Gig Review 2013

With the recent double header from Queens of the Stone Age in Dublin and Belfast this week I am now all done for gigs this year, sadly. Whilst not the most choc-full of calendars, after an exceptionally slow start I got to see one or two good'uns in 2013.

Time for a quick overview. What were the highlights... and why?

First the shows I saw:

Alt J - Olympia

John Grant - Watergate Theatre, Kilkenny

Mastodon - Academy

Neil Young - RDS

Bruce Springsteen - Thomond Park, Limerick

Bruce Springsteen - Kings Hall, Belfast

Bruce Springsteen - Nowlan Park, Kilkenny 1

Bruce Springsteen - Nowlan Park, Kilkenny 2

Blur - IMMA, Dublin

Roger Waters 'The Wall' - Aviva

Mark Lanegan - Sugar Club

Depeche Mode - O2, Dublin

The Jezebels - O2, Dublin

Queens of the Stone Age - O2

Sweethead - O2

Queens of the Stone Age - Odyssey, Belfast

Glastonbury '13

-> Savages
-> Tom Tom Club
-> Seasick Steve w/ John Paul Jones
-> Chic
-> The Rolling Stones
-> Johnny Marr
-> Elvis Costello (partial)
-> Bobby Womack w/ Damon Albarn
-> Smashing Pumpkins (partial)
-> Ondatròpica
-> Sergio Mendes
-> The Congos (partial)
-> Haim (thankfully only partial)
-> Steve Mason
-> Primal Scream (partial)
-> Martha Wainwright (partial)

Top Five Shows of the Year?

1. Bruce Springsteen, Thomond Park.

Out of the 4 shows from Springsteen's mini Irish tour I saw this summer, Limerick stood head and shoulders above the rest. Glorious sunshine and an energised and appreciative crowd combined with fantastic stadium organisation and sound to put on what proved to be easily my favourite gig of 2013. Goes without saying that Bruce and the ESB were in brilliant form performing their longest show ever in Ireland - not even counting the near 20 minute warm up from the man himself. I journeyed down to Limerick alone but was embraced by the Boss' travelling faithful and never once felt distant or isolated. Was no more than two metres from Bruce at times during the show itself. Incredible version of "Drive All Night" in the encore and "Hearts of Stone" from the warm up remain firmly stuck in my mind. An unforgettable experience.

2. The Rolling Stones, Glastonbury.

I had concerns about their ability to pull this off in the run up to the festival. I was very wrong to doubt them. This was at once focussed and yet appeared loose on the Pyramid Stage. The Rolling Stones put down a career marker in this two-hour exhibition of their staggering back catalogue. Obvious highlights were the spine-tingling jammarooney of "Can't You Hear Me Knockin" and a version of "Gimme Shelter" that singly justified the price of the weekend ticket to Glasters. Fantastic crowd gathered for this one. It mightnt have had the heart of some of the other great shows Ive seen on this great stage, but it really felt important - a rare feat.

3. Chic, Glastonbury.

Spent the first 30 minutes of this with my 2 year old daughter on my shoulders grooving away to the initial salvo of "Everybody Dance", "Dance Dance Dance" and a SUBLIME "I Want Your Love". The crowd that turned to appreciate my kid's moves turned what could have just been another great Chic show - how spoiled have we become?! - to one of those once in a lifetime moments where you felt proud to be alive. Never experienced the West Holts field this packed for a show before. Nile, Jerry and Kimberly Davis absolutely RINSED the place. Quality, quality show.

4. Queens of the Stone Age, Dublin.

Knock-out new record was delivered with intent just last weekend alongside a host of by-now classics in 120 minutes that flew by like nobody's business. "Better Living Through Chemistry" has never sounded as good as with the current line up. Might be the best Queens show ever in Ireland - and made the next night's Belfast show seem like the biggest anti-climax of the year.

5. Mark Lanegan, Dublin.

The man never fails to deliver. This show was something special yet again. A kalidoscope of instrumentation (strings, sax, bass, guitar) injected real vigour into songs both old and new. From "One Way Street" to "Mack the Knife" Dark Mark showed us again and again the steel wrapped in cashmere quality of his voice. An ear-drum rattling version of "Halo Of Ashes" with guitarist Jeff Fielder had Mark himself take a seat and bask in the fury of the solo. I was really surprised by how enjoyable this was. Sugar Club isnt the best of venues - but this was one of the best shows of the year without question.

Queens of the Stone Age - Belfast 2013

Couple of shots from the front row of yesterday's gig in the Odyssey. Pure fan-service from me.

Them Crooked Vultures / And So I Watch You From Afar, 10.6.10, Heineken Music Hall Amsterdam

I'd read a lot about the Heineken Music Hall as a top quality European Venue from a few different sources. It's minimalist design, just-right performance space & capacity and perfect acoustics have won it many fans. I don't think the HMH has the same pedigree as the Melkweg or the (jaw dropping) Paradiso but it certainly lent itself to a memorable show from Homme, Grohl, Jones and Johannes - Them Crooked Vultures.

Like most music geeks the notion of the supergroup leaves me cold and uninterested. It is a chance to see multiple musical heroes playing together, sure, but rarely do the participants create something that outshines their individual profile or ability. TCV are - in my opinion but few others - that rare exception. I ADORE their record. Ive listened to it incessantly and without the slightest hint at an Irish show the chance to see them in the 'Dam in the HMH was irresistible.

The gig itself was absolutely incredible. Purists will tut-tut and curl their lips at the thought but I felt they were one of the tightest, most hard rockin' bands ive seen in YEARS. A relentless multiheaded groovebeast - certainly a f*cksight better than the most recent shows i'd heard from Homme or Grohl in their "day jobs". This was a band with one record that stuck rigidly to it despite the huge pressure (im sure?!) to delve into their trench-deep back catalogue. The songs are great on the record but translated wonderfully well to the stage. The knowing looks between the band members are a dead giveaway to me that the Vultures experience has been a joy for all concerned - audience and band member alike.

Though still clearly Homme's outfit, for once he wasnt the centre of attention. This was not some ego trip or vehicle - on the night he was freed to relax and croon, to really luxuriate. Yes he's the band leader - but even the keenest of Homme fangirls (me included, ha!) flicked their gaze from bass player to drummer and back again throughout the show. What a prospect - Led Zeppelin's bass player with Nirvana's drummer and the guitar player/vocalist from Queens of the Stone Age! Mental?! When you add the unassuming intensity of Allan Johannes' bass & rhythm guitar this is a line up from the deepest of dreams and an absorbing delight to witness. I enjoyed it so much the celebratory double jack 'n cokes were in the teens by the end of a sensational show. It was really genuinely special.

"This is one I'll always remember" was repeated to myself from first tune to last.

An opening 4-song smack upside the head, with a jammaroony on the Cream soundalike "Scumbag Blues" that went on for ten minutes had my smile muscles in need of a serious massage. JPJ's bass solo and his interplay with Grohl's drums had so much fun and character to it that made it impossible to not grin... it was pure pleasure from start to finish. "Dead End Friends" had the place going doolally - there was a real pop feel from the Homme/Grohl harmonies. Admittedly you got the impression Jonesy's vocals were better off left on the bus but the other two lads really complimented one another. Grohl in particular revelled in backing up his mate with vocals - something we didnt really get to see in their last appearances together on record and on tour with the Queens.

Further highlights were "Reptiles" and a titanic version of "...Daffodils". One of the best & most enjoyable shows I've ever seen. Fact they only have one album makes it doubly impressive. Such a shame they never played Dublin.

Oh - ASIWYFA were support. They were fab and made a rake of new Dutch fans on the night. "Set Guitars to Kill" rinsed the place.

No One Loves Me & Neither Do I
Gunman
Scumbag Blues
Dead End Friends
Elephants
Highway One
New Fang (Followed by Alain Johannes solo)
Bandoliers
Interlude With Ludes
Mind Eraser, No Chaser
Caligulove
You Can't Possibly Begin To Imagine
Spinning In Daffodils
Reptiles
Warsaw or The First Breath You Take After You Give Up

Set Guitars To Kill
S Is For Salamander
A Little Bit Of Solidarity Goes A Long Way
D is for Django the Bastard
If It Ain't Broke... Break It
Eat The City, Eat It Whole

RATM / Jane's Addiction, Gelredome Arnhem, 9.6.10

The reformed and somewhat reenergised RATM bandwagon rolled on from Dublin to Holland for a show in the Geldredome, Dutch league Vitesse Arnhem's stadium. The main reason I found myself tagging along having seen them the night before can be put down to Jane's Addiction providing support. Rage Against The Machine and Jane's Addiction on the same bill? Yep. Sounds like a winner to me.

Arnhem is a sleepy little town about an hour and 20 minutes east of Amsterdam on the train. I guess its most notable characteristic is its inadvertant participation in WWII Operation Market Garden, a mission immortalised in 70's book & war movie "A Bridge Too Far". The bridge the Allies failed to defend is indeed located here. The town is otherwise an unremarkable place that was temporarily invaded with crusties, skinheads and freaks for the day of the gig. I won't make any cheap references/comparisons to the gig and this failed attempt to bring early conclusion to the war. Promise.

The Geldredome itself had been set up quite neatly for the show with the stage in the middle of the pitch and huge black drapes partitioning off the venue to one end. There was certainly more of an intimacy to the place than i expected with the acoustics holding up great for a stadium show. With the dome itself closed there was a muggy tepid feeling inside which suited the line up perfectly. The local herbivours are a chilled bunch and this was no different. There were no real queues for the entire evening. Easy peasy. Made for an enjoyable night.

Gallows (energetic but monotonous) and Gogol Bordello (even more energetic but lacking depth) provided further support. Interesting to note that both bands supported RATM in Dublin the night before, without Jane's Addiction but for a more expensive ticket price...

I wandered quite easily into the pit at the front and took up a position stage-right in advance of Jane's. Having been a fan for years - but never having seen them - I had that heady giddyness than makes these international trips so worthwhile! The band strutted out to a hugely warm and enthusiastic welcome accompanied by ex-GnR bassist Duff McKagan. This would prove to be one of only a handful of McKagan's performances with Janes as his time in the band came to a close only a few months later. This was not part of a Jane's Addiction European tour and there was only one further date before they headed back to the US.

What a pity it was that they didnt hang around longer as this line up was really special. Perry Farrell looking a million bucks in a crisp white shirt and Dave Navarro pulling his finest Steve Jones poses in fedora stripped to the waist. The chemistry of these two on stage was added to by presence of a pair of dancers adorning a chez-longue towards the back for the duration of the show...

The short enough (55 mins) show had enough to satisfy my needs with an absolutely incredible version of Three Days - without question my favourite JA track. Worth the flight and train journey for this alone. McKagan was right in front of me for the bass led intro and eyeballed me a couple times throughout... my nod of approval seemed to get a cheap grin. I was that close to the stage. Navarro's solo was just f*ckin amazing. A fantastically expressive guitar player! Downside was when they played Superhero from the Strays record, a tune that has gained popularity from being the theme to Entourage rather than being a decent track in my opinion. It sounded weak and whiney with Farrell seriously iffy on the vocals.

Nothing's Shocking's 'title track' "Ted Just Admit It" rounded off their short set well however. Stephen Perkins and Navarro both nailed it. Crowd around me were absolutely blown away by the creepy claustrophic feel in the track... the discomfort from Farrell's refrain of "Sex. Is. Violent... Sex. Is Violent..." with his band throbbing away in the background. If the venue felt thick with atmosphere beforehand it was dripping when the band finished in a frenzy. Crowd around me in the pit were wide eyed& blown away.

RATM were next out and more or less trotted through the same show as the previous night in Dublin. If anything I could sense their tiredness a little having seen them on these consecutive nights. They had less technical problems in Holland - the sound it has to be said was great with the Dome/stage alignment contributing to a full and loud rock show.

Little or no banter from the band to the Dutch audience which was unfortunate - despite the ballistic response for "People of The Sun". Highlight for me was probably "Calm Like A Bomb" which wasnt played the night before or "Freedom" which nearly busted the roof open. Truth be told however this wasnt as enjoyable a RATM show as the Pinkpop show from 2008.

I left before the end of "Killing in the Name" to catch a bus back to the hotel. The night taught me that there really is nothing more to see with RATM after one show. They are much feted live band - but the finesse of the records isnt carried over to the live show. The thrill from them for me comes from the record. Im getting too old to take delight in their performance.

Trip to Amsterdam for "Them Crooked Vultures" the next night became the priority...

Full disclosure - went to bed that night thinking of the potential gig of the year in store.

Testify
Bombtrack
People of the Sun
Know Your Enemy
Bulls on Parade
Township Rebellion
Renegades of Funk(Afrika Bambaataa cover)
Bullet in the Head
Calm Like a Bomb
White Riot (The Clash cover)
Sleep Now in the Fire
Guerrilla Radio
Freedom
Encore:
Killing in the Name

Mountain Song
Ain't No Right
Whores
Three Days
Been Caught Stealing
Superhero
Ocean Size
Ted, Just Admit It...

The Mercury Prize 2010 - From M People to The xx

Dummy / Seldom Seen Kid / Stories from the City are albums I return to again and again. Arctic Monkeys is also a very fine album. I own another 8 of the eventual winners of the Mercury Music Prize but would rarely throw them on. I think the Mercury Prize started with good intentions but has always suffered following "Elegant Slumming"'s victory. It just discredited the thing beyond reason. Fellow nominees Wild Wood/Jilted/Parklife didnt just define the year they were released - in many ways these are some of the best records of the 1990s never mind an individual year. It was devastatingly poor judgement from the panel - did they even listen to the records? "Country" / "Poison" / "This is a Low" or "One Night In Heaven"? Oh dear.

But was there more afoot than merely selecting the best record? After all thats far too easy a job! My shot in the dark is that M People's win was a failed attempt to restyle the prize as genuinely genre-free, impervious to critical opinion & devoid of rockist bias. This failed. As a result it is as rare as hen's teeth for the winner to be anything other than curio ten years hence. I realise this is all subjective but the first two winners were solid non-controversial selections that arguably deserved their win. Many albums since then didnt need time for people to realise they were below par. As such its my belief that The xx will soon be forgotten about similar to a Ms. Dynamite or a Gomez.

How has the Mercury prize survived such a chequered history you may ask? The answer is simply that there nothing like it - its an ingenious idea copied in other countries (Ireland and the US to name but two). A prize for the music fan, be they fleeting or committed. How many times per year are people betting on music? Its a unique event in the calendar. My personal interest in it stems from seeing Blur and the Prodigy nominated for the same prize - at the time it was exiting, a competition where a dance act competes with a indie pop band!? Unfortunately each subsequent winner since '94 serves not to see the best record of the year rise to the top but only to nourish the egotism of the faceless panel that hand out the cheque. It is pure luck if on any given year the best record of the year dovetail with the needs of the Mercury prize itself. Usually the award has other needs - to reward the best record made in the previous 12 months not being one of them.

It started out as an alternate means of rewarding an album's merit. It stood in opposition to the the likes of the Brit award that focusses purely on sales. Now the Mercury seems to me to have become a self serving post festival season bash. Its part of the marketing schedule now - the "curse of the Mercury Prize" label notwithstanding.

Interestingly, the efforts a band has to go to to get nominated and then to show up on the night itself is both costly and unusual. For example 125 copies of your album to even get nominated - 125 further copies are required along with the £2000 for a booze free table at the dinner for the night should you actually get nominated. Not great. But the industry laps it up - any port in a storm where sales are going through the floor. Release schedules are managed to fit in with the nominations. It is central to the music industry calendar now.

Breakthrough single -> Support tour with last year's fave -> Album launch -> Buzz worthy performance at Glasto -> Mercury nomination -> Every UK/Euro festival possible - > Awards night -> Potential record sales boost -> winter tour -> Christmas pressie market. Ring any bells?

Granted this won't be the case for a lot of the nominees, but to take Mumfords as an example the above steps are pretty much on the money for the year's "generic indie band marketing plan". Past winners can be categorised in 4 ways:

1. Best album from the list wins. (Screamadelica / Dummy -> the rarest of beasts and album that stands the test of time)

2. Gross errors of judgement. (M People / Speech Debelle)

3. Populist choices. (Arctics / Elbow)

4. Self serving choices. (Anthony Johnsons / Roni Size)

Last night The xx won and it feels similar to the "Klaxons" record for me - a youthful "of it's time and place" record. It has been toured to death and has seeped into various other media - be it sports highlight packages or US TV shows. The Klaxons never got that far granted but you get the idea. Why it merited winning this year's prize is that the Mercury is back in defensive populist mode. Like it or not The xx was one of the most straight forward winners by the early bookies favourite in years. The record itself is perfectly ok. Its different rather than great. It has a slinky wee-hours appeal that is bewitching in places. In others it is amateurish and dull. Its laboured. Laura Marling on the other hand made something great that unfortunately wasnt deemed "different" enough. Marling's album will be returned to again and again, mark my words.

The winner of the Mercury is not only subject to the whimsy of the judges in the current year but also the winner or the the genre of the winner of the preceeding year. It is not an open and level playing field by any means. Gravity is continually shifting the landscape, not according to the merits of the records nominated, but by how these records relate to the roll call of previous winners. Thus I'm sure that Radiohead would have won had Pulp not won... Massive Attack would have won had Roni Size not won etc etc. I am confident to suggest that the panel will feel freer to award the prize on more predictable grounds next year. 

To sum up: the MM prize has taken on a join-the-dots aspect whereby its winners are connected inescapably from the marginal to the main stream and back again. A populist winner in one year allows for an elitist one the next and vice versa. Thus we get Pulp followed by Roni Size or Elbow followed by Speech Debelle. It is growing so tiresome at this stage. Good records get nominated but cannot win due to the constraints placed by this pathetic need to stay in balance. Theres a rule that the token Irish / Jazz nominee never wins of course. Again the bias in the nomination process. Why are these records even given the nod in the first place?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it no longer represents the "best album of the year" - it is now a unique entity "A Mercury winner". The entrants are not merely selected against their fellow nominee peers but must also negotiate the chicane of the previous winners and the cookie-cutter outline of the nomination process. Each year an album emerges to be feasted upon by music industry cred seekers and cynics.

Lastly - I dunno where I read it but what might improve the whole thing is if we got to see the deliberations / judging process. The debate that weighs up a jazz record over a pop record or a veteran of 25 albums against a debut artist would be intruiging to see. The faceless predictability one year and cynicism the next of the process is such a waste. If a "mistake" is made then the award "corrects itself" the following year. It might take a couple of years to break the cycle created by M People's win. We'll see what happens.