Like Buses

Today is Daughter’s second Graduation in two years. Yes, you wait 21 years for one and then two come along almost at once. We take the day off and make an early start to get over to the Manchester for the ceremony which starts at 10am.

Things go well, the ceremony is short and sweet. Daughter even puts up with the endless photographs. We take her for lunch before heading back home again.

I have a gig tonight, that I am missing Derby’s 4-0 demolition of Charlton for.

Support comes from 'Stealing Sheep' who I was looking forward to seeing and the three Liverpudlian girls took to the stage dressed as... well I’m not actually sure what they were dressed as, with their technicolour bodysuits, capes and sunglasses. It does though match up with the cover of their latest album 'Get Real', not that that really solves the puzzle.

Psychedelic in look and also psychedelic in sound, at least initially because beyond that they are largely keyboard orientated pop. Perhaps what the Breeders would have sounded like if you'd taken away their guitars. 

After a few songs they take their shades off and get serious but sadly the girls are mainly lost in the darkness/smoke and the vocals are way too quiet meaning they fail to catch the attention of most of the audience. This is a shame because the three of them trading off vocals seems to be their thing.

Then two songs from the end someone seems to notice there is a problem. The lighting is turned up slightly, so that you could at least see their heads poking over their electronic gadgetry, and at the same time the vocals were turned up so that you could hear them. That made a massive difference and the crowd started to notice them. Shame that didn't happen at the start because five minutes later its shades back on and exit stage left. Dressed as whatever they are.

I'm not at all keen on these 'play an entire album in its entirety shows' but I'm actually quite looking forward to this one. I have also been driven to this one because Maxïmo Park have steadfastly refused to play one of my favourite tracks of theirs 'Once, a Glimpse' from their début album 'A Certain Trigger'. It is the only track on said album that I have never seen them play live, so tonight I will finally get to hear it. At least I would hope so as this is the 10^th Anniversary show of that album.

They have also promised some rarities tonight which I had took to mean that they might also play the ‘Missing Songs’ B-sides album from the same era. That they don’t do, at least not in its entirety, but they do play ‘A19’ and ‘A Year of Doubt’ from it and both sound great ten years on. This pair of forgotten gems come in a first set of 11 songs which lead singer Paul Smith describes as a career spanning selection from albums two to five.

They open the set with ‘Girls Who Play Guitars’ and close it with a double header of ‘Our Velocity’ and ‘Books from Boxes’. All three of those come from their second album ‘Our Earthly Pleasures’, as does the possible stand out track from this first section the splendid ‘Russian Literature’ which sort of highlights their problems of late. In that their last three albums can’t really hold a candle to the first two. That said ‘Midnight on the Hill’ from last year’s ‘Too Much Information’ is another stand out moment tonight.

 After this first set they wander off stage for all of about two minutes before returning. This is just enough time for Smith to change his shirt and put a tie on for the occasion.

I wasn’t sure just how highly rated ‘A Certain Trigger’ was by their fan base but now I am sure. Very highly. Its opening track ‘Signal and Sign’ is greeted like a long lost friend.

Suddenly the crowd are even more up for the night than they were before but then so too are the band as they throw themselves into this near classic album.

‘Apply Some Pressure’ is followed by the excellent ‘Graffiti’, then an epic ‘Postcard of a Painting’. It’s excellent stuff and that’s before we get to ‘Going Missing’, probably their finest moment.

Eventually, thankfully, ‘Once, a Glimpse’ arrives and it does indeed sound fine. Worth the ten year wait? Not sure about that but hopefully I won’t have to wait another ten years before they play it again.

I’m still recovering from that experience when the always brilliant ‘Acrobat’ arrives. 

Before the final track of the album, Smith announces that the band will not be doing an encore. This is, of course, quite a ‘rock n roll’ thing to do (or not do) but I’m not sure this applies if you apologise in advance.

He gives the excuse that they'd already been off once, I’m not really sure why they did that, and they'd already played all the ‘big ones’. Which would have made their choices for the encore somewhat interesting would it not? Or they could just have delayed one of those ‘big ones’ from earlier. I suppose in mitigation they had already played 24 tracks but there was still 30 minutes to go to curfew. Lightweights.

Despite that slight let down at the end, it’s still a rather excellent evening. As I said I hate entire album shows... but that was rather good.

(Tuesday 15^th December)

Favourite Gigs Of 2013

This is the second part of my review of the year, my favourite gigs of the past year.

Oh dear, the number of gigs continues to decline. Only eight this year and one of those was Nottingham's Splendour Festival which did, to be fair, contain outstanding performances from Peter Hook and The Light and Maximo Park. Two of the others were British Sea Power and a third saw British Sea Power supporting.

So... gig of the year...

British Sea Power, Rescue Rooms, Nottingham

Still unconventional, still under appreciated, still brilliant..

Read My Review

Honourable mentions to...

The Boomtown Rats, Rock City, Nottingham

‘We are the Boomtown Rats’.

‘We are magnificent’.

‘We are old’.

Read My Review


Frightened Rabbit, Rescue Rooms, Nottingham

Still excellent but not as excellent as when they seemed to just make it up as they went along.

Read My Review


Sigur Rós, The Civic Hall, Wolverhampton

I always swore I would not allow anything with a name like ‘Hoppípolla’ inside my head. Failed.

Read My Review

Splendorous

Today we feel we ought to support our local music festival, the splendorous Splendour which is held within spitting distance of our humble abode, on Wollaton Park. There are just about enough decent bands to pull us in this year, maybe, hopefully...

The first thing we encounter is of course the splendorously huge queue to get in. So we once again use the seriously underhand tactic of going around to the unpublicised Derby Road entrance where there is no queue at all. For a mere ten minute walk, it’s well worth the detour.

Once inside, we dip into Jack Savoretti, Rob Green, Nina Nesbitt and Georgie Rose on assorted stages without being captivated by any of them. The real ale bar holds our attention much more readily despite the double queuing system. You queue once for tokens and then queue again for drinks. Yes you could queue just the once and stock up on tokens but then when the decent beer runs out you’re stuck with some very expensive pieces of paper or a can of Tuborg.

To be fair, the bar seems to be better stocked this year and therefore likely to make it beyond 2pm before it runs dry unlike in 2011. Sadly, the Splendour Ale by Castle Rock brewery is one of the first to go and before I get chance to have any. L’s seemed rather nice.

In fact we manage three trips to the bar before it looks likely that a fourth bout of double queuing would indeed end up with a Tuborg being thrust into our hands. So we don’t bother.

Back to the bands and Loughborough’s Park Bench Society raise things above the mundane for a while. Both with their catchy name and their first song, which is something a bit different but they don't really take it on from there. Their name conjures up something stripped down and simple but they are far from that with all sorts of instruments in the mix.

Good name though, much better than being named after a person like most of the performers today and I offer my apologies to the Injured Birds who we didn’t get to see. Splendour legends Dog Is Dead have a good name. Will the band appearing at their fifth Splendour out of six ignite the day?

Not for us really. Instead we settle down on the grass in front of the Jägermeister stage for the best name of the lot, Kagoule. Although I know nothing about them, I don't understand why the field isn't packed for such name greatness.

We are rewarded, as they turn out to be the best so far and they’re from Nottingham too but I guess I’m just a sucker for that sort of Post-Punk/Grunge sound.

After Kagoule, we take a wander around, admiring all the face and leg painting which seems to be popular. All the girls are covered in handprints, while the boys have had it smeared on with a trowel. I dare not comment on what sort of message this sends out, or on who’s doing the painting.

We wind our way back to the main stage, stepping over the hundreds of people who are now sprawled out in front of it or rather in front of the big screens. The majority of these people seem to have simply transferred their front rooms and their usual TV habits to Wollaton Park for the day. Not sure if that usually includes such a long wait for a toilet.

The big screens are being fed by new television start-up Notts TV, who are filming everything. Their channel starts broadcasting on Freeview Channel 8 in April next year.

Right now on stage is KT Tunstall, who I’ve always thought perhaps I ought to like but I don’t. Back at the Jägermeister it’s time for Peter Hook & The Light, one of the reasons I’m here.

After opening with three terrific Joy Division songs, Hooky goes all electronic. Now I have been all for his Joy Division revival sets but moving on to New Order, I think puts him onto much dodgier ground.

Despite being a former and founding member of the band, I still feel its New Order's job to play New Order's music whilst they still exist. Then again, if they're not going to revisit some of their lost classics, such as the glorious ‘Everything's Gone Green’, then Hooky might as well and tonight he does. The resurrection of ‘Fine Time’ though, we could probably have done without.

The ground is far less firm though when he includes New Order set regulars such as ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’, ‘586’, ‘True Faith’ and ‘Your Silent Face’. Particularly ‘Your Silent Face’ which is a Bernie Sumner lyrical classic, it’s not quite the same with Hooky singing it.

He signs off with New Order’s finest ever ‘Temptation’ and probably gives it its best rendition ever before the closing predictability of New Order’s biggest hit ‘Blue Monday’. The whole set is morally wrong but an exceptionally good guilty pleasure.

Over on the main stage, reason number two for attendance, Squeeze disappoint. I’m not really sure what I was expecting. Perhaps the energy of the last time I saw them in the late 1980’s when they were undergoing a bit of a reinvention but they’re a bit dull really, playing a set of reworked 70’s classics which I suppose the audience demands and a few new songs.

We amble off to see rising local star Harleighblu on the Courtyard stage, which on first impressions looks packed. Until we realise that most of the people are in the toilet queue. Well, it’s one way of getting a captive audience. She's pleasant but again not really our type, so we return to Squeeze.

I haven’t seen Maximo Park for a while. After a sensational first album they’ve been in a bit of a decline since, struggling to reproduce the originality of their early stuff and shedding fans like me as a result.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder though and they are very very good tonight. It helps that Paul Smith has heaps of the originality that some of their later material lacks. He remains a very engaging and entertaining front man, even when he’s not astride the speaker stack. There is evidence also tonight that their latest record 2012’s ‘The National Health’ is a return to form as such. Perhaps I should buy it.

Despite that it’s the old classics such as ‘Graffiti’ and ‘Going Missing’ that impress the most. Meaning that Smith and co probably shade Hook for the performance of the night.

Afterwards it’s a choice of a long wait for the loo or the main stage where Cliftonite Jake Bugg is the first home-grown musician to headline the festival. When I was last here two years ago, he played the courtyard stage and we missed him, so it’s a bit of a delayed rendezvous. If he smiles we’ll stay, if not we’re off home to use our own queueless facilities.

Three very similar songs and no smile later we’re leaving. Sorry Jake.

(Saturday 20^th July)