Gigs

Tickets booked for My Life Story at Dingwalls. As a Norf Lunduner I spent many a drunken evening tottering down Camden High Street kebab in hand. Be good to be back.

Oddly I have been listening to Madness' latest album and thought "I wonder if they have any gigs coming up" - turns out on my way to North Wales via Ludlow in a couple of weeks they are playing at Ludlow Castle on that same day. Shame all sold out.

Feels like the blowtorch one has a very specific story behind it.

They're ridiculously strict at those things. Went to a similar festival years ago and my missus made a couple of sandwiches to take in with us, but they wouldn't even allow that.

Had to scoff them down at the barriers.

A4 size bags. Ridiculous

I’ve got no issue with stringent policies. It’s the randomness of their application I object to.

Case in point was at Victorious Festival Pompey last year. Open water bottles (small) having to be discarded on the gate. Then inside seeing people openly opening and consuming tubs of mushrooms and drinking vodka from small hidden clear flasks…

Ridiculous really!

I’ve never heard of this Transmit Festival in Glasgow before but it looks like all these kids (kids!) loving life to Liam Gallagher have had a real treat. He’s in fine sneering form, doing exclusively Definitely Maybe stuff, fucking Bonehead is there, the string section came out for Whatever, and as a guitar lover this stage is wall to wall guitar porn too!

He was fucking mint at Knebworth, he’s still got it, love him.

It’s both massively impressive and totally inscrutable to me that he genuinely has a crowd aged 15-20 for the first hundred rows or so too that genuinely seem to know every word. Guarantee these kids would label almost any other artist of that era as a boomer or something. It’s like he’s cracked some code where they are allowed to like him en masse, and it’s quite heartening because when I was that age I was listening to my dad’s music too.

They all weirdly seemed to go extra large on Married With Children, which save for that ‘yer music’s shite’ line is a bit of an also-ran for me. As I felt the reaper waiting to deliver me from the arms of old age, I wondered out loud whether there is one of those things on the Tik Toks for that song.

Brill.

Manics and Suede last night. Absolutely cracking. But had to move during Suede’s set, as some cunts insisted that everyone around them should listen to their experiences of the Levellers festival. Held at Castlefield Bowl, a venue I didn’t enjoy. Not comfortable to stand in, but that is probably old age. Now to try and get a night off work so I can do Cud in September.

Saw Manics and Suede last Saturday at Cardiff Castle. Brill gig, despite the rain, which aptly started bucketing down during Tsunami (James Dean Bradfield did give a blast of Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head as they were going off though).

Seen Manics quite a few times, but first time seeing Suede, who were excellent. Given the location, the crowd weren't as into them and everyone was clearly there for the Manics, but Suede still put on a great show and eventually got everyone going with them.

Venue was lovely too. Not too big and sound quality was surprisingly good for an outdoor venue.

Liam is the best indie karaoke singer in the world. But Noel’s where the true talent is imo 😉😎

When I first heard about it I thought Suede and the Manics were strange bedfellows tbh, but then the early versions of those bands were both about escaping working class hell through glam, sleaze and brains. With guitars.

Pound for pound I’ve always thought JDB to be the most talented person in British rock from those days, although their material is very up and down.

I saw Suede at the Manchester Apollo when I was about fifteen or sixteen. My dad dropped us off and I’d forgotten the bloody tickets so he had to drive all the way back from our satellite town and was not impressed 😂

It was the Head Music tour, bit of a mixed album that one but did have some great stuff on it. I remember thinking the bass player looked like my history teacher. When you later find out that he’s Richard Osman’s brother the bookish thing makes sense.

Although that song about a sex robot was hilarious - the first time

Your Missus Is a Nutter has a very special place in my heart as I have met several versions of the woman that song's about back in the day. Rest of their stuff....yeah.

Break a leg quadfather, all metaphorical of course!!!

Still thinking about the Idles gig at Cardiff Castle on Friday night. I have seen a lot of bands, in a lot of different venues, but this is definitely going down as one of my all-time favourites; they were fucking incredible.

I've seen them before at Eden Project (which was also an outdoor gig), but there was something quite intimate about this gig even though Cardiff Castle isn't a small place to see live music. Starting with the support band Sprints;  they were excellent. I've been loving their debut album this year and got into their EPs last year so was really happy to see them on the bill. Even though a lot of the crowd didn't know their stuff, they got a good reception and kicked off the night well; high energy, great songs and they sounded very good live.

Idles themselves though, I just can't throw enough superlatives their way. I know it's cool these days to say they're posers and too preachy, but fuck that noise, they are genuinely fucking electric on-stage. They fucking obliterated a 25 song set-list full of classic songs, the new stuff, and finishing as always with a fercious rendition of Rottweiler. I was fucking grinning like a loon throughout, the crowd lapped them up, and the atmosphere was fucking brilliant. Joe Talbot is such an engaging presence on stage, and the rest of the band were on top of their game as usual.

Particular highlights were Mother, 1049 Gotho, Benzocaine, War, Television, Beachland Ballroom and my favourite on the night Never Fight A Man With A Perm.