Band of the Week: Marmozets, McFly and more!

So, we'll kick off this week with Marmozets. Female fronted math rock. Very scrummy. For now, let's have their most recent single, Good Days, which you can download from their BandCamp page. There's also a great video to go with it which I posted HERE.



Then we'll have the pop-rock band McFly. Because I love them. Also, their new single is rather more awesome than their other recent material. So let's have the video to said new single, Love Is Easy.

Next up, this piece of... almost loveliness. It's a track by Neil Finn which is going to be included on the soundtrack to the upcoming film, The Hobbit. I wasn't too sure about it when I first listened, but I think it's growing on me. Have a listen - see what you think.

Finally, a band I found by accident courtesy of the latest episode of the excellent QI. They're called Maxillofacial Death Pyramid. Forgive the slightly weird name, they're actually pretty decent. Let's call it hardcore punk. Probably not quite the right genre, but that's what their Bandcamp says and I suck at genres.


That'll do for this week, I think.

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

Randomness: On fairness, whining and overly demanding fans

Firstly, here's my original post on McFly's Supercity site:

I stress once again that this is just my opinion. Feel free to disagree, but no unprovoked bitching. Many of us around the world are waiting to hear when McFly are coming to our countries. This is perfectly natural - who wouldn't want to see one of their favourite bands live? Constant questions about when McFly are touring where is understandable. Slightly annoying at times, but forgivable. Not so forgivable and rather more annoying are fans who have had the opportunity to see McFly already on this tour cycle and still find things to whinge about. The latest seems to be with regards to Danny's after-party wotsits. There hasn't been one for every date and already I've seen people bitching that this isn't fair. It's perfectly fair. Consider the logistics. There has to be an available venue, the next show ideally shouldn't be the day after (tiredness is a bitch)... I've run out of ideas, but my point is, it simply might not be possible to put a party on after every show. It will never cease to irritate me how demanding fans can be. Your idols are human, just like you. You can't expect them to be able to fit everything in. And for the few people (very few, fortunately) that I've seen complaining that McFly aren't playing a venue near them, shut the fuck up. This applies largely to UK folks. It's a tiny bloody country, get a bloody train or something. I'm on a year abroad in Tasmania right now. Last month I left the house at 4am to fly over 1000 miles to Brisbane so I could go to Soundwave Festival. So seriously, get over yourselves. If you love a band that much, save up some money and shell out for the travel. And on that note, I'm going to shut up about how overly demanding fans irritate the shit out of me and see if I can find some nice new music. Hmmm, something in the industrial vein would be appreciated...

Now, apart from the "shut the fuck up" and "get over yourselves" aspects, I tried my hardest to be polite in that post, even though I was irritated as fuck. Basically, Danny Jones of McFly had hosted a couple of parties after certain shows on the band's current UK tour. I'd seen people whinging that it was only on some dates and it pissed me off that they thought this wasn't fair when huge numbers of McFly fans across the world simply won't get to see them on this tour, myself included. Why can't people be grateful for what they've got, I wondered? This is the response I got from one of the people who'd sparked my irritation in the first place:

Clearly about me....and no I won't shut up, your opinion means nothing to me tbh. If the parties couldn't be held for everyone then no one should have got them END OF!!!!!

Firstly, she presumes the post is solely about her. How ridiculous - I'm pretty sure I said in the post that there were a number of people who shared her views on things. I'd named no names. The shut up point I can understand - I'm perfectly happy for people to discuss things with me and had I been a little less irritated at the time of posting, I probably wouldn't have included the "shut the fuck up" part. The fact that she then goes on to say that my opinion means nothing to her, now that did annoy me. Or rather, it made me laugh - if my opinion means nothing to her, why is she so angry? If my opinion means nothing to her, she could have just ignored it. In fact, I'm pretty sure my opinion must mean rather a lot to her because I'm fairly sure the only reason she read my post was because I'd already commented on her post about the matter, giving my opinion.

Why are fans so demanding? And why when you disagree with them do some of them get bitchy instead of having a polite discussion? I would have been much more inclined to take this person seriously if she hadn't lost her temper with me. In reply to her comment, I invited her to continue the conversation, providing she stop ranting at me. However, this was before I came across this post of hers:

Omg some people on here are actual dicks! Excuse the language!

I can but presume this was aimed at me and several others who had disagreed with her opinions, going by the time it was posted (i.e. just after she'd commented on my post). If she does come back with a reply, she will be getting a very snotty remark back along the lines of "feel free to call me names, but at least say it to my face". I was rather pleased to see that the sole comment on her post re. people being dicks was as follows:

Well with an attitude like that I can't imagine why anyone would be mean to you...

Oh, how I laughed. In conclusion, I have no problem with people disagreeing with me, but there is a difference between disagreeing and giving a polite argument as to why you disagree and just being a ranting idiot. Why are fans so demanding? Do people simply not understand that musicians are human just like everyone else? Do they honestly expect them to make time for every single fan who wants their time? And why, when people like me, fellow fans, disagree with them and basically tell them to grow up, do they turn into raving angry mad things? Do not get.

In the very unlikely event that the person in question finds this and reads this: please note, I have revealed no names - no one will be able to find you unless they know my SC username and follow the relevant links. This is not intended to target you, but you made a very good example of an overly demanding fan. Plus you were rude to me and I reserve the right to rant about you in return in the privacy of my blog.

Review: Above The Noise by McFly

'K, so I'm actually beginning to write this before I even have the album. Partly because I'm bored as hell, mainly because I'm ridiculously over excited about getting my hands on the damn thing. OK, so not physically getting my hands on it, because it's a download, but I know what I mean.

Bahahahaha, I have it. Please bear in mind I wrote this after only 2 play-throughs, so I'm bound to pick up on different stuff after I've listened to it a bit more. Also, this is getting posted in a couple of other places, so if it reads a bit funny, that's why. Here goes.

Behold, I actually got my arse in gear and wrote a review for the first time in weeks. Happy times all round. Plus, I’ve been waiting ages for this damn album. Prepare for babbles and rambling and general fangirl-ishness.

Firstly, much as I was looking forward to hearing Above The Noise, I was a little apprehensive. I heard Party Girl months back and I hated it. I honestly couldn’t stand it. It sounded way too much like one of my favourite bands had jumped on the electro-pop bandwagon. I’ve been hoping Above The Noise wouldn’t just be more of the same. I am happy to say that it’s not. It’s made of epic awesome and has totally restored my faith in McFy.

So, OK, it doesn’t have so much of the rock edge that previous albums, particularly Radio: ACTIVE, have had, but it’s not as electro-poppy as I thought it might be. The synth elements are strong, but they’ve been used in harmony with the stronger rock elements. I noticed this particularly on End Of The World, the opening track and this rather set the tone for the rest of the album. Party Girl is still stronger on the electro/dance elements that I would like, but it’s finally started growing me. And hey, it fulfils its purpose – it makes me want to dance. I dread to think what my housemate thought when I was prancing madly around my bedroom listening to it earlier. He already thinks I’m mad (he’s right, but shush). Although, I have to agree with a number of other people – that opening does sound awfully like Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance. Not necessarily a bad thing, but the fact that when I first heard it, I thought I’d got the wrong thing playing isn’t a good thing either. If U C Kate is a good enough song in itself, but I wish bands wouldn’t play around with the “not-so-subtly-hidden-expletives” in song titles. It’s not original in the slightest, and the song doesn’t really call for it. It’s a lovely, almost laidback track and I’ve noticed a number of people pointing out that The Script have a song called If You See Kay, which was only released in 2008. They could’ve given the track a different, more original name and it would’ve avoided a lot of confusion.

Then there’s the simply magical Shine A Light. Not much to say here – I love it. It’s more like the McFly I grew up loving. So there’s still that electro element, but it’s smaller and it fits nicely into the track. Never thought I’d like a track with Taio Cruz in it, but this song has proved me wrong. Just a stunningly beautiful track.

All in all, a wonderful album. I don’t rate it as highly as McFly’s past work, but I can see it growing on me. A lot. Stand out tracks are Shine A Light, Nowhere Left To Run and This Song. I can’t resist a good 5 minutes plus track.

Current love: Nowhere Left To Run

Being the fangirl I am at heart, I signed up for McFly's new Super City. It's essentially an uber-interactive fan site, but by signing up as one of the first 20,000, you get a whole bunch more awesomeness. So, OK, it's not quite as exclusive as it was supposed to be - there were huge technical problems on the first day so they raised the number from 10,000. I'm still pretty sure (going by web addresses and such) that I was within the first 2000. Yes, I'm sad.

Anyway, the first of these awesomenesses is first view of the band's short film Nowhere Left To Run. They put it up onto the site on Friday (Saturday, my time) and I've watched it so many times this weekend, it's ridiculous.

So what, you may ask, is so wonderful about this film? Well, for a start, it's not half as cheesy or badly acted as I thought it might be. In fact, the acting's pretty damn decent and the plot...well, it's vampires, you can't help but be a little cheesy with vampires. But they don't sparkle. They actually burn in sunlight (well, one of them does, a role that was apparently supposed to be for Fearne Cotton). And they're very big on the drinking blood. Good, proper vampires. I found a wonderful comment on Twitter about it:

"Vampires shouldn't sparkle, Vampires should play drums. #NowhereLeftToRun"

Courtesy of @RadioBolly.

If you know McFly, that kinda gives away who the villain of the piece is, but they make it pretty obvious from the beginning that something is wrong with Harry, the drummer. And he makes an oh so gorgeous vampire. I really, honestly tried not to, but my inner fangirl squee'd so much over semi-nekkid and nekkid Harry, it was ridiculous. Bassist Dougie comes across as sweetly oblivious for the most part, poking fun at Tom (guitars/vocals) when he's attacked by the cleaning girl he has a crush on who just happened to get bit by Harry. Tom does the suspicion thing well - he seems to twig pretty early on that something's wrong with Harry, although like the rest of the band, he doesn't put two and two together till the manager actually tells them. The manager is just suitably slimy without making you want to throttle him and Danny (also guitars/vocals) is brilliant, purely for the immortal line:

"Dougie! Don't go into the woods!"

Why this is so funny, neither me nor any of the other fans who have seized onto it, seem to have worked out yet. Seriously, I have no idea why it's so funny, it just is.

Then there's the soundtrack. The band have used the film as a platform to show off some tracks from their upcoming album and they work pretty well, actually. The End Of The World works particularly well for the scene in which they vanquish Harry by, get this, staking him with a guitar neck. Oh, I loved that idea. Anyways, the band tracks are mixed in with some great orchestral pieces (that I recognise from somewhere, but can't remember what they are) which are great for the more suspenseful parts of the film. The one track that seems seriously out of place is The Sunny Side Of The Street which plays over the end credits. It's such an upbeat, sunny song and it contrasts starkly with the ending of the film. Which is a cliffhanger, by the way - you don't get to find out what happens to Dougie.

As with any film, especially one like this, there are flaws. Firstly: what the hell is with the wolf? In the opening sequence (which is actually the closing sequence), you see a wolf running through the woods with the vampires and Dougie. Why is there a wolf? I presume it was supposed to be symbolic in some way, but it seems so out of place... I don't know. It just doesn't seem to work.

Secondly, there's the above mentioned weirdness with the choice of track for the closing credits. But I think I can forgive that purely because it's such an awesome song and so much more like old McFly than new McFly.

Thirdly, blue/green screen. They've used fake backgrounds, by the looks of things. Now, I know this was fairly low budget, but you shouldn't be able to tell they're fake backgrounds. It's only in a few shots, fortunately.

Finally, there's one or two little continuity errors. For the performance of Shine A Light we first see the band in the studio in one set of clothes. Then we switch to a CGI-type set with a different set of clothes and then back to the studio version at the end of the track. Woot for artistic licence, but was there any need for it? Which reminds me - like HELL does any studio actually look like that. Seriously? Ah well, let's call it artistic licence. Maybe it's just an uber-fancy one.

Well, I think we'll end there. I actually have a whole load of notes about the film, but I figure no one wants to read all my little comments about plot, suspense building, revelations and whatnot. Maybe I'll post a picture of them instead. Admire my notes:

Might contain spoilers. But then, the film should've been taken off McFly.com by now, so you should be safe.

Right, that'll do then. If you're a Pioneer and you've stumbled across my blog because of this, let me know what you thought of Nowhere Left To Run - I'd love to know what other people thought about the film in general and the new album tracks that were used.

Band of the Week: McFly

Thought I should probably have something that I can post regularly, to get me to remember I actually have a blog. Every week or so, I'll just pick a band I love to talk about, be it the band themselves, a concert/album/song of theirs or how I came across them. This week, I've picked McFly. They're a British pop-rock band who first gained attention in 2004. Indeed, that's when I first heard of them. Actually, the first time I heard of them was when I saw them play as support to Busted in March of that year. And, oh, they were so young. I would've been 13 at the time, it was one of my first concerts (the first being Atomic Kitten) and both my sister and I were pretty huge fans of Busted. I think we spent the time before the start of the show reading the little leaflet about the two support acts. I was amazed to find that the youngest member of McFly was at that time only 3 years older than me, just 16. I hadn't really got into music at this point and I had this perception of bands as being in at least their 20s if not older. Weird, I know. But anyway, straying from the point here.

I was much more enamoured with McFly than my sister was. I got their debut album for my 14th birthday, defended them against my friends who said they were too much like Busted and generally maintained a love of them throughout my time at secondary school, even as I started delving into more alternative music. McFly for me have always been amazing, no matter how poppy or mainstream they may be. They have a rock edge that when they first started out wasn't really visible in the British charts, at least not to my 13 year old self.

So I held onto them and strangely enough, it's some of their tracks that have got me through when I've been feeling low. And I mean, really low. Unlike so many people I know, I didn't fall back on the alternative, angry or emo. I dived straight into Radio: ACTIVE, Room On The Third Floor and Motion In The Ocean. I saw no point in hiding in music full of negative emotion when I could lighten the mood with some good pop sensibility.

There's been a slow, but noticeable progression in McFly's music. From the pop-rock, slightly Beatles-inspired beginnings of Room On The Third Floor, they've headed further down the rock route, culminating in 2008's Radio: ACTIVE, my second favourite McFly album after ROOTF. I love that progression. It shows they've matured, along with their fans, who are probably mostly around my age. Radio: ACTIVE also had some great moments in which the band acknowledged their position as a radio, chart-friendly band and laughed in the face of all the haters. One For The Radio took the comments about them being poppy and meaningless and accepted it. Yes, they are a pop-rock band. Yes, they do make music that's enjoyed by what I commonly, derogatively term teeny-boppers. But to many, including me, their music has more meaning than a lot of the chart stuff.

Imagine my horror when I heard their first single from their upcoming 5th album. Party Girl took all that pop-rock goodness and, on first listen at least, threw it away. I hated it. It's all electro, synths and POP. Just pop. And with electro and synth stuff being so big in the charts recently, I couldn't help but think that one of my favourite bands had gone and jumped on the bandwagon. Any alternative, rock, metal band had done this, it'd be called selling-out, but you can't sell out if you've already sold out, right? That makes little sense, but I know what I mean. Try as I might, I can't get myself to like Party Girl. I've listened to it so many times and every time, my brain just tells me it's not McFly. If I say anything though, especially on sites where there are other fans, I get bashed. Why? Because all bands change. I know this, I've used it as an argument against haters before. I've seen other bands I love change over their careers. But there's change and there's jumping on the bandwagon because that's what'll sell. I wasn't impressed.

I was so relieved when I heard their next single, Shine A Light. I'd decided to check out their live stream from the video shoot for the song for some reason. And, dear god, was I happy. So, OK, it's still not quite the McFly I know and love, but it's better than Party Girl. Heaps better than Party Girl. It's Shine A Light, more than anything else, that has convinced me that I need the album when it comes out. Not want. NEED. Because my library is so full of alternative, rock, metal and all that jazz (but not jazz, oddly), that it's in need of a good pop boost. So, I'm waiting not-so-patiently for November 1st and the release of album number 5: Above The Noise and another dose of McFly scrumminess.

Assorted McFly links:
Official site

Myspace
YouTube
LastFM

Recommended Tracks (album):
5 Colours In Her Hair, Surfer Babe, That Girl, Not Alone (Room On The Third Floor)
Ultraviolet (Wonderland)
Transylvania, Silence Is A Scary Sound, Friday Night (Motion In The Ocean)
Down Goes Another One, Corrupted, Lies, One For The Radio (Radio: ACTIVE)

...is it painfully obvious I'm not so keen on Wonderland?