rate the last gig you went to

wave pictures in norwich last night.

really good, probably the best time i've seen them. weird crowd though. whenever they've played norwich before it's been half empty and the people in attendance have been knitwear wearing twee vegan types. this time it was a near sell out and quite a lairy middle aged crowd dancing and singing along. not sure why that happened as they've not really gained anymore popularity in recent years that i'm aware of. 8.5

Must ALL be Billy Childish. I can't imagine anybody liking them otherwise!

Saw Peter Bjorn & John at the Garage a few weeks back, or more accurately I saw Peter Bjorn & Lykee Li's drummer as John is out of action with debilitating tinitus. A pretty energetic set, the stuff from the new record came across well and they did lots from Gimme Some, which is my favourite album of theirs. 9/10.

Went to The Orielles at Scala last week for the venue's 20th anniversary. It was billed as being 1999 prices, which was great at £7 in, but I'm sure it wasn't £3.50 a beer until about 2008, even in TCOTU. Anyway, they were a much tighter live act than when I saw them about a year ago. 7/10.

Bodega supported by Dry Cleaning at Norwich Arts Centre.

Dry Cleaning stole the show for me. They tick so many boxes in terms of what I look for in a band. 9/10

Bodega were very good, have great presence about them and some top tunes but I can't help feel a slight disconnect with them. It might just be that the singer is quite unlikable, I'm not sure. My mate enjoyed them a lot more than I did though. 7/10

I tried to focus on the hit girl and the Frankensteinish lead guitar, aye

I think this is what put me off them in general, when I saw them, I'd only heard one song and even though I did quite enjoy the gig, for what it was, the singer is such an annoting prick it put me off. When the album came out, I just couldn't get my head arounf it, even though I feel like I should like it.

He is a right turbocunt I'm glad I heard the album before seeing his face.

Idles supported by Crows at Norwich UEA tonight

Crows were a pretty good support. Reminded me in places of The Horrors with a bit of BRMC thrown in. 7/10

I know Idles are extremely divisive on here but I fucking love them and they were brilliant live. The tunes sound huge and the energy onstage is contagious. Only downside was the venue has now introduced a deposit scheme for pint cups similar to Latitude which means queuing up for ages at the end to get a couple of quid back. 9/10

WTF how FUCKING STUPID.

It's not as if they go anywhere, at the end of the night they're all there on the floor. Cunts. Things like that make me very angry.

though not as angry as Idles make me.

Bodega supported by Dry Cleaning and Los Bitchos at the Shacklewell arms

Dry Cleaning stole the show for me. They tick so many boxes in terms of what I look for in a band.
Los Bitchos all female instrumental surf-rock type thing. Decent enough though after a few songs it all felt the same
Bodega were good again, was hoping seeing them in a small pub basement it'd really grab me more than their Scala gig but it just felt the same, enjoyable with a few tunes I love but not great. The singer is so tragic. Bodega remind me of Talking heads if you replaced David Byrne with the singer from Hard-fi.

IDLES supported by Crows, Belfast Empire

Only caught a couple of Crows tunes but I liked what I heard. Wasn't so keen on the singer having two mics, seemed a bit gimmicky to me.

IDLES were fucking brilliant mind. Full of energy and I couldn't take my eyes of Joe, he's one hell of a front man. This was their first show in Belfast despite Bobo hailing from the city.

Highlights were 'Colossus' '1049 Gotho' 'Danny Nedelko' 'Never Fight A Man With A Perm' 'Divide & Conquer' and 'Mother'. Never seen a crowd like it either. The venue is probably one of the smaller on this leg of the tour, and security in there are notorious for being cunts but about 3 songs in I think they realised it was a losing battle and just let the kids get on with it.

9.5/10

Doves supported by The Fernweh and The Coral, The Royal Albert Hall

The Fernweh are apparently made up out of members of various Scouse bands who've now split up. Sounded like most bands that were signed to Deltasonic back in the early 00's. Pleasant enough but nothing I hadn't heard before. 6/10

The Coral were good. I've probably seen them half a dozen times, last probably being Glastonbury in 2007 I think. 9 song set, played the hits, job done. Was nice to hear 'Bill McCai' again, it might just be my favourite tune by them. 7.5/10

Doves were fantastic, shorter set than the night before at 'Parr Hall' and was gutted they dropped 'Darker' from the set but still, I loved it. Highlights were 'Kingdom of Rust' 'Firesuite' and 'The Cedar Room'. 8.5/10

I read the set was only 13 songs, far too short. Can't believe they're not on the Bill yet for Glastonbury, they're playing every shit festival under the sun. Glad you enjoyed it though.

Yeah, 13 seems way too short for a headlining show, especially since they played 3-4 more just the night before. Still wish they'd play here it comes after firesuite (which they did when I saw them at the brixton academy back in the day), but I'm just happy they're back tbh.

I'm not sure why the set was so much shorter but I'm going to blame Roger Daltry for coming out and spending 10 minutes talking to the crowd. Sure it's nice to know what our money was going towards and to see some of the teenagers on stage but come on mate, I've been waiting a decade to see Doves again.

Also I don't know who the MC was, apparently he presents some radio show in TCOTU, but his constant referring to Doves as The Doves nearly had me storming the stage.

Saw Amyl & the Sniffers at heaven last night.

They've raised the stage at Heaven to about 10 feet high since I was last there. I thought it was bullshit at first but once the bands started I actually quite liked it, nice being at a gig where people aren't blocking your view for a change. Though the space between the crowd & the stage could do with shortening.

Dry Cleaning were on 1st and were unbelievable, sound was perfect and I think they were even better than Saturday supporting Bodega. Ghost Car were on next, seen them a few times previously, decent all female garage/indie rock with Theremin included.. though I'm not sure if they had a new drummer but she was spectacularly out of time throughout, decent set though.

Amyl & the Sniffers were a ton of fun. Completely ridiculously over the top almost cartoonish garage-punk. Amy is a star, though she had wardrobe malfunctions throughout, didn't stop her spending half her time jumping into the crowd. Did maybe 50 minutes which was more than enough for that sorta thing. Nice Le Tigre cover too.

A good night, also love Heaven because if I time leaving right I can be out the venue and on a train home within about 3 minutes. Plus the P.A played Eels for most the night.

Wardrobe malfunctions? Is that how you would have described it a decade ago?

HER TITS CAME OOT

Actually, I don't think they did. The strap kept popping undone so she kept holding her top to her tits, thus a wardrobe malfunction rather than classic case of the "tits ooot".