Arctic Monkeys tear up The Palace

Superb gig from the Arctic Monkeys on Saturday night (08/12) at the huge Alexandra palace in North London. Not my favorite venue as bands tend to struggle to fill the space well. Exception to that in the past has been Franz Ferdinand but the Monkeys made them look like a quiet little string quartet.

When was the last time you went to a gig and the band played new songs, 4 new songs, and even opened with a new song, and everyone went mental? The new tracks absolutely rocked and the 'difficult third album' looks like it's already in the bag if the new material they played is anything to go by.

All the other super sing-a-long stuff was there. There are no standout tracks from this gig - ever single track was stand out. They played so well and so tight it was unbelievable. So much better than Old Trafford gig from the summer and a million miles in maturity from when I first saw them at The Forum last year.

2007 was the year they stole Best Band in the UK from the Kaisers. What more can they achieve in 2008 isn't clear but world domination is surely theres for the taking.

No question, a very impressive 10/10. Loved it.

Video of Fake Tales to follow shortly.

Awards 2007

Blimey is it that time of the year again? So here goes my stab at awards of the year!!!!

1. Worst prediction of the year - we aint going to many gigs this year - 2008 - Ronson anyone!!!

2. Best blogger - got to be Mr Allen.

3. Expression of slight disappointment re a gig (part 1) - Housey blew out at 5:30 with a headache from his painting day - that is a tad unfortunate (happy to show what phil really said!!!!)

4. Best little venue - Water Rats

5. Best new bands seen - Ronson, Fortune Drive, Pigeon Detectives

6. Expression of slight disappointment re a gig (part 2) - Groove Armada are playing in London tomorrow - how did you miss that you fucking twat!!! - think that's a yellow card for me then!!!

7. Best new comer at a gig - the little kid at Kaisers see the Ruby clip - better moves than me already!!!

8. Best tool at a gig - its got to be the whizzer!!!!

9. Key tip for 08 - day off required after V

10. Best foreign gig - Mannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnncheeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssssssssssssssstaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah - Ibizia next year anyone

11. 2008 - oh fuck it lets make is a biggie again - more new bands and a foreign adventure me thinks

xx

We caught the Pigeons!!

Top gig last Friday at The Forum in Kentish Town. The last night of the marvellous
Pigeon Dectives tour and it went with a bang.

On stage at 10pm, beer glasses flying at 10.01pm and lead singer Matthew Bowman soaking wet by 10.10pm at the very latest.

All the big tunes were there from the debut album, Wait for Me. Stand out tunes were, of course, I'm Not Sorry, Take Her Back and they new classic, Romantic Type.

I've got a couple of quality vids which I'll post as soon as I get broadband online in my new house, should be tomorrow according to BT.....

Shout out to Suzanne who I bumped in to from work. "I didn't know this would be your sort of thing" I believe you said. I'm not that old!!

Looking forward to seeing them again, 8/10.

Video: I Found Out


Video: Take Her Back

Foo Fighters at O2 Arena 18/11

First up I have to mention the venue. I know this has already been done but it really is an awesome place. We arrived on the Jubilee Line from London Bridge straight out into the damp miserable late afternoon but not an issue as we walked the 500 yards or so under cover to the O2 entrance. The first thing you notice is the enormous scale of the place. We walked around through the "street" area buzzing with giggers, cinema goers, Tutankhamun visitors and even the locals who just turned out for sunday evening drink and dinner.

Most of the eateries had queues out the door which is a sign that it maybe struggles a bit when a sell out is on in the main arena but we settled on Inc Brasserie with tables available in the bar area at which they also served us with some decent burgers (which they also never billed us for - so value for money they get 10/10!). 3 hours and a number of pints later we decided to head for our seats and check out the main arena itself so back round to the main entrance (our seats were in Zone A), no queues and head up to our section.

We had seats in the lower tier in the back left hand section, just 2 rows from the back (and the exit), on the aisle. Decided to check out the bars, which was right outside the exit, whilst the toilets are just the other side of the exit. At this point I'm feeling a bit like were in an ad for 'Carlsberg don't do concerts but if they did.............'.

Dave Grohl runs on and kicks off the set with Let it Die, a high tempo screamy little number from the new album and followed up with The Pretender. Its already clear the acoustics work much better in here than Wembley and Earls court. From then on its a solid mix of old, new and everything in between never ramming the new album down our throats. Grohl charges endlessly around the stage and down the runway that goes out to the middle of the floor, until a second stage comes down from the ceiling to the centre of the floor area.

Everything changes for a while now as they take to this stage to perform an acoustic set including a classic version of My Hero, we get introduced to the band and they wrap this section with DG performing most of Everlong in solo before rejoining the band on the main stage to finish it off in more typical Foo's style and by now the roof is coming off the place. They play well over 2 hours in all, including a slightly dissappointing encore that features System of a Downs Serj Tankianm doing The Dead Kennedys' Holiday In Cambodia and Kaki King performing Ballad of The Beaconsfield Miners before wrapping up with Best of You. To be fair, they saved the very best for last.

The venue and the Foo's get 9/10

Foo Fighters, The O2 Arena, 18/11

Cracking night out at The o2 for the mighty Foos and our first time in the 'big' arena. Well, it is big so think Wembley Arena or Earls Court. We had seats in the lower tier rear corner but had a great view of everything.

The Foos proper ripped it up. Highlight was when another stage came down out the ceiling at our end of the arena and they did a great acoustic set there. They did about 6/7 songs there so was a great chance to see them up close at our end.

Loved the gig, and love this venue. 8/10.

Video: DOA

Mark Ronson, Shepherds Bush, 26/10/07

What a night at The Bush. First of I get to go on a date with a lovely girl .....and she pays for the gig! Quality!

Mark Ronson had played the BBC Electric Proms the night before and there views had it down as a major night so expectation was high. Oh what a night we had. Shepherds Bush was absolutely fucking rocking to the Mark Ronsons All Stars. I've not seen everyone dancing, from ground floor and all 3 upper tiers since Faithless.

All the tunes from the album were there plus many others - including a new single from Daniel Merriweather. The night was topped with the extra special guest, Sean Lennon. Sean's a childhood friend of Mark, teaching each other to play the guitar, but they had never sung together on stage. Sean rocked out a Beach Boys classic, Sail on Sailor, before going back of stage - later to reappear for the encore - before the band did a super remix version of Valeria as the final song of the set.

So to the encore. Everyone knew it was going to be Stop Me of course but what other song? Well it was a brilliant brilliant brilliant version of the Stevie Wonder classic We Can Work It Out. Sung by Daniel Merriweather, Tawiah and, of course Sean Lennon. When Sean sung his verses it started to get all a bit emotional cos, of course, the most famous version of this song was sung by his Dad John. Big hugs between Sean and Mark at the end before the stage was filled with a million people and DM belted out Stop Me.

Brilliant night. Loved it. As did every single person in the building. Proper party atmosphere for the first 'proper' headline gig for Mark Ronson. He looked stunned with the way the audience was reacting. Thanks to my hot date for a cracking night out - you might get a second look in if you arrange nights out like that again ;)

I was too busy dancing to take video for once. Check out other peoples comments on Youtube, 'best gig ever' etc. Top top night. Enough said. 10/10

Youtube Video: We can Work It Out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAOpgkOPX8Y

Other Youtube Video: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mark+ronson+shepherds+bush

Just Jack. Shepherds Bush

Oi Oi! You've got to love the cheeky cockney style of Just jack. This was the last night of their tour and the last gig of songs just from the debut album.

Good night had by all in the smallest venue in town. Only slight downside is that, Starz is by a mile their best song, which they obviously did last as the encore, so the next album will need to beef up a bit on the 'bigs hits' front.

7/10

The Editors, Brixton.

Shit. Worse than shit and not a patch of the band we'd seen in the past and at V this year. An absolute banker for worst gig of the year. Sorry boys.

2/10

Juliette and The Licks, Indigo, The o2

I'm going to start this post with a review of the o2 Venue as it's my first time there. In a word, amazing. I can hear the executives at Wembley Arena crying in to their over priced beer and shit food, after all that place only underwent a multi-million pound face lift 2 years ago, for no visible improvement.

The o2 just about ticks every box possible. 2 mins walk from North Greenwich tube station, wide open space inside, tons and tons of great bars and restaurants, giant screens everywhere showing you wants on and whats coming up, multi-screen cinema and of course the 2 big venues. Wembley Arena is dead. Long live The o2.

Juliette and The Licks were excellent. They played in the smaller Indigo venue which is a real treat in itself. Intimate but not packed. Great big bar and a stage framed like a widescreen TV. The played a great set and she packed the same high energy punch we saw a the V festival, out main reason for coming back to see her today. Excellent night 8/10.

Faithless @ Brixton, 11/07/09. Seen it all before?

How wrong could we be. I had my doubts to be honest. We saw them at Shepherds Bush a while back and it was there best ever set. Saw them in a farmers field, sorry Hyde Park, at the o2 Festival and they were ok. Last night they just stepped back in time and produced a mega show. We had green lasers and smoke for fucks sake!

Maxi Jazz has just turned 50 years old. As Mark said, that's just 7 years younger than his Dad (note: Mark's Dad isn't a lead singer from the biggest dance band in the world!) My legs were shot to pieces by the end from all the dancing and jumping but Maxi jumps for nearly the whole 2 hours. He's some fit bloke.

As they opened with Insomnia during the last year or so, threw us a bit that they opened with a 'slow one'. Didn't wait long though as second up was the big tune, Insomnia, and we cracked out the glow sticks and never looked back.

After 3 songs Pete rated the gig 11/10 so we knew we were on to a winner! Storming versions God is a DJ and We Come One obviously stand out and no, no-one ever tires of screaming 'ONE' all the way through. Encore was Muhammed Ali and Tarantula followed by the loudest cheering and applause for a gig I've ever ever heard. Everyone cheered so loud you couldn't hear anything, if that makes sense, just a roar of noise. Even Sister Bliss smiled.

We'll be back for more, possibly the best gig from them we've seen...... 10/10

Read about The Shepherds Bush Gig here
http://thegigguidediary.blogspot.com/2006/08/faithless-at-bush-1508where-do-i-start.html

Video from The Shepherds Bush Gig, including Insomnia, here
http://thegigguidediary.blogspot.com/2006/12/faithless-live-video.html

Read about 02 Festival Gig here
http://thegigguidediary.blogspot.com/2007/07/02-festival-review.html

Video: We Come One (Pt 2)


Video: We Come One (Pt 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhLA_ko17jM

Video: God Is a DJ (Pt 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW62kx_B3Lk

Video: God Is a DJ (Pt 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKGaKxiWlvo

Beastie Boys - 20 years in the making

I'd waited 20 years to see the Beastie Boys. They first played Brixton in 1986 supporting Run DMC and played there the year later with Public Enemy. I wasn't old enough to go to gigs then!

Instant winner of the Best Stage Set of 2007 award, amazing screens and fantastic lights and video mixing. Talking of mixing, Mix Master Mike is fucking unbelievable. 2 Turntables and 1 DJ - as the song says - and he manages to make everything happen with those 2 decks.

But he wasn't the only one with an instrument as all the Beasties plays something, drums, guitars, bass guitar, double bass, percussion. But fuck all that, when the got on the mic and the bass started banging the ripped it up.

Gutted we left before the end due to the fucking train strike. It won't be another 20 years before I see them again.

7/10

Video: Super Disco Breakin


Video: Brass Monkey
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4d4I1WzpBk

V Festival 2007

So here we are on Monday afternoon, nice day off work, recovering from a fantastic weekend at the 2007 V Festival, Hylands Park, Chelmsford. The cynics said it would rain all weekend and be a complete wash our. The truth is that it rained twice, once Saturday and once Sunday just as the main stage headliners were coming on....so no-one cared by that point!!

Saturday 18th
Got to the site about 1pm and stocked up on enough beer tokens for the whole weekend. That was the first good call of the weekend - later that day bumped into Nicky who had queued for 2 hours and then given up! why can't festival people get things like that sorted?

Anyway, first band we saw was Juliette & The Licks on the Channel 4 stage. No, we weren't just watching as she's 'famous' (honest!). For me though ended up being a real highlight of the whole weekend as they totally rocked and she proved she's as made as a fish up a tree. Quality set and now have all 3 albums in my collection thanks to the lovely people at Bittorrent ;) Juliette and The Licks get a solid 8/10 for me.

Stayed at the Channel 4 Stage to catch The Thrills and then The Fray both who were really good. The sun was beating down and the festival was getting busier now. Top sets from both bands and they get a couple of 7/10's from me.

Video: The Thrills, Big Sur
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwBbl8I0t9Y

I then left the rest of the crew to head over to the Main Stage for Kanye West. It was rammed! Jim and Alice were there somewhere but at this point the mobile network seemed to crash and my and everyone elses phones were offline for a couple of hours. Nice seem as the event was sponsored by Virgin Mobile....

Kanye West was excellent. The whole place was well up for it and he had the biggest crowd of the day so far by a mile. Diamonds were well in truly in the sky for the main man from Chicago. All the tunes were there, Diamonds from Sierra Leone, Gold Digger, Touch the Sky the Sky, a brief cover of the (missing) Amy Winehouse Rehab which got a few laughs, then finishing with the fucking brilliant Jesus Walks and Stronger, the latter being the first single from the new album Graduation (released Sept 10 2007). I know this is not everyone's taste at a festival but, like i said, Mr West was on the main stage and it was completely rammed. So festival goers do love rap after all. 9/10.

Video: Kanye West, Diamonds from Sierra Leone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdqmoq9XQO8

I then went off again this time to the JJB Arena (is there a more pikey sponsor for a music arena?) for a bit of grime in the name of Dizzie Rascal. Pretty good to be honest 6/10. I met back up with Pete, Suzanne, Julie and Laura for Ocean Colour Scene. They are just getting back in to the live then again with a new album, On The Leyline, and they proved to be another big surprise of the festival. Well, I mean, when you walk out in to a packed tent, people fighting to get in, you know your still popular right? Then you kick off you set with your most famous track ever, the mighty The Riverboat Song, cue place going mental, flying pints of beer and that's how it stayed through to the end and The Day we caught the train. Awesome stuff and someone we'll get tickets for when they are touring next. 8/10.

Heading in to the evening now and Julie and Graham were already off watching Pink. They (and others) thought she was great. Judge for yourselves below with the vid (Thanks Graham!)

Video: Pink, What's Going On
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLs8ui5niTI

I wanted to see Happy Mondays next but choose to watch Snow Patrol in really just to bag a good spot to watch the Foo Fighters later. Snow Patrol were there normal good average steady set. Nothing amazing. One funny thing. Martha Wainwright came on to do the duet for the first time ever in the UK. What was totally poor was she had all the words written down in front of her on the stage. You could see them on the big screens and also saw a stage runner take the up when they moved her mic away after they had finished. She gets a 1/10 from me for being a joke, Snow Patrol overall get a 7/10.

So, the end of day one and Foo Fighters were up. Dave Groll came out on stage on his own and started singing on his own. That takes balls in front of 50,000 people. Thy completely rocked then from start to finish. Got to say most of our lot didn't like them and went to see The Kooks (who were also shit according to Pete) and Rodrigo Y Gabriela (who were amazing!). I really enjoyed the Foos along with Julie and Graham and I we're going to see them when they are back touring in November. 9/10 for Foo Fighters and the big stars of the day. Then it was a nice walk back to the cars with a cup of tea then all back to mine to get ready for Sunday.

Sunday 19th
Kicked off the day with Captain (7/10) followed by The Cribs (5/10) which was just the build up really to Mark Ronson.

Video: Captain, Glorious
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqyg4NRTv8w


We saw him at the o2 Festival a couple of months ago so we had big expectations. He and the amazing band didn't disappoint either. Started the set with an extended Diversion and with the sun coming out for the only time that day we got the full set with banging versions of Valerie, Apply Some Pressure, Oh My God, Toxic and finishing with the excellent Daniel Merriweather and Stop Me. Loved it all - 9/10

Video: Mark Ronson feat. Daniel Merriweather, Stop Me



Back over to the Main Stage for The Fratellis who were less than average. On the way home everyone was raving about them on the radio - what were you watching?!?! 5/10

Video: The Fratellis, Chelsea Dagger
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJWqhXOUdoE

James up next and was shit. I mean totally rubbish. 3/10 max and a waste of video.

Home run now and, as i was not driving on the Sunday I was now having a really 'nice time' and totally ready for Kasabian. Saw them at Somerset House last month and they rocked that. Think this is the 3rd or 4th time seeing them but they did it again and put on an amazing show. First time I properly jumped up and down all weekend and lost it a bit. Proper good, proper loud, proper band. Havin' it we were! 9.5/10 (I hate giving half points)

So, V Festival was all over.....except for one more band. The Killers were playing their last gig in the UK for a while so it was always going to be something special. We've been trying to see them for the last 18 months but just couldn't get tickets. We were all well up for this and what a show. Just the best best best set of the weekend by a mile. I'm not entirely sure what they opened with as the old STM has kicked in by this point but what i do know is they did 2 encores. Final song before they went off first time was Mr Brightside and it was HAMMERING down with rain but no one's spirts were damended at all. There was easily more people there on the Sunday, I reckon 70,000. If you've seen the TV highlights then you'll know basement Jaxx had a massive crow too but I reckon 50,000 were watching The Killers and EVERYONE was singing every word to Mr Brightside. Pretty amazing stuff really. So off they went then came back on and did a Joy Division cover and made a 30 year old song sound like it was written yesterday. Signed off with a storming version of When You Were Young (which the oddly did earlier in the set). Final score for the final band of V festival 2007? 10/10 of course and well and truly deserved.

Brilliant brilliant brilliant weekend. Well done to the crew for making it the best weekend ever. Graham, Julie, Pete, Suzanne, Jim, Alice, Sheena, Housey, Julie, Laura (festival virgin!!) plus Nicky and her gang, Neil and his crew (where ever you were all weekend?!?). Nice one.

That was it for the 2007 V festival. All over for another year and, as this our last big year gigging, then I guess that's it for good.

Hang on, I've just had an email.....what this....Ticketmaster say tickets are on sale for 2008 next Tuesday. Well, maybe one last 'big year' in 2008......