I went to a gig recently with the most unintentionally funny moment ever. You probably had to be there to get it, but it was at the Bedford in April when a singer* introduced a song, played the intro and sang the opening of an entirely different one by mistake. Singer jokes about stopping writing songs in the same key with the same chords. Second attempt and he blanks altogether and turns to ask, “What’s the first line?” Hehe!! But it doesn’t matter, it’s live and it’s almost right anyway. It was brilliant that he laughed at himself and he made me laugh too, which was better. Made the gig for me, although I’d rather it’d been for musical reasons…
But on to this one and hurrah a band gig, as the last few I’ve been to were acoustic. I’d not been to the Cavendish Arms in Stockwell, London before and it’s the sort of size that is usually referred to as ‘intimate’. You could be forgiven for thinking you’d wandered into a heavily pub-themed tea dance as the room was filled with tables and chairs, except of course there was no dancing, as everyone was seated! And no one was drinking tea. There was a proper stage area though, and the sound was reasonable although a little too loud to hear properly which is the norm now unfortunately.
The gig was running very late, and no Ms Presenter, it’s not ok and the tubes don’t run after midnight everywhere! No matter, I settled down to listen to Hipster’s Fix who played interesting high-energy speedy music and even whistled a bit, and M1 Connect whose singer bravely sang a song about being a walking disaster that had a nice catchy track that I liked. Both bands were interesting and quite good in various ways, I enjoyed them anyway as it’s been a while since I’ve been to a proper rocked-up band gig, there’s really only so much of that acoustic stuff a girl can take!
The band I’d gone to see were The Critical, who play indie alternative/rock music I like quite a lot. As things were running late, they didn’t get on stage until 11.15 pm which is a tiniest bit of a problem for anyone needing to leave in 20 minutes for their last tube, like me!
Edgily, I clock-watched my way through their set. They gave a very energetic performance, much more so than when I’d seen them previously at The Harlequin in Redhill six months ago, in fact it was a completely different presentation, not sure which I preferred…the singing and playing were better at the first one, but it wasn’t the same sort of gig.
After a slightly odd synthy intro, (which was probably odd due to their not actually having a synth player!) they began with Six Feet Under and Killer Fever, both excellent tunefully-catchy numbers, and the two best songs of their set. They then played two or three others that I don’t know the titles of so unfortunately can’t name the one I particularly liked!
It wasn’t, though, the one with the words ‘I don’t find you attractive’ vehemently belted out with some frequency making it one of those uncomfortable songs where I was quite expecting their singer to look over in my direction hehe, but he kindly avoided making eye contact and instead focused on the guy in front of him who’d clearly been on the Red Bull and had cheekily nicked his tambourine earlier on!
There was a time when I wanted to hear what songs are about, but I’ve realised now that I really don’t, having been subjected to various songwriters proudly announcing pre-song that it is about “Facebook”, “Having sex” (aren’t they all), one earlier today from M1 Connect about “Pavements” and other mundane topics, so why not one (another one?) about “Sex, drugs and rock and roll”, which apparently is what The Critical’s My Lie is all about. Yep, it’s just best not to know, the imagination is way, way more profound! There was an interesting point made about My Lie though which was that it was the first song the band wrote together.
My Lie is usually one of my favourites as it has a fantastic guitar and drum break ending, except it was a bit late in the day I think and hopefully no-one from the band is reading this as I wasn’t keen on all the effing around, aggressive shouty stuff, which was particularly apparent on this one, I just want to hear the songs! I’m probably alone in that though. The song disintegrated into a whole heap of noisy noise, and how what they were shouting will be interpreted just isn’t cool.
Due to the perilous closeness of missing last chance to get home ever, I had to leave during My Lie, but I think they said it was the final song anyway. I might as well have stayed as no amount of sprinting down the road to the station was going to make me time travel backwards and catch a train that left minutes earlier, although I gave it my best shot. I am fit now though.
Mostly I enjoyed the gig and I am interested to hear how the songs on The Critical’s forthcoming album have developed musically. Personally, I hope not too far away from the versions they have on their MySpace, which I thought were excellent. Looking forward to this album a lot.
*The identity of Alistair Griffin has been omitted to protect the not so innocent
I heard a ghost 