First’s the worst, second’s the best…
March 12, 2010 at 10:11 pm | Posted in music | Leave a commentTags: bristol, bristol academy, cardiff, cardiff arts institute, cia, live music, performing right society, the glob, the point, valleys, will young
…Or so the rhyme went, when I was a kid. Cardiff has been declared the second most musical city in Britain. Pretty good, hey?
This comes as a result of research by the Performing Right Society (PRS). Bristol placed top, according to the number of musicians the city has produced, relative to the size of its population. Bristol has a fair amount of good musical memories for me – growing up in Exeter, it was the nearest stop-off for many bands when touring. By the time I was 17 or so, my parents could have dropped me at the Academy in their sleep; it was where I went during my teenage years to see bands that I now cringe to think of. Good times.
Cardiff has a special place in my heart, though, after three-and-half years of being a student here. There are so many lovely venues here and – despite having lost The Point and The Globe being under threat – this doesn’t seem to be deterring the opening of new venues such as Cardiff Arts Institute. I’ve been to some brilliant gigs here, as well as some decidedly patchy ones. Oh, and I once had to go and see Will Young at the CIA, but that was under sufferance for work.
I’m intrigued to know exactly how they defined which artists were counted – I’m not being impertinent; I genuinely am curious. Did the musicians have to have reached a certain level of success in order to qualify? And, with regard to Cardiff, where was the cut-off point, area-wise? Would a band from the Valleys count, say? Send answers on a postcard (or, equally, just post them as a comment on this post.)
We might not have reached the top spot, but we still have Swn festival. So there. Beat that, Bristol.
Flagging up the debate
February 5, 2010 at 12:00 pm | Posted in music | 2 CommentsTags: bristol academy, festivals, flags, glastonbury, jamie t, leeds, live music, reading, t in the park, tv coverage
Should Glastonbury ban flags? It’s an issue that Eavis and co are currently grappling with, asking fans what they think. They’re not the first festival to do so: Reading and Leeds banned flags last year. But it’s still a hot topic of debate.
I have never taken a flag to a festival: I don’t see the point in them. Is it just so that you can tell your mum to watch the TV coverage and look out for you? Plus, if you’re there – or even if you’re not, and are trying to watch the TV coverage – it’s really annoying when a completely unneccessary flag keeps obstructing your eyeline.
Then again, flags can make for amusing banter. I once repeatedly bumped into someone with a badger flag at T in the Park, which never ceased to provoke a mass sing-song of the ‘Badger Badger Badger’ song. It was fun, though I was only 16 at the time. 16-year-olds have a warped view of what’s funny.
Also, I guess that any gig has the potential for idiots. I went to see Jamie T at Bristol Academy on Wednesday night, and ended up stood next to a drunk guy who seemed to find it hilarious to shout “wheyyy!” at what were literally two-minute intervals. Whichever of his friends had encouraged him in this pursuit, telling him that it was really amusing, was sorely at fault. I was severly tempted to ask him why he’d bothered paying £15 to act like a twat when he could have done it for free in a pub, but I was worried this would only spur him on.
Surely no amount of flags could ruin festival moments like these?
Safe and secure?
November 24, 2009 at 3:36 pm | Posted in music | Leave a commentTags: ash, exmouth, hamburg, live music, morrissey, security
Security at gigs is a necessary thing. Some consider it a necessary evil, but I’ve never really been of that school of thought. I’ve never had any trouble with security guards, perhaps because I’ve never really been the troublesome sort (story of my life, that.) A couple of recent incidents, though, have set me thinking about how different various artists’ attitudes towards venue security are.
We’ve all been at one of those gigs where the security are ridiculously over-zealous. Ash‘s gig (oh no, not them again!) at Exmouth Pavilion on Saturday night was one of those.
Despite being allegedly sold out, it was by no means rammed – perhaps a reflection on the fact that it’s not a venue which normally plays host to much more than tribute bands designed to appeal to the over-40s. There was a lot of security, however – and they tried to kick some people out just for jumping about a bit. Seriously.
The band’s reaction was simple and immediate:
“What’s going on down here? They’re just dancing! It’s a rock show; people are here to have some fun, so just chill the fuck out.”
Effective, too – the number of security instantly reduced to just two slightly suspicious and edgy-looking staff. A good way of dealing with things, I’d say.
Morrissey (oh no, not him again!), in contrast, seems to view security almost as his own personal bodyguards. Someone shouted “fuck you!” as he was making some slightly bizarre – possibly vegetarian-related? – point in Hamburg about renaming the city’s residents “hamburgists” rather than “hamburgers”.
His response?
What a charming man, eh?
In defiance of the support act
November 17, 2009 at 2:03 pm | Posted in music, Uncategorized | 6 CommentsTags: bright eyes, cardiff, coal exchange, conor oberst, jim james, live music, m. ward, mike mogis, monsters of folk, my morning jacket, support act
Let’s be honest: support acts are mainly rubbish, aren’t they? There are very few that I’ve seen that have converted me, The Sleepy Jackson and The Subways being among them.
Last night I saw something quite remarkable: a gig with no support act. Monsters of Folk at the Coal Exchange, who took the stage in their three-piece suits looking for all the world like the house band straight from an American Gothic novel; perhaps something imagined up by Edgar Allan Poe.
(I wish I had an original image to use here, but there was a strict no-camera policy)
Obviously they were fantastic; that pretty much goes without saying for anything which has Conor Oberst’s involvement. But no support act? Controversial choice, arguably.
There tend to be two camps of opinion when it comes to support acts: some think that they’re just a way of making the headliners look good; others think that they’re a valid way of introducing audiences to other, lesser-known bands.
I’m sure that many would claim that forgoing one altogether is a colossal act of ego. Personally, I think that it was the complete opposite in this case.
Monsters of Folk feature members of Bright Eyes (Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis), My Morning Jacket (Jim James) and M. Ward (well…) – they’ve got more than enough talent between them not to need someone to make them look comparatively good.
Not showcasing another band? Less defensible, perhaps. But MoF literally played a three-hour set. This set included at least seven Bright Eyes songs, as well as plenty of My Morning Jacket and M. Ward material. This simply wouldn’t have been possible if time had had to be allowed for another band’s set.
‘Supergroups‘ (God, I hate that term, hence the inverted commas) can sometimes be frustrating because of a refusal to acknowledge that many in the audience will be there as a result of their admiration for the component bands. “Hey, we’re playing in a different band, now; you’re not meant to be here for anything else,” can sometimes go the logic.
And that, I think, is a far worse.
Lovely.
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