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Updated December 2007 Once upon a Gig....Krisitin Hersh, John Dee, Olso, Norway. April 1st 2007 by Calamity Val Late and high. That's how we entered the fairly crowded (for a Sunday night in Oslo at least) John Dee. Not that late, though we missed the opening band.. again, Sunday night syndrom.... but high enough not to handle the staring eyes as we went down the stairs (ooops, who should we say sorry for being late too?). Had it been the night before, nobody would have even noticed us, but this was an inhibited crowd of a holy day. We could take our paranoia paradise all the way to the first row, sliding the static crowd open quite easily. We stood by the cello and violin players, on the right, enjoying a perfect view on the other musicians (drummer and bass player from 50 ft wave, Kristin's powerpoppunkcore band) and Kristin Hersh, standing in the middle. Impressive. Her aura like a full sun reflecting in a night dark river, she shines a warming white light, dry, nervous, strong and powerful in her guitar playing. Nerves ending in guitar strings. Her deep, guttural voice : art, far from cliche and easy short cuts. Funny, she talks and jokes, tongue in cheek: "thanks for coming on a Sunday night... it s ok for me, I don't have a job." Girl braiding her hair while lip singing "Gazebo Tree" or "Your Ghost", people being polite, silent, smiling.... like they don t realize, like they don t feel the emotion, the intensity, the pain. Made me want to float higher. not to panic. "Is this where you guys meet?" she is sharp in her comment. I guess the art is to keep it really though performance obviously turns into a job... They played almost everything: old Kristin Hersh, new Kristin Hersh, some throwing muses. Magic ecstatic. Then it was the encore: with a 50 ft wave action... she warned the crowd: "it might be a little louder....are you sure???" That s when everything took off: nothing, noone could contain the tsunami/hurricane coming from the stage. The musicians were boiling-electric. It was like reading Kathy Acker for the first time, like finally managing these 3 fucking chords on yr guitar, like driving fast enough to have a 24hour sunset, no stop, and do the same at sunrise. You know what I mean.
.Updated November 2007 Young Marble Giants live at BBMIX festival, Boulogne Billancourt, Oct 2007, by Julie Tippex"We did it !", said Stuart Moxham while we were hugging in the street, after the show. "WE DID IT !" If the third edition of the BBmix festival was funny, punky, talented and noisy and if the gigs of Gay Against You, Deerhoof, Dirty Projectors, Pram, Serafina Steer, and all the others were absolutely brilliant, our highlight with Pascal was for sure the rare performance of Young Marble Giants and the sweet time we've spent with them. After a few years wait, their gig, their happiness to play and to be there, the emotion of the audience just thrilled us as it barely happened before, and gave sense to all the daily efforts we can do to get artists in front of audience even if it's hard work and not paying our bills. More than ever, we believed in the capacity of music to touch you deeply beside success, hipness, turnover, marketing or whatever. The same way you're getting shy as a teenager when Robert Wyatt kisses you on the cheeks, or you can spend a whole nap listening to every single note of an album and feeling filled. Alison, Andrew, Philip, Stuart : thank you.
.Updated in July 2007 Patti Smith live at the Roundhouse, London by Nat : I have been a fan of Patti since I was 17, starting with her legendary "horses" album then making my way through all of them. I love Trampin' as much as her 70s albums, and do not wish to see her trapped in her own legend. I've seen her live a handful of times before, and she blew away all my expectations. So why was I disappointed when leaving the gig last night.Covers, you said covers? Patti has always been known for doing some covers, and I have nothing against this. "Gloria" has become hers, as far as I'm concerned. Her version of "my generation" with John Cale is the best I have heard. But Patti also has great songs of her own, which you wouldn't know from the gig I attended last night. Where was "Ask the angels"? What about playing "About a boy" rather than covering in a rather conventional 70s rock fashion "Smells like teen spirit"? The best cover of that song has been made, by Tori Amos, and as much as I love the song, I don't think covering it the way Patti did added anything to it. The gig started off very well. She opened with "Gloria" – an unexpected choice (expected to be encore material), but a great way to get the crowd excited. She was on form, and did a few songs from Horse. She played one of my favourite songs from Wave, that is Frederick". I was in paradise. But it wasn't even half way through when she started doing cover after cover. The Beatles, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Nirvana and more. Too many of them, way too many of them. I know she has just released a covers' album, so I was expecting a few, but frankly, I was getting bored. I love her music but I don't necessarily love her musical influences. Sure, it's interesting to hear what influenced her but it shouldn't take more than half of the gig. She left the stage. We screamed and clapped, she came back. She came back with 1 cover and "Rock'n'roll Nigger". The cover before that was a Tears for Fears song, which I could have happily done without, and "Rock'n'roll Nigger" is far from being one of her best songs, so i kind of wonder why she chose that to finish the gig. I went to the gig super excited, I left it feeling empty and disappointed. Not to mention the atrocious security, going after people taking pictures, disturbing the rest of the audience more than what was worth, acting like they owned the place. Patti made a long speech during one such intervention, about theBritish Museum, and how you are allowed to take pictures there. Was she having a dig at the security staff? I'd like to think so :).
Updated in May 2006 .Afrirampo at Cargo (London UK), 12th of April 2006 by Riotmiloo:Besides being a country of breathtaking film makers, Japan is the land of many amazing bands: Melt Banana, Bleach, The Boredoms… Let’s not list them all and concentrate particularly on one of them. I had heard of Afrirampo from a friend who had seen them, a couple of months ago at the Brighton’s latest ladyfest. Since then, their name was stored in my memory list of bands to keep an eye and ear on. So here I was, either ready to fall in love with them or to be extremely disappointed from that band coming from Osaka. When Oki and Pika hit the stage; they opened their show with that strange incantation, mixing their two childish voices to introduce themselves whilst casting a spell on a very curious audience. Some already knew what would go on because they had seen them before and they wanted some more. Cha chachacha...chchchchchchchchchchchch...CHA! Something clicked between them and everyone, straight from the beginning. Their red tattered outfits showed us strips of twirling flesh, legs flying up and down, hair ready to prick up everyone’s ears. How could we resist to their high pitch vocals or to their kind of Asian voodoo inspirited musical tunes tampered with crazy lightning boltish guitar riffs? Certainly not me! Pika’s rhythm section was solid, precise and powerful (just what I like). She went straight to the point in hammering as hard as she could her skins whilst screaming like a possessed soul. When they played that song stuffing themselves with sweets, their complicity was at the maximum. They kicked the stage like capricious children, they even moved the drum kit out of it. Besides that, they also took everyone on a trip to unknown natural fields just with their singing. Mind you, not every single band can be proud of being able to do that!!! So from now on, I can say that on my Japanese favourite band list I’ve added on Fucking Afrirampo because they’ve got me, I’ve fallen in love. http://www.myspace.com/afrirampo
Updated in march 2006 : .Mansfield Tya, Montpellier, Trioletto.The venue was packed on that cold January night. People came in spite of the weather to this typical university amphitheatre venue, the ideal place for intimate concerts: calm, with comfortable seats. It was BabesInBoyland's first time with Mansfield Tya, after we'd been listening and playing 2 of their demos for a while. This was the first live encounter. Barefoot, wearing worn out jeans and a black t-shirt, Julia had this teenage "I am coming right from the beach", very charming look, seeming a bit shy to be standing like this in the spot light. She looked like a Katie "Organ" Sketch forgetting about her autistic performance to share her pleasure to be on stage with the public. No stylistic device here, no useless tattoos or comments heard a thousand times before, only pure emotion, a powerful voice, flying straight to your heart. Carla's violin, on most of the tracks is all power, nuances and crescendo... sending a thought to Benedicte Violain here. She is Theo Hakola's stage buddy. Julia's strength, whether it's with Mansfield Tya or with her side project (the name of which I will not reveal here) is obviously the incredibly easy she has of saying the worst while keeping a very childlike innocence: "I knocked her teeth out so I couldn't be found out". Childlike is the word, indeed, it reminded me of this Sunday afternoon show on French tv called l'Ecole des Fans, when she forgets to grab her guitar, or she is not behind the keyboard when she should, squirming like a little girl scared of the judges final marks. That night they got a unanimous 10/10 on the clapometer
. Rose n roll, Montpellier, Le Pinte Pub Since it was them we were there for, we skipped the first and third band... no need to lie about it.... Strange layout of the premises at this Pint Bar: if you're at the bar downstairs, you can hear perfectly well the concert upstairs while watching the Olympic games on tv!!!! It's been months since I promised myself to see Rose n' Roll play. And then finally I could and did go to watch this band led by the 2 Auzier sisters. Karine, the eldest, used to play in all girl band Moonstruck -RIP- (2 e.p. out on Thunderbaby Records) It shows right away that they have a lot of stage experience: they are totally relaxed and at ease, Karine lasciviously swaying her hips behind the bass and Anouk, fantastic on vocals, without the slightest hesitation, perfect in her part of band leader. They allowed themselves of cover version of "I wanna be your dog" in the best RnR tradition without just being one more pale copy of the thousand ones before. Very funny lyrics, true pleasure to play and be playing together their « Pussy Rock Garage ». Pure entertainers but not posers. Real rock, often heavy, always funny. Total respect. Yeah !!!!
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