Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda, Didn't

Here's another pesky but obligatory year-end list for me to get out of my system: it's my Top 5 list of the gigs I really would have liked to have gone to in 2008 but for one reason or another didn't.

I'm sure I can come up with something snappier than that.

5. Public Enemy, Custard Factory, Birmingham. I mentioned this during one of my 11-11-11 write-ups, but sort of subsequently forgot about it. I'm sure it would have been fun.

4. Band of Horses, Birmingham Academy. Clare bought us a pair of tickets, there was a mix up over the dates and we missed the gig. Bugger.

3. TV On the Radio, Birmingham Academy. I've been following them since 2004's Desperate Youths, Blood Thirsty Babes. 2008's Dear Science was one of my favourite albums of the year. For some reason I didn't catch them on tour. So it goes.

2. Bruce Springsteen. The last time I saw The Boss play live was at Villa Park in June 1988. That's fucking ridiculous, that is.

1. Leonard Cohen. Clare and I came close - this close, I tell you - to nabbing a pair of tickets to see Laughing Len in Manchester. I'll spare you the details.

My Top 5 Gigs of 2009

Why Top 5? Why not a Top 10? As a lapsed Discordian I was going to knock out a rather elaborate, mind-bending explanation based on the 'Law of Fives' (which, according to Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminatus! Trilogy, claims that everything in the universe can be connected to the number five if you try hard enough), but that looked too much like hard work.

Instead, I'll just tell you the truth: I opted for a Top 5 because I didn't go to very many gigs in 2008.

Five of 'em, though, were fucking awesome...



5. Bearsuit, Latitude Festival 2008 - Pete Ashton introduced them to me in 2007 when I saw them play at Birmingham's Sunflower Lounge, and their Latitude set was great fun. They're tremendously silly, ridiculously catchy and highly recommended. Jupiter Force, indeed.

4. Foo Fighters, Wembley Stadium, 7th June 2008 - I mentioned it in passing here, here and here but never got around to writing a proper review. Oh, well. I've never been what you might call a Foo Fighters fan; I have, however, always been an unrepentant Led Zeppelin fan. Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones surprise guest appearance on stage - and their storming rendition with Grohl & Co of Zep classics Rock and Roll and Ramble On - made this a gig to remember.

The Foo Fighters were quite superb, too.

3. Buzzcocks, Latitude Festival 2008 Sweaty, sticky, stomping fun in a marquee at 2am isn't everyone's idea of a good time. It's my idea of a good time and I wrote about it here.

2. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Birmingham Carling Academy, 5th May 2008;
Grinderman, Latitude Festival 2008 I'm cheating a bit, here - I suppose this should be two separate entries - but this is my list so my rules rule. I wrote about the former here and the latter there.


1. Tom Waits, Le Grand Rex Paris, 24th July 2008 - No shit, Sherlock. A bit of a foregone conclusion, this. A Tom Waits gig will always, by definition, be the the gig of the year. That's just the way it is.

I attempted a reconstruction of the gig here.

Top 10 Films of 2008 to follow.

Tom Waits, Grand Rex Paris, 29th May 2000

I'm off to see Tom Waits at the Grand Rex in Paris in a few weeks time and, needless to say, I'm rather excited. It's won't be the first time I've seen him live. In fact, I saw him at the very same venue 8 years' ago.

Here's something from the archives:

He’d given two encores - and the house lights had long since come up - but the audience were still on their feet and making an awful lot of noise thirty minutes after Tom Waits had left the stage of the Grand Rex Theatre in Paris. After forty-five minutes, and much to the relief of the bewildered theatre staff, the numbers had dwindled: most had accepted that he wasn’t coming back and reluctantly made their way to the exits. There was a stubborn, hardcore element, though, who carried on whooping and roaring, undeterred by reason and the pleas of the theatre manager to “Go home!”

I know - I was one of them.

The Grand Rex is lavish art-deco monument steeped in history doused in the spirit of Toulous-Lautrec - in other words, the perfect place to see a Tom Waits concert. Upon entering the theatre there was a buzz in the air – the kind you read about in the archive pages of rock magazines, of those legendary gigs that always seemed to happen before you were born. You’re reluctant to let your expectations fly, though, because that’s a high-risk game… you’ve waited thirteen years' for this and if your wings catch fire that’s quite a fall.

The lights dimmed, the drum-roll started… the crowd erupted. The drum kept rolling - he was taking his time. The crowd went silent, staring at the stage: “What’s he building in there?”

People were still being ushered to their seats when he entered through a side door to the downstairs seating area. There was a very, very loud roar. The spotlight followed him up to the stage as he threw fistfuls of glitter at the frenzied audience while growling into his bullhorn: “Ladeez and gentlemen – Harry’s Harbour Bizarre is proud to present, under the Big Top tonight, Human Oddities. That’s right, you’ll see The Three Headed Baby, you’ll see Hitler’s Brain, see Lea Graff the German midget who sat in J.P. Morgan’s lap…”

And I knew right then that this was one of those nights I’d be telling your grandkids about.

Here’s a pet theory of mine, make of it what you will: great concerts – like great movies and even (ahem) great comics – are made up of moments, little epiphanies that that transcend the clutter of our lives and take us to a different place. John Wayne walking off into the sunset at the end of ‘The Searchers’, that’s one. Judge Dredd punching Judge Fear in the face while saying “Gaze into the fist of Dredd”, that’s another. As you get older, these moments are fewer and farther between – maybe because there’s more clutter to transcend than there used to be. With concerts, you’re lucky to find a single moment that light’s your candle, fill’s your bucket and stays with you forever.

Well, Monday night was full of them:

Joining in on the chorus sing-a-long to Innocent When You Dream, Waits looks up from his piano and just says “Beautiful”... his deliciously surreal between-song anecdotes (anyone whose seen the film “Big Time” or listened to the album “Nighthawks at the Diner” knows what I’m talking about here) ... The Glitterball Hat he wears during Eyeball Kid (a great visual effect for the fraction of the cost of a light bulb at a Pink Floyd concert)... the theatre turning into an ornate moshpit for ’16 Shells... The Bolshoi Ballet Anecdote...

(Explaining then ban on flash photography at the gig, Waits' told the audience of his early career as a member of the Bolshoi Ballet. He was at the top of a human pyramid when someone in the audience took a photo. "My career," he explained, "was over in a flash.")

Lots of moments, but I particularly enjoyed The Piano Incident. During A Little Rain - a delicate lament from Bone Machine - there's some screeching feedback as a piano string snaps. “Come on Bob, fix it! You’re on salary!” he yells to a hapless roadie, before adding: “You’re on salary for a minute.” As poor “Bob” tries to fix the piano string, Waits hammers out a staccato tune on the piano whilst ad-libbing a song-slash-running commentary. Then he turns to the audience and says: “That’s a fresh song… straight outta the oven…”

Like his recent album Mule Variations, the set-list touched most of the bases of Waits career. He played plenty of stuff from the Island era, with the classic Raindogs being surprisingly well represented (including the eponymous track, Tango ‘til They’re Sore, Jockey Full Of Bourbon and a, frankly, jaw-dropping rendition of Gun Street Girl). The only Asylum era song was a faultless rendition of Invitation To The Blues, while there were plenty of tracks played from his more recent albums.

As I (reluctantly) left the theatre, I kept thinking of another one of those moments. An English guy in the audience tried to heckle Waits: “Why didn’tcha play the UK?” This was not a smart thing to do as Waits doesn't suffer fools gladly. He snarled at the heckler “Y’know, I have these embarrassing family members who keep following me around”, and that led seamlessly into Cementary Polka, a song about embarrassing family members.

As I left the theatre I thought to myself: “If only that guy had rephrased his heckle. Instead of “Why didn’tcha play the UK?” he should have asked “When are you going to play the UK?”

If I got a straight answer to that one I'd be booking my ticket now.

The Plastic Beer Skiff Snake

Over the years I've seen many jaw-droppingly odd things happen at gigs. I went to an Eric Clapton concert in 1988 where the person standing directly in front of me spent the night yelling "JESUS! FORGIVE ME! SAVE US FROM OUR SINS!" at Old Mano Lenta. I can only assume he once saw the famous image of the brick wall with the 'Clapton is God' graffiti and took it all a bit too literally.

The fact he bore an uncannily resemblance to Rasputin The Mad Monk didn't help matters. The yelling guy, that is, not Clapton. Clapton looked nothing like Rasputin The Mad Monk, at least not in 1988.

I went to a Flaming Lips gig in Birmingham in 2003 that was brought to a standstill after someone dancing on stage collapsed from heat exhaustion. In and of itself, that may strike you as unfortunate but not particularly odd. What puts the odd meter to the red line and nudges the event into the Realm of the Mentalated was the fact that the collapsee was dressed as a giant panda. Yes, that's right, a giant panda. As the music stopped and the band's effortlessly charismatic frontman Wayne Coyne made reassuring noises to the audience, paramedics had to be called to the stage to administer first aid to someone who was Dressed. As. A. Giant. Panda.

Maybe it's just me, then.

The most recent example took place at the thoroughly awesome Foo Fighters Wembley Stadium gig the other week. Now, I haven't been to a stadium concert for a l-o-n-g time. The last one was - Jesus Christ on a Pogo-stick! - The Rolling Stones at Maine Road in 1990, so maybe this sort of thing is now de rigeur and as commonplace as Mexican Waves and overpriced drinks. But somehow I doubt it.

Behold, The Plastic Beer Skiff Snake. It's a snake. It's made of plastic beer skiffs. It was an impromptu collaborative effort that involved hundreds of people.

Look upon it's length, ye mighty, and despair:

Flu Fighters

Well, I didn't get around to writing a proper review of last Saturday's absolutely Goddamn awesome Foo Fighters gig at Wembley Stadium because, since then, I've been sick as a pike.

Even on the day of the gig I was far from ship shape and Bristol fashion. I started the morning with some low-level nasal congestion, by late-afternoon had numerous achy limbs and and I saw the evening in with some irregular and embarrassing bouts of violent and theatrical sneezing. The surprise Led Zeppelin semi-reunion seemed to sort it all out, though - temporarily at least. It's too bad you can't get surprise Led Zeppelin semi-reunions on the NHS. It'd work wonders for the nation's health, especially once we get Robert Plant onboard.

Anyhow, by Sunday night my temperature had sky-rocketed and on Monday morning the nausea had kicked in. I was in no fit state to go to work, let alone write a proper review of last Saturday's absolutely Goddamn awesome Foo Fighters gig at Wembley Stadium. I was probably in no fit state to write my name on a dusty Venetian blind, but luckily no one was expecting that of me.

On Wednesday morning I woke up to discover hideous, bulbous protrusions on my left hand and forehead. It made me look like a cross between Dan Dare's nemesis The Mekon and a political analyst from the BBC. Now, I'm no expert on medical matters, but left hand and forehead bulbous protrusions are not traditional flu symptoms.

It turned out that a mosquito had found its way into our bedroom, and the little bastard had spent the night feasting on me. I hadn't even realised there were mosquitoes in Birmingham, let alone that they had it in for me. Maybe it's a global warming thing.

In any case, I'm only sharing this with you because I know you care.

Tom's Wait is Over

Séance: Tom Waits
Date et heure: 24/08/07 20:00
Endroit: Rex Theatre, Paris

Translation: Fucking-A!

This is why I like Tom Waits

I've never made a secret of the fact that my all-time favourite recording artist bar none is Mr Thomas Alan Waits of Pomona, California. My all-time favourite album is a Tom Waits album, my all-time favourite concert was a Tom Waits concert and my all-time favourite song about inebriated pianos is a Tom Waits song about an inebriated piano. You get the drift.

He'll be touring soon, which is good news for me. Assuming I get a ticket, that is. Getting hold of a ticket for a Tom Waits concert is a fiendishly difficult business. The last time he played in the UK was four years ago and I booked a day of work for the day the tickets went on sale and still failed to get hold of one.

Anyhow, he's touring again and here's a clip of the "press conference" he held to announce it. Like his music, you'll either get it or you won't.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Birmingham Carling Academy, 5th May 2008

There's cool, there's uber-cool and then there's Nick Cave. Australia's finest export - the Black Crow King himself - was on particularly fine form as he performed in front of a sell-out crowd at the apparently soon-to-be demolished Academy on Monday night.

He certainly looked the part. Dressed in a black, open-top silk shirt and sporting a horseshoe moustache, he put one in mind of a Latin American Revolutionary Hero with Goth-inclinations. For over two hours' he had the audience eating out of his hand. Granted, this may have something to do with the fact that few rock stars have fans who are quite as obsessive as Cave's (although, unlike the last time I saw him, I didn't spot any obvious 'Nick Clones' in the audience), but then again, few rock stars can match his charisma as a live performer.

With a two hour-plus set comprising of tracks from his new album Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! and some generous portions of from his not inconsiderable back catalogue, Cave and his long-time cohorts The Bad Seeds kept both new fans and decrepit old farts (like me) more than happy for more than two hours. This welcome trawl through the archives went as far back as 1986's deliciously-titled Your Funeral, My Trial (surely a contender for the quintessential murder ballad title) and included the perennial crowd-pleaser and movie soundtrack tart Red Right Hand. Other highlights of the evening included a stunning rendition of one of my favourite Cave tracks, Tupelo, from 1985's The Firstborn is Dead. It sounded every bit as menacing and magnificent as when I first heard it as a teenager.

Cave, though, saved the best for last. Before an impromptu and unrehearsed encore performance of the Abattoir Blues' opener Get Ready for Love, Cave warned the audience to prepare themselves for a disaster. The performance proved to be anything but: the Bad Seeds played mean and tight and the performance was electrifying. The night ended with The Lyre of Orpheus, which Cave transformed into a full audience-participation, call-and-response anthem.

I'll be seeing him again at the Latitude Festival this year in his incarnation as lead singer of Grinderman. That makes me an exceptionally lucky bastard.



Thanks to DinosauriaWe on YouTube for the following:

Slight return

"We met a crazed speed garage afficianado from Northampton, who advised us not to buy a double gin and Red Bull (and not because of the taste), and told the most uninteresting interesting anecdote about the Astoria. It’s a bit scary to get stuck talking to somebody like that, but looking back it means that I’ll remember the Breeders gig as the gig with the nutter. It fits."

Steve Miller remembers the Breeders gig with his far more succinct (and possibly far more accurate) account of the evening here.

The Breeders, Birmingham Academy, 13th April 2008

So here I am, and there I was - enjoying a sticky-floored Sunday evening at Birmingham's bijou Academy 2. I was there to see The Breeders and it was all thanks to my friend - macaroon chomping Friend-of-Garfield Jez Higgins - who generously gave me the ticket that he bought just seconds before he realised the gig clashed with his Wedding Anniversary. These things happen, and lucky for me they do. Thanks for the ticket, Jez and Nat. Hope you had a Happy Anniversary.

I got to the venue fairly late as I'd spent most of the day recovering from the previous night, which happened to be my Mum's 70th Birthday Party. I'll write about that some other time, assuming my dangerous dance moves don't end up on YouTube first.

Anyhow, the dramatis personae for the evening were my friends Sal, Dave, Pete & Steve. When I arrived at The Academy, Sal - who'd travelled all the way up from Bristol - was nowhere to be found while Dave (who works at the venue) was, um, working at the venue. I caught up with Pete and Steve shortly after catching the tail-end of Jim Noir, the support act. Jim Noir seemed like fun, or at least their tail-end did. I can't comment about their top-side, let alone their midsection.

Anyhow, we were all there to see The Breeders - and mighty fine they were, too.
The Deal twins, Kim and Kelley, were on top form. Bookending the stage with the rest of the band in between, they provided a steady stream of betwixt-song banter and oblique sisterly in-jokes that entertained the huddled masses no end. With delicate ferocity they blasted through tracks from their new album, Mountain Battles, as well as enough vintage material to keep decrepit old farts like me happy and content. The new stuff was well received, their classics like Cannonball really lit up the crowd, but for me the highlight was their sublime cover of The Beatles' Happiness is a Warm Gun. I'm not a big fan of Beatles' covers, but this was an exceptional exception.

All in all, then, a good gig by a band I'd always wanted to see live. To some in the crowd, though, it was more than just that. To alt-rock fans of a certain age - and, let's be honest, I'm talking specifically about my age here - there's something quite special about Kim Deal. Sure, as the effortlessly hip frontwoman of The Breeders for 18-odd years she's earned her rock and roll stripes. As the bass guitarist, backing singer and sometimes co-songwriter with the seminal band Pixies, however, she's long since been elevated to the status of living goddamn legend. I got the impression that a few hardliners had only turned up at the gig to get a quick fix of idol worship to tie them over until the next Pixies reunion. It was a bit like Beatlemaniacs at a 'Wings' concert, I suppose.

Of course, that sort of stuff can sometimes get embarrassing.

Somewhere between the tail-end of Jim Noir and the front-end of The Breeders I was catching up with Pete and Steve and looking out for Sal. We were nattering away about nothing untoward when a tall, 30-something, intense-looking chap in a Ramones T-shirt muscled-in on the small talk and - with an edge of inappropriate urgency - blurted out to Pete: "I like your Parka, mate."

"Um, thanks," said Pete, suddenly aware of his parka.

"Yeah," said Ramones T-shirt man (let's call him 'Joey'). "I love parkas I do. F*****g brilliant, they are, The King of Coats. I hope you pull some fit bird in a Lambretta tonight. Some fit bird (Right?) who drives her Lambretta into the Acadamy (Right?) and f*****g pulls you 'cos of your Parka, (Right?)."

"Ummm, right..." said Pete.

Joey was speaking in that unmistakable, uninterruptable tempo that's commonly associated with those with a penchant for industrial-strength Colombian Marching Powder. He was, I'd decided, a victim of substances beyond his control. Being stone cold sober I wasn't equipped to deal with this and decided to exuent stage left at the first opportunity. 'Joey' must have been reading my mind, because just at these thoughts were crystallising in my cranium he jabbed a gnarly finger at me and said:

"Your jacket's shit, man."

Before I had a chance to defend the reputation of the Levi Strauss Company or say something witty, clever and self-effacing like "I prefer to think of it as à la merde...", our new gig-pest pal-apparent immediately launched into a high-tempo verbal rampage that went something like this:

"The Pixies, man, they changed my life. They changed my f*****g life. When I first heard the Pixies, man, I was listening to them with this mate from Leeds (he's into dance now - he only listens to Dance now, but he was well into the Pixies back in the day - he's a DJ in Leeds) and the Pixies, man, they sounded like nothing else we'd ever heard. Seriously, man, like nothing else. I couldn't listen to any other music, man, not after listening to the Pixies. That's how much they changed my life."

There was a contemplative pause that lasted for about a beat.

"I got Title TK when it came out," he continued. "I haven't listened to it yet. It's still in the cellophane wrapper. I'm afraid of listening to it. I don't want it to ruin the memories..."'

Title TK' was an album by The Breeders. It was released six years' ago.

The monologue continued for quite some time, lurching in many directions but never straying too far from the key anchor words of "Pixies", "Changed" and "Life". While all this was going on, I was desperately trying to make my excuses and leg it. After all, I had a legitimate excuse: I had to find my good friend Sal. She was a stranger to Birmingham and I didn't know whether she was a gig-MIA or at an NIA-gig. But every time I started to say "Must dash - I've got to go and find my friend from Bristol" Joey trampled the words to death before my very ears. This happened on numerous occasions and I never made it past the first adverb.

"You were talking about gigs at Camden Palace, weren't you, right?" said Joey, after we specifically did not talk about gigs at Camden Palace. "I've been to Camden Palace," he continued. "London's really mad, innit? I've got this anecdote about Camden Palace: I was going to a gig at Camden Palace (can't remember who it was - I was really f*****g wasted) and I'd never been there before and I got off at Camden Tube Station and I didn't know where I was going so I asked this taxi driver 'Where's Camden Palace?' and he said 'Cor Blimey, stone the crows, mate - that's about a mile and a half away' and I said 'Mile-and-a-half? That's how far I walk to the corner shop every day!"

And that, it seemed, was his anecdote.

He told us many things. He told us that he wasn't from Stoke but people from Stoke have told him you can't get grass in Stoke. He told us about a t-shirt he was going to make especially for the Breeders' gig: "I made a t-shirt (Right?). I made this f*****g t-shirt. F*****g hilarious it is. Wait 'til you see it. Shit - I forgot to bring it. I meant to bring it tonight. I made it for tonight. It reads: 'What's the Deal, Kim and Kelley?' Geddit? Deal... Kim Deal? Geddit? 'Kim and Kelley'? D'ya geddit? Geddit? Geddit? Geddit? Geddit? Geddit?"

We got it.

"But, man," he sighed, "I love the Pixies." Something had suddenly changed in Joey's voice. His tempo had slowed down. Uh oh, I thought. This can only mean trouble.

"Yeah, the Pixies really changed my life. And Kim changed my life, too. There will always be a special place in my heart for that woman." There was a pause. Joey took a deep breath. You could just tell that this is the moment was what his whole, weird monologue of wrong was building up to. There was a tangible sense the was going wrap things up by saying something profound, something that would give us an insight into this odd, tortured soul.

Then, at the top of his voice, he bellowed: "I've thought about Kim Deal whilst wanking myself silly more than any other woman on this planet."

My jaw dropped. Others' did, too. Despite being a packed venue, the place seemed to suddenly go very, very quiet. All eyes were fixed on Joey, and then all eyes were fixed on us. Accusing looks that seemed to say: "We hope you're proud of yourselves! You must have put this poor, easily-led simpleton up to it, you shower of shites!."

At this exact point my friend Dave - who works at the venue - walked by and shot me one of those unmistakable is-he-with-you? looks. I responded with my unmistakable don't-be-so-f*****g-ridiculous look.

I think it might have got lost in translation. I need to work on my don't-be-so-f*****g-ridiculous look.

Nick Cave

Looks as though I'll be seeing Nick Cave twice this year.

Over the weekend it was announced that Nick Cave would be appearing at this year's bloody marvellous Latitude Festival. As I'm going to Latitude, have already bought a pair of tickets to see him play at the Birmingham Academy next month and am currently so skint I can't pay attention you might think I'd be a bit annoyed by this turn of events. Not so: I'm bloody well delighted.

As a big fan of Nicholas Edward Cave for many, many years I already know how good he is live. Despite of his reputation - unwarranted, in my opinion - for creating dark, brooding, Book of Revelation-tinged songs about love and murder, as a live performer he's a true swaggering God of Rock who kicks arse so hard it farts out of its nose.

If that wasn't enough, the two gigs are under two very different incarnations. The Academy gig is with The Bad Seeds, promoting their latest offering Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! (haven't heard it yet, but I've yet to hear a NC album I didn't like) while at Latitude he'll be performing with Grinderman, his Birthday Party-esque, raw noise, gee-tar band. They've got a song called "No Pussy Blues", and another track (Love Bomb) that namechecks Radio 4's Gardener's Question Time. That's how cool he is.

Maybe I should go and see him three times, instead...

My Top 10 Gigs of 2007

Don't you just hate those end of year countdown shows? Cheap, schedule-padding fodder consisting of cobbled together clips and witless pundits pontificating witlessly. I even wrote about me intense dislike for this pernicious genre here. Oh, how I hate them.

Here's a countdown of my favourite gigs of 2007:


10. Jeffrey Lewis & The Jitters, Birmingham Hare & Hounds, 20th October

My third Jeffrey Lewis gig and the best so far. I wrote a lengthy review of it here. In that review I forgot to mention that in addition to Jeffrey's uncle - Professor Louis - there was also support from local ska hipsters Dexter. Let me remedy that now: I thought they were fab. This belated endorsement is a little pointless, however, as Dexter have since imploded-slash-morphed into a new popular beat combo called walk.don't.walk. Oh, well - it's the thought that counts.



9. CSS, Latitude Festival, 14th July

A guilty pleasure, and we're all allowed those. CSS's vibrant set encapsulated the wonderful Latitude Festival for me, and their track "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death From Above" was this year's feelgood Summer song of choice with my tinny-but-temperamental car stereo.

The Latitude weekend was one of my highlights of this year for me, and this is the first of several mentions it gets on this list. I've already booked my ticket for next year's. You should, too.



8. Damo Suzuki and his Assortment of Sound-Carrying Biatches : Birmingham Hare & Hounds, August 16th

A mad, mad night of madness and the madness does not diminish with the passage of time. I wrote about it here. Did I mention it was mad?

Here's a pic wot Pete took:

Former Can-man Suzuki played what was possibly the same song repeatedly (it was hard to tell) with a rotating lineup of "sound carrying" local bands including The Courtesy Group, Mills and Boon and the mighty Modified Toy Orchestra (whose gig at the Birmingham Town Hall in October very almost nearly got into this Top 10).

Here some YouTubery featuring Damo at a Courtesy Group event from 2005:





7. Tony Bennett, Birmingham Town Hall, 8th May

The next best thing to seeing Sinatra live. As Stan Lee would say, "'Nuff Said."




6. Jarvis Cocker: Latitude Festival, 15th July

He is Jarvis: that is reason enough.

As an encore he played Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger".

Need I say more?



5. Jim White & Jenny Owen Youngs, Birmingham Barfly, 18th October

A headliner and his support. Is that allowed? Shouldn't that be two separate entries?

It's my list. They're my rules. Deal with it.

Here's Jenny Owen Youngs on the night in question, courtesy of YouTube and a public-minded citizen:



And here's Jim White at a different Barfly on the same tour singing the wonderfully-titled "A Bar Is Just A Church Where They Serve Beer":



4. The Pogues: Birmingham Academy, 16th December

Tough call. I was very tempted to place them higher as they played an absolute blinder of a gig, even by the legendary standards of a Pogues' gig. But it was only a fortnight ago (and I only wrote about it two blog entries ago) and I like to give my perceptions space to breathe, so I'll exercise some restraint.

But, Goddamnit - that was one helluva night...

Here's a taster from the night, courtesy of yet another public-spirited soul & YouTube:



3. The National: Latitude Festival, 15th July; Birmingham Irish Centre, 6th November

So good I saw them twice this year. That should say it all.

This is them quiet:

This is them loud:


2. Devo: Birmingham Symphony Hall, 22nd June

At the beginning of the year, Devo - they of the yellow boiler suits, red plastic hats and New Wave bequirkery - weren't really on my Gigs I Must Really Go To This Year list. But my friends Pete and Jez - two self-confessed Devo spuds - were so excited at the prospect of their first UK tour in 17-odd years that it would have been churlish of me to decline the invite. So I went.

Let's just say that their set lit me up, fused my synapses and left me smiling like a simple-minded child. I'd never thought that such hard-rocking euphoria could be produced within the ornate surroundings of Birmingham Symphony Hall. I wasn't alone: the venue's security staff looked positively bewildered.

I am convinced. I am converted. I am Devolved.




1. Arcade Fire: Latitude Festival, 15th July

I mentioned before that the Latitude Festival was one of the highlights of my year. Well, this was the highlight of Latitude.

Arcade Fire concerts are legendary, so my expectations were high. That can be a kiss of death, but thankfully they delivered. It was everything I'd hoped for and more.

Sublime, awe-inducing, breathtaking. Up there with Radiohead at Glastonbury '97. Really: that's how good it was.


Honourable mention should go to the following who didn't quite make the list: The Modified Toy Orchestra at Birmingham Town Hall [15th October]; Misty's Big Adventure & The Destroyers at Brum's Rootsville Festival [30th June]; Wilco [who I heard but couldn't see so can't include], Rodrigo Y Gabriela [disqualified as I only caught the last 15 minutes of their set, which seemed pretty fucking awesome], The Good The Bad & The Queen, Bat For Lashes and Joan as Policewoman at Latitude; Bearsuit at the Sunflower Lounge [September 7th].

Also, despite the cruel and resentful things I said in a previous post, I quite enjoyed The Police at the NIA, too. Begrudgingly.

It's only now that I realise that 2007 was the year I became a fully fledged gig tart.

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Stung

Last Tuesday night I went to see The Police by accident.

Not that police – The Police. As in Sting, Andy Summers & Stewart Copeland. As in Roxanne, So Lonely and Every Breath You Take. That Police.

It’s time for a confession. I bought the tickets so I could sell them on Ebay. That’s right, I became the scourge of true music lovers up and down the land. By one selfish act I violated Rock’s Heritage and almost put it’s Future into jeopardy. I believe the popular term for this activity is “bedroom touting” – which makes it sound a Hell of a lot more risque than it actually was. Does this make me a bad person? It probably does. For my crimes I probably should be whacked across the back of the head repeatedly with a rolled up copy of Uncut Magazine. It’s too bad, then, that my first attempt at wanton larceny backfired so monumentally.

Here’s why I did it: I’m saving up to re-engage with the property market and saw this as an opportunity to make a fast buck off the backs of some high-income bracket rock tourists with more money than sense. Plus, having paid over-the-odds prices for sold-out gigs in the past I thought it was time for some pay back. In short, I saw myself as a sort of latter-day Robin Hood, albeit one who frequents an independent record store located amongst the low-rent backtrees of Sherwood Forest.

Needless to say, it didn’t work out quite as planned. Having bought two of the most ridiculously expensive tickets I’ve ever paid good money for [and I’m including a Tom Waits gig in Paris, here], extra dates were announced and my tickets suddenly nosedived in value. Such is life.

In the end I bit the bullet and decided to go. After all, as a young ‘un, I was actually a big fan of The Police. I had all their albums and everything. Granted, over time I came to think of Sting as – well, you know – a bit preposterous and everything. I think a lot of people did. Maybe it was just a fashionable opinion to have. In his defence, though, I’ll never forget seeing him perform at Glastonbury in ’97. It was Sunday afternoon and some unruly members of the audience took it upon themselves to hurl plastic bottles at the bleached one, bottles which may or may not have contained their own urine. It certainly looked like that from where I was standing, though I wasn’t close enough to test it with litmus paper. In any case, as Sting was warbling away about being “an alien, I’m an illegal alien” I could see this huge volley of yellow health hazards hurtling towards him. I suppose “Message in a Bottle” would have been more apt. In any case, I tried to turn away and avert my gaze, but couldn’t. There’s something undeniably compelling about seeing an international rock star pelted with piss. And then, just as these hideous Molotov colostomy cocktails were about make contact, Sting gracefully sidestepped each and every one of them without missing a single beat. It was like watching someone dance between raindrops: maybe it was something he learned from doing all that Tantric Yoga. I remember thinking: “What a pro.”

Anyway, back to last Tuesday. I invited my mum along as she’d never been to a full-on Rock concert before and I thought it would make a change from Andy Williams or Tony Bennett. And, besides, she’s my Mum and you have to spoil ‘em every now and then. It started off pretty well – it opened with the aforementioned “Message in a Bottle” followed by a blistering rendition of “Synchronicity II”, one of my favourite Police tracks – but as the evening progressed I felt a growing sense of unease. I couldn’t help but think of how much the night had cost me. With the money these seats cost I could go to between six or even eight gigs at the Birmingham Academy, twenty or more gigs at the Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath or possibly arrange a hostile take-over of the Jug of Ale in Moseley.

As the band played their classic hit ‘So Lonely’ I muttered something under my breath as I heard the line: “Just take a seat they’re always free.” As I saw people leaving the venue before the encore because they were sensible and wanted to avoid the rush, I seethed. There they were – in their Blue Harbour jeans and tucked-in, generic-slogan t-shirts heading off to their gas-guzzling, military-surplus SUVs – prematurely vacating the most expensive seats in the house. These were just the sort of high-income bracket rock tourists I wanted to fleece!

For a brief instant I looked at the empty bottle by my feet and roughly calculated the trajectory between me and them. But my mum was there, and she was enjoying herself. I couldn’t ruin the night for her. Besides, she’d have only whacked me across the back of the head with a rolled up copy of Uncut Magazine….

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Because I Can

Last night I went with my pal and gig-pimp Pete Ashton to see Damo Suzuki - former member of legendary krautrock band Can - perform at my erstwhile local muso boozer, the Hare & Hounds in Kings Heath. Frankly, I'm still trying to process the evening's events through my caffeine- and stress-addled synapses. It was, to coin a phrase I'm more than partial to using, buggier than batshit.

Which is a good thing, by the way.

Essentially, the gig was of a series of improvisational jams with Damo providing the vocals and various local bands including The Modified Toy Orchestra and The Courtesy Group providing the backing. But that doesn't really do it justice. It was very experimental and very avant-garde – in other words, the kind of things that have been known to trigger in me the involuntary rhythmic cupped-hand ideomotor response that denotes the phrase "wanker". But despite sailing perilously close to the treacherous waters of "Jazz Odyssey", it managed to be wonderful and sublime and left me grinning like a simple child.

For me, the highlight of the evening had to be Damo's jam with The Courtesy Group, who also hosted the event. It lasted about an hour, and featured some stunning improvisational work from the lead singer of the CGs [Sorry, I don't know his name - being an old-fart with a full-time job, I'm not hip on these things – dig?]. It was like watching a human beatbox at work, and reminded me of Tom Waits or Captain Beefheart. These are good things to be reminded of, by the way. When he wasn't, um, singing along with Damo he was carefully tearing strips from a copy of the local newspaper, the Birmingham Mail. At first, I naively thought it was a very subtle form of subliminal percussion, but it later dawned on me that this was probably a variation of William Burroughs' famous cut-up technique and he was using the random juxtaposition of hard-hitting local news stories and unrivalled local sports coverage as prompts for his improvisational rants. Whatever the case, it was the most productive and inspirational use of the local rag that I've seen outside of a fish-and-chip shop.

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