rate the last gig you went to

Wu-Tang Clan & Nas - NY State of Mind Tour - @ 3Arena Dublin

Hip-hop live is always hit and miss, but this was for the most part brilliant.

To get the chance to see so many great MC's on the stage for a couple of hours doing their thing was amazing, not sure about the RZA's outfit changes tbh, this ain't meant to be a Celine Dion show ffs.

Show started out with RZA coming out and introducing the rest of the Clan (minus Method Man) one by one and doing a track each with them. Once they were all on stage they did a couple of the big hits and then NAS came out and did his thing. I like Nas but I'm not overly familiar with his work and considering most of the crowd were there for Wu-Tang it was a bit flat at first until he started dropping his bangers.

Nas then exited stage left and Wu-Tang came back on and ran through some choice cuts from their solo albums. GZA and Raekwon stole the show for me which isn't surprising considering we were getting tracks from 'Liquid Swords' and 'Only Built 4 Cuban Linx'.

Once they were done Nas was back out to run through more of his solo tracks with various members of the Clan guesting with him.

Then everyone came on at the end to finish the show.

Crowd was a bit of a mix, mainly loads of 40 year old's who'd got a night off from the kids (myself included) and then a healthy mix of kids, pretty much the kind of crowd I'd expect if Oasis get back together.

Anyway I'm glad I went, I can now tick Wu-Tang Clan of my list of artists I've wanted to see but hadn't.

8.5/10

Wednesday at the 100 club with popular forum member KRBURG

Pozi. Their bass player was either missing, or has left. They brought in some big guy with a beard who played a bass that looked like a guitar from Guitar Hero on PS2. Good gig, new album has grown on me but I gotta say, I much prefer their earlier material.
Minor Conflict were patchy. Opening 3 tunes I was quit frankly, bored. they Did 2-3 after that which were impressive. Will keep an eye open, no idea how long they've been going. They get a pass.
Rubie opened, mixed ambient tunes with some more piano based material.. was ok.

Thursday at Rough Trade East with popular forum member KRBURG
SQUID. Loving their new record, did a chunk off that + a couple from the debut. Short, but sweet.

Then I left Squid and headed back towards Shoreditch overground, there's a tunnel you have to pass through which usually has buskers/performers/drunks/homeless people. Well today there was like a 1000 people in there and somebody DJ'ing on top of a car. I struggled through the crowd then looked at the DJ and realised it was Mark Ronson Went and got some cans had got involved, it was a great atmosphere and he was dropping the bangers. Sadly, nothing from that great Black Lips record he produced.

paul weller supported by far from saints at thetford forest last night

far from saints is kelly jones new americana band. their songs are bland as fuck.

weller smashed it as always. 28 song setlist not too disimiliar to when i saw him last year in norwich. style council tunes are my highlight nowadays. britain's greatest ever songwriter.

Went to some local beer festival yesterday that had some live music.

Highlight were THE LOVIN HANDFUL, a skiffle band who did covers of loads of big tunes by the likes of REM, The Beatles, The Strokes, The Coral etc. We're actually pretty good and an enjoyable watch in the sun.

Wu-Tang Clan & Nas @ the Hydro

I’ve seen some ropey Wu-Tang shows over the years. The last time I saw them in around 2015 was particularly bad. Weak line-up, bad sound, low energy.

But this ticked all the boxes - they had actually rehearsed, for starters, and the sound at the Hydro was spot on. Having a big arena stage suits the Wu.

I make the same observation everytime I see them: Inspecta Deck is criminally underrated. But the star of this show was probably Raekwon. When the mood takes him, he’s still untouchable. The RZA got a bit excitable towards the end and cut off the GZA on 4th Chamber, which is a crime in my book.

The vibe was very much big budget hip-hop nostalgia. But with tracks this good, who cares? It was a steep ticket price but I didn’t feel ripped off. Glasgow was going through a mini heat wave and the venue was full of guys in shorts smoking weed. Ignore the fact the crowd was 95% pasty skinned Scots and it could have been NYC.

Nas was consistent. Being on his own, he couldn’t compete with the energy of the full Wu, but overall I felt the joint-headline idea worked. Monday night gigs don’t come better! 8.

Seeing whitney right now and a bit meh not gonna lie but im out of my tits and theyre so nice

Bless you all but specially bigred steve

Barns,

Who is still in the band? I feel like they had some lineup changes and might have a YOKO ONO in the lineup now.

Did they play ROLLING BLACKOUTS the proper way? If not, FUCK EM

Now fucking Suede but I was making out with a girl butat the end nothing

I am a fakin teenager

wut

Glasvegas are apparently still a thing

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Old school punk all dayer with popular forum members Rod and Mahoney yesterday.

Missed Lambrini Girls due to stupid queues and then the bogs and bars being miles from the stage. Got down the front just as they'd ended their set and were crowd surfing and shouting lots.

Buzzcocks was my first proper set of the day. I'd seen them once before back in 2009 playing the first two albums in full plus Shelley was still alive back then. This time it was the Diggle show and though I still enjoyed it he played a few too many new songs for a short festival set. Hits were good fun though.

Stuff Little Fingers were up next. I only really know Inflammable Material (fucking great album) but they didn't do as much from this as I'd like. Unlike Buzzcocks though the newer stuff wasn't awful and still sounded decent for the most part. Alternative Ulster was a huge ending.

Generation Sex followed. I don't really know anything by Generation X so was mostly here for the Sex Pistols tracks. Played the hits and while Billy Idol is a bit cheesy it was good fun.

Blondie up next and was still iconic. Yeah the voice has gone but it doesn't really matter when you're there. Setlist was great and full of hits. Much better than I'd hoped for after seeing lots of slagging off of the Glastonbury set.

Iggy Pop headlined and while obviously an icon I wasn't sure whether it would be any good or not. No need to be concerned though as he absolutely smashed it. Band were really good and the setlist well paced. Proper powerful performance that if I didn't have a dodgy leg would have made me want to smash something.

Iggy was phenomenal. The greatest rock star ever. His band were hot shit too. Only seen him 3 times over the years but this was by far the best.
Blondie was an hour of power, hit after hit, can Debbie sing now? No, but when you have the sweet tones of Roderick Mcsneel in your ear it doesn't matter. Billy Idol doing Sex Pistols was better than I expected. SLC, nice to finally see them. Would have liked more early stuff but you can see they're a well oiled machine. Buzzcocks was lame, nobody wants to hear your new songs Diggle. Play the hits or fuck off. Lambrini Girls was good chaotic fun. Perfect for a festival opener.

Noel and Garbage the other night in Toronto

Was worried this was going to be a blah show because of the weird mix of bands/fans, and low ticket sales, but it filled in quite nicely. Toronto is still an oasis town, and I’d put the ratio of oasis/Gallagher shirts to garbage shirts at (at least ) 10 to 1. Garbage opened and the beginning was a bit tedious, mainly because the crowd wasn’t into it and the sound was atrocious, but once they brought the hits at the end of their set, the atmosphere improved greatly.

Noel’s thing of opening the show with 5 new songs, almost all (all?) of which have him playing acoustic (including on pretty boy) was an odd choice, but what it does do is make the 2nd (all pasis) half of the show total euphoria. Don’t really have much else to say beyond I feel like I deserved the Dylan cover, like live forever and don’t look back in anger are for everyone else, but THIS ONE is for srk. Splendid night out, but the fucker had better come back next year and play his full show in some theatres. No co-headlining bullshit, give us the 22 song full set.

9/10

Went to see Th'Arctic Monkeys last night in Lux. Other than festivals it's the first big outdoor gig I've been to in ages.

Anyway, they were sodding great.

Last time I saw them was floundering in a headline spot on the Pyrmaid Stage at Glastonbury 2007, and before that a string of tiny gigs (Jabez Clegg- Manchester, Club Nirvana- Wigan, Soul Tree, Cambridge) with the famous Astoria gig at the end of that run.

What a contrast with the 2007 Glastonbury slot last night was. A proper big stage band now. All grown up and effortless. They only played Dancefloor from the debut, but every track played sounded great. And I LOVE Alex Turner's newish Elvis/Nick Cave persona. He wears it so well and has the crowd eating out of his hands. Honestly, every hip wriggle, sideways glance, hands thrown up was greeted with bloody screams. And the reception when they came out was what I can only imagine a One Direction crowd sounds like. Totally threw me!

The sounds was bang on too- something they seem to get so right at all venues here, no matter how big or small. They must really throw money it.

9/10

I question whether I should count this or not, but my wife was going to see shania Twain at our local festival tonight, and was of course super late, so I put our daughter in the car and drove her downtown. On the way, I remembered the festival is free for kids under 10, so I suggested the two of them go, which they did. So I parked the car and wandered around outside for 2 hours. I heard shania, I saw her on the screens, so I was technically there but…


Anyway, she was clearly lipsyncing for a good portion of it, and the videos that helped a young srk through puberty weren’t on the screen, so…. 3/10?

Robert Plant & Alison Krauss last night. I’m second to none in my disdain of led zeppelin, but I really liked the album these two did in 2006 (haven’t listened to the other one as much.) so I was looking forward to this, and it didn’t disappoint. The two of them both sounded great, they played a lot of raising sand, and even the zeppelin songs were tolerable (gallows pole and when the levee breaks in particular.) All in all, a great show.

Blackie and the rodeo kings (a Canadian blues/folk/.rock band) we’re on first and strangely enough, Daniel Lanois played most of the show with them, which was a treat.

8/10

They’ve only made two records?? Seems like those two are forever touring together