Yes. For the past two days I've been racing (or, indeed, crawling) around the streets of Camden in the name of music and now I'm paying the price. Still, worth it for a weekend of secrets, surprises and sonic indulgence. Friday started with cramming onto the roof of the Hawley for drinks and smokes and the killing of time, before we headed off to the Edinboro Castle for a pop quiz. Pop quizzes are my life. Aside from the viewing of live music, I don't think there's anything better than sitting in a pub and answering questions on obscure music trivia. Alas, we didn't win, but we did play under the name Toothpaste Quizzes, which can only make us winners in my eyes. Halfway through everyone got a bit overexcited because Madness turned up to do one of their "guerilla" gigs. I sat unimpressed and waiting for them to sod off so I could get on with the serious business of pop quizzing. I hate Madness, I do.
Anyway, we didn't win and we didn't lose, we just performed mediocrely. Disappointing, I'm sure you'll agree. So with that in mind, we went to find something less mediocre than ourselves. Namely the following bands:
The Von Bondies - yes for US garage-rock! New and old songs that all sounded ace, but none as much as C'mon C'mon aka song of 2003.
Man Like Me - grime + brass + dancing boys = a hella load of summery fun. Single Dad reminds me of back home in the badlands of Essex. Aw :)
Kitty, Daisy & Lewis - it has been decided Lewis is 'the shiz'. True story. Yeah, they're good fun but I spent most of the time clock watching so we could get back to the Electric Ballroom in time for...
The Big Pink - we missed most of the set. I felt sad. Some obviously-fucked guy bumped into me and then gave me death stares for a long time which was quite frightening. No one really seemed that into the band and stood quite far back chatting, for the most part. I was saddened. The Big Pink are aces, I don't get how people can't see it. I stumbled across them at Concrete & Glass last year whilst looking for Steve Lamacq and fell in love, quite by accident. I think they suit the Macbeth more than the do 'leccy Ballroom, mind.
James Yuill - was surprisingly good. I think I was expecting more of a Newton Faulkner gone electro vibe but it was more Maps gone acoustic. And as Maps are wonderful, so was James Yuill.
Your Twenties - can't you see I'm feeling over the top? OUI. Joe and Oscar from Metronomy were watching Stebbing's new band, which was sweet. The floor of the Enterprise scared me a bit, cos it felt like it was going to fall through. YT were lush though and not scary at all. YES YT.
Teeth!!! - LA electro-punk is one of my favourite things. As are screaming, jumping frontwomen in fuck-off cool leggings. I want to be in a band like Teeth!!!
Plugs - pleasant surprise. Morgan DIOY,Y?'s "new" band. Better than DIOY,Y? by a long shot.
Selfish Cunt - MY LOVES. Don't suit Koko one bit. Too big. Martin Tomlinson didn't seem to care though judging by all the cavorting he was doing on stage. What a guy. Another band I don't understand the hate for. Although I think there genuinely is something you have to be able to "get" with SC, moreso than the Big Pink anyway.
And then. Bus home. 5am. an hour's sleep. Do it all again. Saturday was calmer in some respects, but others a hell of a lot more frantic. I had been told by NME acquaintances that Blur were to play a secret gig at the Spread Eagle at 3:30pm. So. I sat in the Spread Eagle all afternoon, getting ridiculously excited, miserable and fucking tired. In the meanwhile, we saw:
Roses, Kings, Castles - yeahhh. Good banter.
Meme Love - fuck off. Please. You look awful, you sound offensively bland and you can't throw cake for shit. Get. Off. The. Stage.
The Barker Band - made me lose my will to live.
Tim Ten Yen - started off good then got progressively worse. Also, what's with calling all your songs beautiful?! Strikes me as a bit arrogant and like he loves himself a bit too much. Beautiful? A corpse could compose better.
Graham Coxon - Blur didn't play. Graham did. At 5:30pm. ARGH. I had to stand on a table to see though, which was obviously well fun. Yes for table standing. I love Graham so I wasn't that upset that it was just him. He played songs only from his new album and was on top banter form. Johnny Borrell was there too; I laughed.
Alessi's Ark - only caught a few songs but she was quite sweet. I fear she could get a bit mundane if watching/listening to her for too long but in short bursts, she's ace.
The View - I don't think any one band has such annoying fans. Seriously. Being in the Roundhouse with 2000 of them is like hell on earth. And Pixie Geldof was there watching them/waiting for Kasabian. How uncool.
Blk Jks - were whack, we went back outside until they'd finished and got mocked by some guy who'd been kicked out. Fun times.
The Big Pink (agaiiiin) - I love them. More than life.
So, no Blur and some very aching limbs. My ears are still ringing far too loudly to be considered even remotely healthy. Tinnitus 4 life! At some point soon, I shall get some proper sleep but not tonight for it is Gaslight Sunday and then all-nighter so I don't miss Blur Goldsmiths ticket announcement at 9am tomorrow. At some point I might fit in some work. But I doubt that very much.
xx
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