rather considerable ego) represented The Darkness as a whole quite succinctly. His departure and subsequent rehabilitation seemed to have mellowed him though, and given him a more reflective attitude. He repeatedly thanked the crowd throughout the night, making specific note that this date had sold out the quickest of the large venues. He and the rest of the band seem genuinely and completely overjoyed to be back onstage, and we were glad to welcome them back.

The Damned @ O2 Academy, Bristol (09/11/2011)

The Damned are currently enjoying their 35th anniversary, and are marking it with a tour playing both their seminal 1976 debut "Damned Damned Damned" & 1980's "The Black Album" in full. They're still on form, and although only Dave Vanian and Captain Sensible remain from the original line-up, it still feels like the definitive band.

Opening tonight was Viv Albertine, of Slits fame. She took to the stage with nothing but a rather beat-up telecaster and played through a set that was received an initially quite luke-warm reaction from the crowd. Her arty feminist punk didn't really fit in with The Damned, more renowned for the Captain's antics onstage and songs to pogo to but you can't fault her for trying. She did bring a warm presence though and it was hard not to like her even if the music was not to your taste.

Viv Albertine

The Damned took the stage to the Dambusters theme, and proceed to belt out their first album like they'd released it last week. Opening with "Neat Neat Neat" and even playing the Stooges cover "I Feel Alright", the band played as well as ever. Captain Sensible wore a large fluffy pink outfit for the first set, and Vanian was as ever dressed like Bela Lugosi. I felt a bit sorry for poor Monty who didn't really have anything to play for the first 45 minutes and had to stand at the back and be content with wiggling his hands every now and then, but the crowd didn't care about anything but the music. I'm sure a large percentage had probably been around to see the original tour and lagers were still pressed into friends' hands when some of the old punks wanted to go in the pit and pogo to "New Rose". Strangely, I don't think "Stab Your Back" was played.

Dave Vanian

After a short interval, the band returned to play The Black Album in full. The opening riff of "Wait For The Blackout" was enough to get the crowd straight back into the mood again. The band proceeded to roll through The Black Album, allowing Monty to get his fingers into the songs with his synths, and sometimes even the Captain got on a Nord. The band played all the songs with ease and showed how underrated their musicianship often is. I sometimes feel as if The Damned are the forgotten of the early punk bands. They got there first with everything while pushing punk into the 80's, and practically invented goth, but don't always get the recognition they deserve. However, I felt The Black Album doesn't entirely lend itself to being played in the live setting, while the crowd were definitely enjoying the show, the amount of tension leading up to the parts where they could actually mosh meant that a lot of the songs more intricate parts created lulls in the audience energy. That said, "Curtain Call" (all 17 minutes of it) was fucking brilliant. The Damned are an incredibly solid band, and always kill it live.

Throw stuff onstage and it's highly likely Sensible will either wear it or try to stick it up his arse. Sometimes both.

The band finished the play-through of The Black Album and retired briefly before returning for a short encore of some of their popular songs. They played "Eloise", "Love Song", "Melody Lee" and finished on the petulant and awesome "Anti-Pope" with an extended breakdown. Once the band had gone off the crowd expected another encore, but one was not forthcoming unfortunately. The problem with playing both Damned Damned Damned and The Black Album all the way through is that it left little time for the classics from fan favourite Machine Gun Etiquette (I would have liked to have heard "Smash It Up", nothing beats that live). However, no one left feeling like they hadn't got their money's worth.

"Are you wearing a blonde wig and a lei?"

The Damned are one of my favourite live bands and continue to deserve that title. The band are tight as a duck's arse, the Captain, Dave and Monty have great presence and the rhythm section of Pinch and Stu are great as well. They remarked that this iteration of the band had been around for the longest time in their history, and so I hope it continues. 

Long Live The Damned!

And long live the Captain being a silly sod.

Photo Set from the gig on flickr

Ben Marwood @ The Louisiana, Bristol 07/10/2011

MUST REMEMBER TO TAKE OWN PHOTOS IN FUTURE

This Friday held a night of singer/songwriters at the Louisiana. First up was Suzy Condrad who layered soundscapes out of loops with a cacophony of different instruments from her guitar to an autoharp. Her sound reminded me of PJ Harvey, Beach House and KT Tunstall. When she got into her stride the songs spoke for themselves, she's well worth looking up, but a mix of setting up issues and the time it takes to layer the songs mar the whole experience slightly, though her charm kept the crowd interested. She might do well to recruit a full band for performing live, even if this would remove the one-woman-band aspect of her performance, but I think her songs could hold up without any gimmicks.

Next was Jay Newton whose sound was a little more akin to Ben's than the other two supports. He played some good songs, the second of which I particularly liked, though most of which were quite downbeat, which I find is a very easy hole for the singer/songwriter to fall into. He shows promise and he seems to be able to write more upbeat or at least whimsical songs (Ben later played a song by his former band which was about H.P. Lovecraft's zombie creating re-animator Herbert West).

Penultimate act was Bristol's own Barry Dolan A.K.A. Oxygen Thief. Barry peddles a muscular, riff-based acoustic offering reminiscent of a stripped down Helmet, more owing to 90's alt-metal than Bob Dylan. He opened with an instrumental, ostensibly to warm up the headbanging muscles of both himself and veritable gig-barometer Big Jeff. He played tracks from his recent album, single "Mestle and Porter" and my personal highlight "Disasterplan", and also some fun covers of "Gold" by Spandau Ballet and "Party Hard" by Andrew WK. Barry always strikes up a rapport with the crowd and there was definitely drunken shouting along to his songs.

Ben made his way through the crowd to come onstage, as ever an unassuming figure in his suit jacket and t-shirt, his frank and modest brand of acoustic folk/rock with an ability to poke fun at himself drags his songs above those of a sea of miserable blokes with guitars. It began well but unfortunately a instrument failure meant he had to swap guitars before the second song, so he performed the rest of his set with Barry's kindly lent guitar. He played a solid set, spanning most of his releases along with his now iconic cover of The Postal Service's "The District Sleeps Alone". Particular highlights were the ironic "Singalong" (everyone did) and "Tell Avril Lavigne I Never Wanted To Be Her Stupid Boyfriend Anyway" which featured some ad-libbing from the titular female's "Sk8r Boi". He engaged with the crowd by telling some of the backstories of his songs he played and of the strange feeling of staring at a poster of yourself while urinating. He finished the night well but didn't quite manage to recreate the atmosphere of the last time he played the Louisiana, which was particularly electric. It was still a good performance overall however and Ben is going from strength to strength.

Best Coast @ The Thekla, Bristol, UK 01/05/2011

Openers Parrington Jackson's brand of Fugazi meets Bloc Party post-punk (with a side order of post-rock) is received well by a thawing audience. Their 30 minute set is just enough to whet the appetite of the crowd, and didn't suffer too badly from support band bar syndrome. They sounded professional, just polished enough to sound tight, but not too much as to sound over-rehearsed and had a good presence onstage, with all members looking useful and fronted well. However, their music didn't really fit in with the dreamy surf pop of the headliners, but it seems they were a fill in for the touring support who had been left in London to play the famous Camden Crawl.

Parrington Jackson

Bristol's seafaring venue du jour for the hippest of the hip unsurprisingly finds lo-fi surf pop upstarts Best Coast serenading its packed hull. The band split opinion - some find the their brand of bubblegum pop too saccharine, while others revel in the breath of fresh air offered by the sun drenched tunes. When frontwoman/guitarist Beth Consentino, lead guitarist Bobb Bruno and drummer (and former Vivian Girl) Ali Koehler take to the stage however, the charm on offer is enough to melt hearts of the most cynical of listeners.

Best Coast: Beth Consentino, Bobb Bruno & Ali Koehler

While Consentino is naturally the focus of attention with her pin-up looks and unashamedly simple romantic lyrics, but the whole band is solid. Koehler's drumming provides a heavy set backbone and Bruno's surfy solos sound great in a live setting. On some songs however, Consentino struggles to transfer the vocals found in the studio versions of songs when playing live (a fate notably befalling Death From Above 1979), but this doesn't really detract from the show. The band obviously enjoy being onstage, cracking jokes (the frontwoman remarks about her fear of boats and ad libs 80's pop songs) and jamming on a few tracks. The band play their way through the entirety of "Crazy For You" (with Pitchfork approved single "Boyfriend" in early on, perhaps before the band hit their stride), a selection of older tracks (including the irrepressible "When I'm With You") and throw in a few promising sounding new songs.

Best Coast: In a boat.

The band's sugary repertoire lends them to the hour set afforded to them by the Sunday curfew in place, the old adage of having too much of a good thing holds sway. Whilst splitting the last few songs into a short encore may have been recommended, the crowd leave satisfied. On an uncharacteristically balmy early May evening, Best Coast are the perfect soundtrack.

The Thekla in green

Words/photos (c) Daniel Cove 2011

Kyuss Lives! @ Bristol O2 Academy 06/04/2011

The stage is thick with dry ice fog, and behind there are surely several joints being lit in the crowd (much to the chagrin of the bouncers) filling the venue with the acrid smell of burning marijuana, fittingly for a band whose music owes such a huge debt to THC. Stoner rock as a genre pretty much began with Kyuss, drawing from psychadelic influences of the late sixties like Hendrix and the early seventies reefer-influenced proto-metal exemplified by Sabbath's "Sweet Leaf" and it's been over 20 years since they got the ball rolling in the Palm Desert, California (leading to the alternative genre title of desert rock).