More gig reviews from 2006, written to fill out the Native.tv website before it launched in early 2007.
Words - Suzy Sims
Previously published on Native.tv http://www.native.tv
(c) Niche News & Publishing Ltd
THE ZUTONS
Southampton Guildhall, 23rd May 2006
It’s another night in the city of culture
“I’m not feeling very well,” I told my friend after sneezing loudly. “I think I have ‘Zuton Fever.’ Ah ha ha ha.” He ignored me. That’s mates for you.
Last time I saw the Zutons, they had sold out the Wedgewood Rooms a few years ago. I was in the front row, alcopops clenched in hand, until I drunk too much, felt ill and sat at the back. Then when I got home, England were kicked out of whatever football tournament they were playing. Tonight’s gig would be a vast improvement. (Mainly because as the driver, I wasn’t going to be drinking. And because I wasn’t expecting any football matches, or for England to win if they were playing).
‘Tired of Hanging Around’ is the second album from the chirpy Liverpudlians. According to their website, they play ‘bluegrass rootsy stompy’ and who am I to argue with that description, although I would add ‘bouncy,’ ‘summery’ and ‘dry jazz’ to that. The band is very difficult to pigeonhole.
But the good thing is that everyone in Southampton loves them. Each song is greeted by a fresh wave of bouncing up and down. The only exception is super-thin saxophonist Abi, who is given a masculine roar whenever she moves.
The setlist tonight included all the best from debut album ‘Who Killed The Zutons?’ such as ‘You Will You Won’t’ (introduced as ‘You Shall You Shan’t’), ‘Havana Gang Brawl’, ‘Confusion’, ‘Don’t Ever Think’ and more, all greeted with a fresh of bouncing, singing and waving.
Our attention was distracted throughout by the girl in front, who was dancing (I use the term loosely) as if rapidly climbing a ladder despite being unable to bend her stiff arms. Then when she tired, she’d take a step back onto my foot and wait there awhile as she texted a friend.
But of course, the main part of the show was to promote ‘Tired Of Hanging Around’ and the people who had listened to that weren’t disappointed. ‘Valerie’ was greeted with a mass singalong, while ‘Why Don’t You Give Me Your Love’ was very popular.
The only low point was the lengthy instrumental near the end. Swirling purple lights and smoke combined with unusual, almost Far Eastern-sounding notes made my friend lean over and ask what on earth they were playing. It was entertaining, but didn’t seem particularly Zuton-y. But then again, the album needs a few listens before you start to thoroughly enjoy it; could be the same with this song.
“We might come from Liverpool, but this song’s about Southampton,” said singer/guitarist Dave at one point. And later: “You are definitely the best crowd we’ve had on this tour.” Aw shucks… bet you say that in every city Dave, but thanks v. much.
http://www.thezutons.com
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READING FESTIVAL - DAY ONE
The Subways / Fall Out Boy / Belle & Sebastian / Yeah Yeah Yeahs / Kaiser Chiefs / Franz Ferdinand
Somewhere in a field in Reading, 26th August 06
“How could you do it?” a man is yelling at me. “What have you done to him?”
“It wasn’t my fault! Honest!” I yelled back. Everyone knows Reading has a bit of a reputation for riots and violence, but I’ve been here an hour and I’ve been accused of murder. The man shook his fist and his girlfriend pretended to cry. “Tell no-one. You saw nothing,” I said. It’s Friday afternoon at the Carling Reading Festival, and I have just been accused of killing a Piglet balloon which is bobbing around my dusty feet, deflated-like, as I sit and eat potato wedges.
Due to a bit of sleepiness, I got on a late train and then got hopelessly lost trying to walk my way round the huge, disorientating site. How do you get in? Wristband exchange where? Maps are no good if you have no idea where you are on them, and it’s hard trying to navigate by burger van landmarks (which make some kind of Going For Gold riddle, like “Where am I? There’s a van to my left, three to my right and two in front…Come on, time’s running out.”).
Due to my laziness I’d managed to miss Mumm-Ra on the Carling Stage, but I was in time to stand behind a post and watch bits of the Pigeon Detectives. Once again there was quality rowdiness and crowd-surfing, then front man Matt Bowman was told off by security for climbing the speakers. It went a bit Pete Tong during ‘I’m Not Sorry’, but no-one minded because it was so much fun. And I lost my £7 programme after less than a minute of pogo-ing. New record!
After befriending some 15 year olds who were in need of smokes and potato wedges (little buggers) I made my way to the front of the main stage for the Subways. The sky was blue, the air was hot, blah blah blah, and I could feel a rosy bit of sunburn coming onto my face. The Subways looked very confident and not at all lost on the Main Stage. Charlotte ran to the front at the end and ended up being dragged away from the crowd by security, while Billy livened up the afternoon with some top-notch swearing.
Emo kings Fall Out Boy were next on (oh, the things I have to put myself through while waiting for the headliners). Found myself surrounded by hundreds of people who knew every single word to every single song, even the ones whose titles alone are too long to remember (‘Of All the Gin Joints In The World, I Slept With Someone In Fall Out Boy And All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me’ being just one) so pretended I knew what I was dancing to. They were certainly bouncy and kind enough to throw water at the crowd. Pete Wentz was annoyed someone had earlier knocked out Panic! At The Disco’s frontman with a carefully aimed bottle and so encouraged both halves of the crowd to lob plastic missiles at each other. One hit me on the back on the head. Damn friendly fire. It ended with ‘Dance Dance’, so everyone did.
It’s summer, so it must be time for Belle & Sebastian. This cult band brought a little bit of twee harmonising and delicate songs to a rough-and-ready rock crowd, but they went down very well, like a nice jug of Pimms (although half the crowd spent most of their set watching warily for that stupid purple inflatable cube to bash them on the head). Stuart Murdoch went into the crowd and got a lady to put make-up on him, then dragged another up on stage to dance. Poor Katie (for it was she) was very embarrassed so he asked her to ignore the crowd. “KATIE, KATIE, KATIE,” chanted several thousand audience members wickedly. The band opened with a few key songs from ‘The Life Pursuit’ (‘Sukie In The Graveyard’, ‘Blues Are Still Blue’, ‘White Collar Boy’) before revisiting parts of ‘Tigermilk’ and ‘The Boy With The Arab Strap.’ Their music perfectly suited the warm weather.
And now with the headliners approaching, some girls decided to push with all their might towards the stage. Bad luck – there were at least four rows in front of me, and they weren’t going anywhere. “We can’t go forward! There’s no fucking room!” boomed a few voices as security busied themselves by rescuing people out the front row.
Next were the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, although I had some difficulty seeing any of their set – even the big screens - as I spent most of it pressed against someone’s back while trying to give out my MySpace address to a charming young girl wearing the same t-shirt as me. Karen O was wearing an amazing, shiny green outfit, making her look a little like a magic dragon with a face mask and coloured tights. It certainly made the crowd look very dowdy. When she ducked around the stage and grinned with huge red lips, for a second she was the most brilliant, most terrifying woman in Reading. ‘Gold Lion’ is well received, as is ‘Y Control’.
A bit of a change around on stage, and it’s time for the Kaiser Chiefs. Right on cue, the heavens opened and the warm sweaty crowd was reduced to crazy haired, dripping savages. The band opened with ‘Na Na Na Na Naaa’, moving on through ‘Everyday I Love You Less And Less’ (with a big pause to bring on jeers while the band shouted ‘Come on, you can boo better than that!’) and plenty of others. ‘Modern Way’, ‘Take My Temperature’ and ‘Saturday Night’ follow, and I decided to step back slightly after falling backwards onto my arse in the crush. Death is not an option tonight – I’m meant to be going on holiday tomorrow. ‘Angry Mob’, ‘Heat Dies Down’ and ‘Everything Is Average Nowadays’ all got another UK outing. The people around me stopped jumping for a second to discuss the new songs – the consensus is that they are brill. It was still raining and not only could I not see though my glasses, I also got a crowdsurfer sprawled directly on my head. ‘I Predict A Riot’ thankfully didn’t incite any missile-throwing and ‘Oh My God’ left the audience too exhausted to sing along any more.
I escaped the front before Franz Ferdinand came on and went to examine the toilets and spend £4.50 on a Fanta and ice cream – at those prices, next year I’m bringing my own. Compared to some festivals (mixed Portaloos and open urinals at Download? Please no) these were luxurious toilet trailers. Well not so luxurious, seeing as the floor was wet, there was little loo roll left and no running tap water; but they even had mirrors and everything. Top.
Somehow managed to get to the front for Franz Ferdinand as the rain had made many people flee for shelter or to check if their tent was now at the bottom of a newly-formed lake. My new friend had been swept away in the Kaiser crush and was possibly dead (actually she wasn’t; she was watching Franz from the safety of some bloke’s shoulders). Franz all came on in matching black trousers and red shirts looking very smart. They hadn’t seemed particularly strong headliners to be honest, not compared to the showboat that is Muse, but I was impressed at how in control they were and the number of quality songs they had. ‘Take Me Out’ was launched quite early on, along with ‘Michael’, ‘Eleanor Put Your Boots Back On’, ‘Walk Away’, ‘The Fallen’, ‘Darts of Pleasure’ and ‘In The Dark Of The Matinee’.
A pause for breath and they returned with ‘Jacqueline’, ‘Outsiders’ and ‘This Fire’, during which brave guitarist Nick McCarthy ran to our corner of the barrier and was patted on the arm by damp, worn out fans. ‘Outsiders’ was a real stomper of a song, and again various band members and NME journos guested on drums as we all clapped along.
Right at the end I noticed the controversial second barrier. It appeared to be too far upfield to prevent everyone getting squashed at the front and just stuck out not doing very much apart from getting in the way when people were moving around between acts. How about not getting 80,000 people in a field; that might reduce crowd surges?
As it’s easy to forget, particularly if you’re camped in front of the Main Stage all day, there’s plenty of alternative entertainment. Just before midnight the Comedy and Cabaret tent saw various drunken people dressing as celebrities for some truly awful karaoke. There were also odd musical acts and the odd piece of burlesque. Being a lone girl, it seemed odd to be watching half naked female dancers and so it was time to trudge through the site to find the Cinema Tent (well, with no programme and no map, it was going to be impossible finding the Silent Disco. You can hardly listen out for it).
The site was cold. Everywhere was shut and there were plastic bottles on the floor. The Main Stage lights were flashing on and off forlornly as people picked their way through the junk and around the overflowing rubbish bags. From being completely packed, now there were only a handful of people shivering in the chill, waiting for trains like myself, trying to find food or taking a long hike to the toilets. The rain started spattering before completely pouring down in rivers beside the tents. It was a completely different site to the busy, dusty daytime only a few hours earlier. Huddling on the floor in the Cinema Tent, I found an abandoned programme by my feet. It looked a bit like someone had been dancing on it with hiking boots, but I pinched it. The day was complete.
http://www.readingfestival.com
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HOME TAPING TOUR
Zane Lowe (Radio 1) and Ricky Wilson (Kaiser Chiefs) @ South Parade Pier, Southsea 7th October 2006
The man I bought my ticket from was pretty excited about the Home Taping Tour landing in Southsea.
“Nothing like this ever happens in Portsmouth,” he’s busy telling a bespectacled man in front of me. “It’s amazing. Two Radio 1 DJs! Zane Lowe this weekend, and Mary Ann Hobbs soon as well. The awful Zane Lowe. Well, he plays brilliant music, but I hope to God they don’t give him the mic. His voice is so annoying.”
The man in front leaves, and I step up. “Can I have two tickets to see the awful Zane Lowe?” I ask nicely. He grins from behind the cash till. “Don’t tell him I said that,” he says. OK I say, making a mental note to type it up on the internet…
Radio 1’s evening show presenter Zane Lowe is a busy boy. Not only does he spend his evenings trusting in new music, but he also plays with Breaks Co-Op and heads off around the country to bring his unique music mixes to shedloads of fans. The Home Taping Tour was making a trip down to South Coast Central to entertain everyone on Portsmouth’s South Parade Pier.
The venue seemed a nice place, with carpeted floors leading to an enormous, dark and spacey room with a bar running the length of the far side, a dropped dance floor and a raised stage at the front, with a barrier to separate the DJs from the plebs.
The bar was already busy but most people were avoiding the dance floor (obviously needing a bit of liquid encouragement before getting on there). The DJs were playing a sort of commercial R’n’B mix so we decided to check out the smaller room at the back. This one was even darker, with the cloakroom hidden around the corner from the bar and a DJ cranking out Metallica and Fall Out Boy. A few of the dancers were armed with glowsticks and were having a good ol’ knees up on the tiny dance area.
Zane had managed to rope Kaiser Chiefs vocalist Ricky Wilson into accompanying him on the decks tonight. This was big news – the band themselves last played in Portsmouth in June 2004 and are usually glimpsed through the crowds at the summer festivals, so any band member who had managed to escape their recording sessions to pay us a visit would be warmly welcomed. Various other special guests have been joining Zane on this tour, including the Automatic, Boy Kill Boy, Bloc Party and Dan Greenpeace.
We sat huddled over our pretty expensive drinks until just before 11pm, when we’d been told Ricky was coming on stage. A quick stroll to the other room revealed a patchy dancefloor with some R’n’B vibes. Perhaps we were in the wrong room? Fifteen minutes later, me and my long-suffering friend bumped into a fellow Kaiser Chiefs fan who was also a bit confused. We decided there would be no way that Zane and Ricky would be crammed into the back room, so we drifted around the larger one, a bit lost and thoughtful, like beer-sodden clouds, until our New Found Friend said: “I think I just saw Ricky at the side of the stage!” Queue a rush to the front, where we danced next to the barrier as the crowd around us built up. The decks were covered in a camouflage material and there was a police siren on either side.
Just before midnight came the deafening call: ‘Home taping is not a crime. Home taping is not a crime.’ With that drilling into our heads and lights flashing all around, on walked Zane Lowe to shake hands with the crowd. We were flung against the barrier – forget clubbing, this was more of a gig atmosphere. Zane settled down, put his headphones on, raised his arms and immediately launched into some records.
Some Sugarhill Gang, Nirvana and a Klaxon later, I look around to see my friend had had enough of being pushed and squashed by girls. He’d nipped off to the bar, and the crowd was so tight he had no way of getting back through to us.
Meanwhile at the front, the white-shirted Zane is churning out tune after pounding tune and everyone is going crazy. We’re stuck on the barrier trying to bounce and throw shapes. He’s dancing intently, occasionally pausing to wave at people in the crowd. My New Found Friend next to me starts waving at the left side of the stage. I look up to see Ricky Wilson half hidden in the shadows, shyly smiling and waving back. I wave to get his attention, give him a thumbs-up and mouth “You all right?” He carries on smiling and returns the thumbs-up. “Good,” I say, and carry on dancing.
Ricky doesn’t actually appear on stage for some time – and when he does, he’s possibly under the influence of alcohol. A vacuum-wielding man with an ice bucket on his head slowly begins walking around the stage, picking up the CDs thrown at our man Zane. The disguise is quite poor, frankly; we can tell from the Elton John t-shirt and mischievous smile who is really under there. Eventually the bucket is lost and the pair spend the next half an hour DJing, robot dancing to ‘I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor’ and supping of wine and Jack Daniels.
A major surprise is when Zane sticks on ‘I Predict A Riot’ and hands Ricky the mic. I’m excited to be in the front for an unexpected concert, but a little saddened as well (I bet my mate twenty quid they wouldn’t play a Kaiser Chiefs song. Arse). Ricky does his best charging around the stage and trying to clamber in the crowd, which has suddenly surged right forwards. A man crowdsurfs over the barrier and is dragged off by security. Ricky tries to follow him, but the burly bouncers guide him back to the relative safety of the screaming crowd. The bucket goes back on the head, there’s a few peace signs, and Ricky leaves us in Zane’s charming company.
One of the biggest yells was reserved for Peel favourite ‘Teenage Kicks.’ It’s only a couple of weeks until John Peel Day, and we all want to respect the man. Next up were tracks by the Killers, Gnarls Barkley, Chemical Brothers, the Futureheads and Franz Ferdinand. There were far, far too many songs to remember the whole tracklisting, but others were Justice vs. Simian, the Fratellis and Kasabian.
Sadly I have to leave the front row. My friend’s been wandering around by himself for about an hour and a half and I think he might be getting slightly pissed off, so I disappear to find him, leaving New Found Friend to shake Zane’s hand a few more times and get a free t shirt. We manage to stand in the middle of the crowd to applaud Zane calling for musical tolerance – there are no genres, it doesn’t matter what you listen to, so long as it’s good and you enjoy it he says, and I’m tempted to agree.
My ears are ringing as we sit down on the beach for a rest before starting the next challenge; the hunt for a taxi. Zane is a top quality DJ and the tunes he was playing were amazing, whether you know them or not. I’m impressed. Let’s hope he decides to visit the South again in the near future.
http://www.home-taping.co.uk
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