Gigs gigs gigs

[tristy]

I'll be lucky if I ever see a show as good as Paul McCartney's was at Bonnaroo last week. Holy fuckballs. I still can't believe I've seen one of the last living Beatles live.

Oh, and Death Grips are fucking awesome live.

[VerbalPuke]

Just thinking about the Adam Ant gig now, and realising that he played "Stand and Deliver", "Prince Charming", "Ant Music", "Wonderful", "Goody Two Shoes", "Kings Of The Wild Frontier", "Xerox" and "Vive Le Rock"...what exactly are "the hits" if not that lot?

I don't know, but that sounds like a good ANTthology to me.

Edited June 26, 2013 by VerbalPuke

[Matticus]

Saw Dinosaur Jr's Glasto warm up set in Reading last night. J Mascis is such a rad dude. My ears are blown to pieces now though.

One of the very few bands to reform and actually write music that is just as good as the old material.

[SRN]

Oh yeah, I saw Neurosis last tuesday. They were pretty good, even if they had to cut their set short because of curfew. Supporting them were Evoken, who are heavy as fuck, and some band called Dark Buddha Rising which was... interesting. It was five dudes, four of them dressed in band hoodies and regular stuff, and then one bare-chested muscular guy who kept pouring blood over himself.

[Skummy]

I've not been to the Jersey Live festival since...I think 2007, or thereabouts. Even though it's pretty much our only music festival, the line-up usually doesn't appeal to me outside of one or two acts, there's not really any atmosphere there, it tends to be full of drunk kids, and it's extortionately overpriced.

I also told the promoter that I'd stop attending after he fucked me over on at least two gigs, and one interview opportunity.

However, I'm kind of tempted by the line-up this year.

Fatboy Slim is headlining - not someone I'd go out of my way to see, but a good headliner for a festival that they try and promote on being a summer holiday festival. The Cribs are playing, who I've seen, and they were shit, but who knows? Might be alright now.

The big ones, though, are Chic & Nile Rodgers, which is insane, and would be amazing - they looked incredible at Glasto, and fucking Dinosaur Jr. How they managed that one, I'll never know, but it's incredibly tempting.

And then in the hospitality area (which usually costs extra), where they normally just have a couple of shitty acoustic acts and maybe a local poet or something to give an air of culture, they've got Craig Charles DJing (he plays pretty much every year, but still...), Howard Marks and John Cooper Clarke. I've seen the last two before, but would be awesome to see them again - Marks in an environment where it's not just drunk teenagers and idiots cheering every time he mentions drugs (which makes for a long evening), and I could never get tired of seeing JCC.

[METALMAN]

Nile Rodgers is my favourite! When I met Johnny Marr I said "I taught myself guitar by playing your songs" and he looked delighted.

Then I said "Well, you and Nile Rodgers actually" and Marr was all like "Quite right too."

Amazing guy.

[Skummy]

I'm more excited by Nile Rodgers than I am by Dinosaur Jr., even if I am only a recent convert. He's bloody brilliant, and I can imagine he'd be amazing fun live.

[METALMAN]

I think he's incredible as a musician, producer, songwriter, whatever. He even managed to drag a couple of good songs out of Duran Duran!

His book from last year is really good. He seems like such a nice guy. And I'm in awe that he puts no such a good show while suffering from prostate cancer.

His original mix of that Diana Ross album with upside down is his crowning glory though. I can't believe it never got released.

[LittleDaniel]

Time to brag about things only Ollie will probably recognize.

Ramshackle Glory (former Johnny Hobo/Wingnut Dishwashers Union)/The Taxpayers/Max Levine Ensemble (aka Spoonboy's band) tonight. Soooooo stoked!

[Cymbols]

Continuing my chronicle of getting tickets to see indie/emo bands, I'm going to see Panic! at the Disco in November. So, yeah, pretty neat.

[Lowerdeck]

I got tickets for Freefest in Maryland next month. And then Nine Inch Nails in Boston in October.

[Powerhart]

I went to the Corona Capital festival in Mexico City this past weekend. It was a two-day event, and Arctic Monkeys/Queens of the Stone Age/deadmau5/Sigur Ros/Phoenix/The xx were the headliners.

I went both days, and it was amazing. Imagine Dragons completely surprised me, I didn't expect them to get all the crowd riled up like that, I almost died in the middle while picking up a girl on my shoulders. I skipped deadmau5 to go watch M.I.A. and it was awesome, she totally killed it.

On Sunday, I watched Gary Clark, Jr. and at the end of his set, his drummer threw his drumsticks to the crowd and hit a dude on the face who wasn't paying attention. They took him backstage and took pictures with him. Jimmy Eat World was there too, I only know a couple of songs from them, and they played them last. I barely heard Pain since we were already leaving to the other stage to get a good spot to watch Arctic Monkeys. Vampire Weekend played before them, and I don't know whether it was the fact that I was so anxious to watch the Monkeys or what, but their performance was boring as hell, and it felt like it lasted like 2 hours. It was awful to me. No words for Arctic Monkeys, they are just amazing. They played like 16 songs and it was like you were hearing the record, they sound exactly like they do on the albums. Just flat-out great.

[GoGo Yubari]

Kanye West on Saturday, Janelle Monae at the end of the month, Deltron 3030 next month

[SRN]

Man, I really hope I can scrape enough money together to go see both Run the Jewels and Tricky next month. Because they are literally right there, a train-ride away.

[GoGo Yubari]

I am reasonably confident that that Kanye West show exasperated a quarter of the audience and bewildered at least half. It was awesome. He played all of Yeezus + everything else you'd expect him to play except "Gold Digger" and "Love Lockdown."

Also White Jesus came on stage and told Kanye something about love or something and also Kanye did "Power" on top of a mountain whilst shirtless.

[jack95]

I'm seeing Frightened Rabbit in Southampton this Sunday! And I had to share my excitement.

I'm also kiiiind of tempted by Billy Bragg next month. Does anyone have any opinions as to whether he's particularly good live? I like him a lot and it would be very fun to see him but with Christmas coming it would really be pushing my budget. Plus it would mean going to Southampton twice in a matter of weeks and nobody wants to do that.

(I have no idea about Southampton, it might be a wonderful place, but as I've just moved to Portsmouth I figured I better talk about how dreadful it is as often as possible.)

[Cymbols]

I almost decided to get tickets to see Frightened Rabbit. Couldn't justify spending the money when I've got driving plus going to see Panic! and a couple of others next year. Well jealous though.

Jack, are you at Portsmouth University?

[Jimmy]

I saw Frightened Rabbit a couple of years ago and they were fantastic, you're in for a treat, man. Really need to go see 'em again.

[jack95]

This is good to hear! I'd now describe myself as 'buzzing.'

And to answer Cymru's question, I am indeed studying at Portsmouth!

[Cymbols]

Nice, I've heard good things about Portsmouth. Was almost one of my picks.