rate the last gig you went to

cast supported by stanleys at epic studios in norwich last night

stanleys are a young band from wigan doing that watered down indie similar to the lathams, blossoms etc. was ok but definitely one of the poorer examples of this kinda stuff. they had one tune about not liking your boss which was fucking honking.

cast fucking smashed it. they've actually been my most listened to band of 2024 (lol) as i had a proper phase with them at the start of summer. i love the new album and the set was perfect mixing the big classics with the best tunes from the new one. not a single bad track in the setlist which is unusual when seeing these old britpop acts nowadays. they've properly gone up in my estimation in recent years from thinking they were a c list britpop band to now being one of my favourites from the time.

BODEGA @ EARTH with popular forum member ROD.

2 support acts when you're an established band that expect to play for 90 minutes it too much for a midweek gig. GIFT & Honesty opened, both shit. Bodega are still doing that awful "Nodaga" part of the set where they do 3 fast hardcore punk songs, fuck off! Still when they did the hits it was pretty great. However it overran bigtime and they was still on at 11:20. Ended with a cover of Spaceman 3's The Sound of Confusion with the support bands joining them.

ART BRUT @ ELECTRIC BRIXTON with popular forum members ROD & KEVIN
Art brut is now just Eddie Argos and whatever genuine German's he can string along as a backing band. I've seen them/him so many times at this point & TBH I'm still not bored of the same gags/set. God bless Eddie Argos.
KEG supported, only had a short set which (I think) consisted of mostly new material so not my favourite time seeing them but I still enjoyed it.
Keith Top of the Pops opened, if you thought Liam having 4 guitarists on stage was a bit much well Keith managed SIX. Was a good fun bit of indie rock. "I hate your band" in particular where he listed every shit mid 2000's indie guitar band was a highlight.

THE WAEVE with popular forum member Krburg @ Village Underground
Enjoyed this a bit, though I was still suffering from Krburg's filthy lurgy he'd given me at Art Brut, plus the venue was so fucking hot. some of the slower moments kinda lose me in their set, but when they make a bit of noise it's pretty damn good. The backing band are shit hot & it's a real joy watching Coxon let rip on guitar. Helps now they've two records to choose from too. Good set.
Nuha Ruby Ra supported, she's now got two people in her band on guitars & a weird industrial percussion thing. Pretty solid set of experimental noise/art-pop. Definitely someone to keep an eye on.

EVAN DANDO at Islington Assembly hall with no popular forum members.
Ella Raphael opened, was OK.
Then Juanita Stein, singer from Howling Bells played. Nice set, she did two from Howling Bell's debut which I wasn't expecting.
Evan Dando, I bought tickets when this went on sale but started to wonder if I'd regret it. Especially as I could have seen the Libertines instead that night. I've seen him do some, lets say, below par gigs in recent years. Kentish Town a few years ago was rubbish, Roundhouse last year was good, but the band kinda carried Evan. Then there was the now legendary Norwich gig which has reached Troll 2 levels of so bad it's good in my mind. The prospect of just Evan solo in a big venue was kinda worrying, especially after the first few nights of the tour the footage I saw looked awful and he had to make an apology video. As the tour's gone on the footage looked better & his voice sounded like old Evan but still, once he gets near TCOTU he must have lots of people from his 30+ years of touring turning him offering him all sorts.
The lights went out, they put Like a Rolling Stone loudly on the P.A and the entire song played and still no Evan. Then You Can't Always Get What You Want played almost to the end and then he emerged struggling to hold a ton of books, some paintings & a skateboard. He spent ages placing them all down & I thought I was in for another shocker. Once he picked up the guitar it was like the Evan of old just returned. Got an hour and 45 of Evan pretty much at his best doing that great thing where he just plays one song and starts the next whilst people applaud. TONS of covers, of course you always get that with Evan but lots of on the spot decisions, often where he probably should rehearse the song before deciding to play it but I like the unpredictability of it all. His voice was great, best I've heard it in years & he looked like he was having a great time out there which isn't always the case when I've seen him. Played until he was told to get off stage to which he started off a mass acapella singalong of Frank Mills. Was a beautiful night, I'll be honest I was thinking if this was another disaster I'd probably think about calling it a day with Dando, but this was way better than I'd expected and one of my favourite times seeing him since probably about 2008(ish).

I'm hopeful for this new album to finally happen next year, no idea who'll be releasing it and I think that's probably what's causing the delay as I've read that it's as good as finished, plus there's the book in the pipeline which if Evan can recall 10% of the shit he's done in the past should at least be entertaining.

In other news, finally a re-issue of Car, Button, Cloth announced! A disc of bonus tracks but no Purple Parallelogram included. This was probably the last chance for the track to be officially released but now it'll never see an official release because Dwayne is a cunt.

BEAK> @ Kentish Town Forum WPFMKRBURG
I'd seen them earlier in the year at Green Man but was nice to hear a more fleshed out set. Did the new album in full, which in a big venue like Kentish town it kinda fell flat in the slower places. The second set of various shit from their career was pretty banging. Had a nice spot behind the mixing desk which was ideal too.
An eclectic guy called LITRONIX opened. Just him with an electric guitar, some synths & drum machines. His tunes started off kinda ambient before building, pretty cool. Will check out his album when it gets released.

Laura Marling @ Hackney Church
I've seen Marling a bunch over the years, but all but one were either festivals or support slots. This was pretty fucking special. Did a kinda hits set from throughout her career solo to kick things off including the suite from Once I Was An Eagle. Then things really went up a notch or two when she was joined by a string section and choir where she performed most of the new record plus a bunch from Song for Our Daughter. Plus she was on stage at 2pm, glorious.

They Might Be Giants @ Shepherd's Bush Empire
A band I've never spent much time with, though I'd been enjoying Flood a lot recently and they were performing that in full so it seemed like the perfect time to catch them. Did 2 sets, a lot of fun, they're songs are all over the place, very inventive. Did something pretty cool where at the end of set 1 they performed a song backwards, music & vocals. Then before they came back out for set 2 they reversed the footage on a big screen so it became forwards. Not sure if there was any trickery or pre-recorded audio involved but either way it was something I've never seen done before.

Bye Parula, cool indie rock band from Montreal, at l'Intermédiaire in Marseille. 10/10, really exciting set.

Yesterday I bought tickets to see Godspeed You! Black Emperor in Marseille and Fontaines DC in Arles' roman theater.

That was an exciting day.

Nick Cave at the O2 arena with popular forum member KRBURG

The sad remains of Black Country New Road opened. They did do one tune that I quite liked, but the rest was bloody awful. Half of it sounds like the soundtrack to a terrible Disney movie meets the score to Titanic. 3 fucking giant recorders on stage at once? Get fucked. I just know critics and fans will gush over this shit when they finally do a new record. They can get fucked.

Nick Cave - Probably my least favourite time seeing him over the years but still of course, bloody brilliant. I love Wild God, but he did 9 songs from it, which I think when you're doing a big arena show is a bit excessive. Personally I'd have only done 6 leaving room for 3 extra crowd pleasers. Still, good to hear the Wild God stuff live. I've said it many times, but in all my years of gig-going Jubilee Street is the greatest live song. I thought perhaps with time I'd not feel as strongly but every time they perform it my jaw drops. Colin Greenwood on bass too.

Paul Weller at Hammersmith Apollo with popular forum member JP
Marvellous. His setlist on this tour is pure dynamite. Finally he's figured out the right combination of old & new. If I'm nit picking, I could do without the Jam songs he does. At this point they just feel like they're there to stop people crying when he doesn't do them. I just wish he'd play some deeper Jam cuts, he used to occasionally do something like Man In The Cornershop but now we're down to Malice, Start & That's Entertainment almost every gig. Still, the Style Council numbers were on point, his current band line-up is perfectly suited for that material. Plus so many from Modern Classics, songs I'll never tire of hearing. Hung Up > life! Still on top of his game, voice somehow still sounding incredible. God bless Weller.

JP will fill you in with who supported. He was alright.

weller at hammersmith supported by liam bailey

i didn't like the liam bailey album the first time i heard it but it has grown on me quite a bit over the year. definite finlay quaye vibes.

weller just gets better with age. setlist is pretty much perfect now and the voice and band are excellent.

got told off for leaning onto some woman in front of me and then chucked up on the train home. 10/10

It’s funny, he’s playing essentially the same songs he did when I saw him a few months ago and I didnt really love the setlist. If he’s going to play TSC songs (and I agree his band now is perfectly suited for it), I wish he’d dive a bit deeper into the catalogue. And throw in at least 1 deep cut from the jam (Liza radley, or scrape away or some shit).

I did like some of the more mellow solo stuff, all the pictures on the wall and above the clouds. But maybe im just annoyed he didn’t play out of the sinking in Toronto. And where the fuck is sunflower???

I wasn’t able to sell my ticket, so last night was boss time. I had a seat behind the stage up in the gods, so that was a different experience. I spent a lot of the night watching max Weinberg and Roy bittan. It was a fun show, he can still bring it; but I was a bit bored in the middle until he brought out the rising and badlands near the end. I don’t ever need to see him again, though. Unless he does an acoustic tour or something. Nebraska >>> born to run.

6.5/10

All the pictures of the wall was a real treat indeed!

BAND OF PRICKS @ PECKHAM AUDIO WITH POPULAR FORUM MEMBER KRBURG

Band doing GBV tunes all night, did Bee Thousand in full followed by a set of hits and not hits. A good night was had.

was just reading that this band of pricks is the fellas who used to be in the band 4 or 5 magicians. i'd forgotten all about them. were one of the pavement soundalike bands i used to listen to in my brown trouser wearing mid 00s era.

trouser era > lad era.

MJ Lenderman & the Wind @ The Garage with no popular forum members last night.
Hollow Hand opened, they do the same sort of alt/country/rock that Lenderman does, but they're from Brighton and thus sound very inauthentic. Not bad
Been excited for this gig for a while. I caught Lenderman do an acoustic gig a few months back but the full band show is the one I've been waiting for. Now, if you thought The Wynd were a bunch of cunts (you was right) then The Wind take it to another level. They really fucking annoyed me throughout the set. First of all they all look and dress like the type of bellends that spend their lives listening to Grateful Dead bootlegs. But most of all, one of my hates is watching band members that are far too energetic for the type of music that is being played. It's mostly slow paced anthemic alt/country/rock, just play the fucking songs. But oh no, you've got a bass player pulling awful poses throughout, a guitarist that keeps coming to the edge of the stage and pointing and to top it off, a guy on keyboard that decides to run back and forth on the stage mid song. Fucking monsters.
A shame, because I did enjoy the gig. 22 song set, weirdly did the 3 big songs from the new album in a row early in the set. Lenderman deserves a better set of hired hands, he looks like he's scared of his own shadow whilst those idiots take away the spotlight from him. I didn't leave during the encore as I saw they did a cover of Neil Young's Lotta Love the night before. Bass player came on stage and did an cringe hype speech to get the band back on stage... and then they did a fucking Counting Crows cover & I left in disgust.

Still love Lenderman, not sure I can stomach his band again though.

Embrace - The Tramshed, Cardiff

Not as good as the last time I saw them (The Good Will Out Tour), this time it was the Out Of Nothing tour. Not my favourite album of theirs but they did put on a good show to be fair, and I managed to get right to the front, which is usually impossible in this venue

7/10