Review: Concert in the Gardens (Edinburgh's Hogmanay)

So, I was in Edinburgh for Hogmanay. Most awesome. Y'know what's even more awesome? I was at a gig for the first time since May. Hell fucking yes. Plus, I got a lovely new camera for Christmas with a vastly improved zoom, so we actually have some semi-decent photos of the gig. So, onwards to the review, my lovelies.

First up, we had Edinburgh locals Bwani Junction. Almost every review I've read of them makes some mention of their African-tinged style and while I certainly heard it, I think it's been pushed a bit too much. What I did hear was bloody good, fun indie rock and of the three bands playing, these guys win with me on the stage presence/audience interaction front. They also, to me at least, seemed to be the only band truly happy to be there. While I suspect the majority of the audience had never heard of them, they made the effort to get folks singing, leading the crowd in the chorus of one of their tracks, the name of which is rather annoyingly escaping me now.

Then there were some fireworks, but it pissed down, so no photos.

After that we had The View. Another Scottish band. While the music was pretty good, they barely interacted with their audience. That said, there was a delightful mass sing-along when they played their 2007 hit Same Jeans. To be fair, I think it's probably the only song by them that most of the audience knew.

I think we can probably blame the odd blur in that second photo on me being short and there being people in front of me.

Then there were more fireworks. See pretties:

Finally, we had Simple Minds. More Scots. An all Scottish line-up, in fact. While the set was fun, I felt the setlist was a bit samey. The sing-along of the "la la la" bit of Don't You Forget About Me also seemed to go on for a little longer than really necessary, to the point where I wanted to take Jim Kerr's microphone cable and throttle him with it. That said, I was cold and achy by this point, it being nearly Midnight on New Year's Eve, so maybe that explains my lack of patience. Everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Of course, then it was Midnight and there was an enormous fireworks display and the obligatory singing of Auld Lang Syne. All in all, a great night. Brilliant stuff. Have some more photos.

Happy New Year, folks.

McFly at Norwich UEA, 3/4/12

McFly at Norwich UEA, 3/4/12 (support from Lost? and Ivyrise)

First off, I feel the need to point out that I'm still pissed that the early access I should have had as a member of McFly's SuperCity never materialised. Either I was being blind/stupid or it was very poorly organised/non-existent. Not impressed. I spent an hour standing in the pouring rain to get into this gig. Now, I don't mind rain, but I was informed early access would be half an hour before everyone else. Was it? Apparently not. Ugh.

Say hello to the queue!

Rant over. On with the review!

Kicking off the night's proceedings were local band Lost?, who won the opening slot in a "Battle Of The Bands" style thingumiwotsit on McFly's website. Their brand of pop-punk is pretty generic, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves and it went down well with the audience, so it's all good there. I'm struggling, though, to form a solid opinion of them given that their set was a grand total of 3 songs long. Three songs isn't really much ground to form a decent opinion. And I'm slightly concerned I've inadvertently offended them by calling them bland on Twitter...

Moving on from random worrying about who may or may not have taken offence at what, Ivyrise took to the stage as main support. Again, fairly generic pop rock, but good, catchy, sing-along-able stuff. Strangely, one of the heavier points of their set was a rather awesome cover of Adele's Set Fire To The Rain. One moment, I'll see if I can find a decent video, because it really does warrant checking out.

OK, so it's not a "live" live version, but it'll do. It's better than a poor quality version from one of the shows. Anyhoos, great set from Ivyrise - highly recommend checking them out. I believe they have an upcoming headline tour - dates are HERE.

And so finally, we come to the headliners. McFly. And oh how I love them. Where to start? Well, I was particularly happy that their set had a good mix of old and new, especially since I'm really not keen on most recent album Above The Noise. There were a few new songs thrown in - Do What You Want, Red and Touch The Rain - all of which sounded pretty good, especially Red. Stand outs among a set of fan favourites were Everybody Knows and its descent into a medley of covers and the set finale of debut single Five Colours In Her Hair which ended in a wonderfully funky outro. Given that Five Colours turned 8 years old a couple of weeks ago, this seemed pretty appropriate. However, my personal favourite part of the set had to be the medley of POV (intro only), She Falls Asleep and Down Goes Another One. This is largely because Down Goes Another One is my favourite McFly track. It's a beautiful song and I was so happy it was included.

There was also plenty of banter. The only other time I've seen McFly live was on their first ever tour with Busted back in 2004, so it was great to see how confident they are onstage now. Plenty of humour, although I'm not sure some of the parents present would have approved, what with the talk of teabagging and numerous mentions of cock. It's also hilarious to see how they encourage the fandom of slash pairings revolving around the band. I've rarely seen a band so (apparently) aware of what goes on in the more... mature... corners of their fanbase. All in all, a great gig and McFly certainly lived up to my expectations. My inner teenage fangirl is incredibly happy.

McFly setlist:
Nowhere Left To Run
One For The Radio
Star Girl
I Wanna Hold You
Transylvania (first verse only)
Do What You Want (new song)
Broccoli
Lies
Red (new song)
Sorry's Not Good Enough
POV/She Falls Asleep/Down Goes Another One (medley)
Obviously
All About You
No Worries
Touch The Rain (new song)
Everybody Knows + cover medley (Livin' On A Prayer/We Found Love/What Makes You Beautiful/I Wanna Dance With Somebody)
Five Colours In Her Hair

Encore: Walk In The Sun
Encore: Shine A Light

Review: Young Guns at Norwich Arts Centre, 24/3/12

Kicking off Saturday's show at the Arts Centre were young Leeds quintet Marmozets. Female fronted... math rock? I picked up on the post-hardcore side of it, but beyond that I'm not hugely familiar with the genre. One moment while I google...

So, Thrash Hits (ever reliable) has them down as "Dillinger Escape Plan x Paramore". For which read: math rock with great melodies and great female vocals. They've also been compared to Rolo Tomassi - take this as a good thing. I only ever here positive things about Rolo Tomassi. Getting side tracked here. What an amazing set. For such a young band, these guys really know how to put on a show. Throwing the audience straight in there with new(ish) track Onemanwolfpack, it was almost non-stop energy. Personally, (as a non-expert, I hasten to add) I think vocalist Becca could do with working on her unclean vocals a bit, but she still sounds amazing and her clean vocals were stunning. Brilliantly... twiddly? guitar work and overall just a hugely energetic set which ended with both vocalist and both guitarists in the pit. Folks really should have paid attention when guitarist Sam warned "You're going to want to back up, otherwise you're going to get a guitar in the neck" - or words to that effect. This was very much not what I'd initially expected at a Young Guns show, although at least I'd thought to look up Marmozets beforehand.

Moving on to the headliners. Well, awesome. Young Guns are pretty much straight up rock. Slight "emo" tendencies according to my housemate (lies). Diving straight in there with one of the band's heavier tracks, Elements, the set got off to a great start. There was a great balance between old and new material, something I'd been a little worried about given that the band are still promoting their most recent album and I'm not as keen on it as I was the debut. The crowd really got moving, although any attempts at a pit pretty much failed - Young Guns' music, personally, isn't exactly conducive to pit formation. Finishing with a trio of fan favourites in the form of Daughter of the Sea, Winter Kiss and Weight of the World, this was a triumphant return to Norwich for Young Guns and one that evidently went down well on this sold out night. The only thing lacking was an encore for this relatively short (45-50 min?) set. Ah well. Everyone seemed happy and that's what matters.

Marmozets set list (thanks to Josh MacIntyre for tweeting me this)
Onemanwolfpack, 9/10/11 - 12:13, Lives, Duels, The Perfect Beverage, Vexed

Young Guns set list (courtesy of it being on the sound desk right in front of me...)
Elements, Bones, D.O.A., Towers (On The Way), Crystal Clear, Brother In Arms, Stitches, Dearly Departed, Learn My Lesson, Daughter Of The Sea, Winter Kiss, Weight Of The World

Randomness: Gig-going

Ah, the joys of posts purely out of boredom (and slight curiosity). The question is this: Is it really just me who is happy going to gigs on my own?

I'm just wondering, because, well, people seem to pity me when I tell them I go to almost all gigs on my own. Personally, I can't see the problem - I enjoy gigs just as much (if not more) when I'm on my own and I can't see how being with other people enhances that experience, apart from maybe discussing things afterwards. I have this blog for my babbles. And a bunch of poor, unsuspecting housemates who haven't yet learned that I will prattle madly at them if they ask me if I enjoyed a gig...

But: there are so many people who reckon going to gigs with other folks is better. So tell me, group-gig-goers: what makes going to gigs with your friends so much better than going alone?

On a side note: YOUNG GUNS SHOW TONIGHT. And yes, I am going alone. Hurray.

Review: Enter Shikari @ Norwich UEA, 5/10/11

Enter Shikari @ Norwich UEA (support from letlive. and Your Demise)

Barely five minutes into letlive.'s opening set and security are already telling their vocalist off for climbing on the speaker stacks. The set got off to a somewhat lacklustre start, given the hype around letlive.'s live act, but a couple of songs in it became clear that this is a band to watch. Loud, energetic and non-stop, they're a perfect opening band so I can only imagine how amazing it would be to see them play a full, headline set. In amongst the high octane tracks was a little gem in the form of “Muther”. Beautiful, melodic and a great track to involve the crowd. I admit to being almost completely unaware of letlive. other than knowing they played some sort of post-hardcore. After tonight's set, however, I'm hooked. Actually, I'm listening to one of their albums as I type this.

While Your Demise certainly matched letlive. in volume and general raucousness, their set felt a little messy. They play hardcore of some description (which I'll admit to not being a huge fan), but while there were a few moments of brilliance, their tracks just didn't have the intensity of letlive.'s. The structure of the set itself also felt slightly stilted – there was a fair bit of talking in between tracks, which isn't a bad thing, but there has to be that balance between talking and playing.

So, after a slightly disappointing set from Your Demise, we moved onto the headliners, the band I really wanted to see. Enter Shikari. Brief introduction needed, methinks. Enter Shikari play post-hardcore, with strong electronic influences (especially dubstep on more recent releases). I've seen them twice before and they're incredibly high energy and very big on crowd involvement. Tonight's show lived up to, even surpassed expectations. With a set taking in tracks from both LPs as well as recent singles Destabilise and Quelle Surprise, there was something to please fans of all their material. The light show was, as always, brilliant although it must suck to be an epileptic Shikari fan – I've not seen them play without strobes yet. Sad to say they didn't play Fanfare For The Concious Man, but having played so many fan favourites and closing with Juggernauts and OK, Time For Plan B, Enter Shikari really are a band that you need to see live to really appreciate.

“We are the world and we are the people and we will be heard.” - Fanfare for the Concious Man - Enter Shikari

Rough setlist for Enter Shikari (not in order)
Destabilise, Mothership, Zzzonked, Hectic, The Jester, No Sssweat, Sssnakepit, Return To Energiser, Sorry You're Not A Winner, Gap In The Fence, No Sleep Tonight, Quelle Surprise.

Encore: Juggernauts, OK Time For Plan B.