The disappearing moshpit: Steve Hackett: Shepherd's Bush Empire - 07 October 2015

I fainted in front of Phil Collins in 1980. Did I swoon to his version of ‘A groovy kind of love’? Well, luckily no. PC was still the Genesis frontman at the time and 35 years ago, at the Brighton Centre, I lost consciousness because I got encased in a very sweaty moshpit.

It’s hard to believe now, that as a teen prog fan, I girated around to the full twenty minute version of ‘Supper’s Ready’; and last night, as Genesis’s guitarist (until 1977) Steve Hackett, played his set, it was seating room only. The seats in the stalls were pyloned in. There was even a half-time break so that the predominantly male audience could relieve that 50+ year-old bladders.

I’ve seen Steve before doing just Genesis numbers so last night I was there for his solo stuff. Look: it’s deeply proggy but it took me back to a time listening to these songs with my sister’s boyfriend’s brother in his house in Brighton. For some, ‘Shadow of the Hierophant’ is all prog nonsense. But last night, Steve Hackett’s guitar-playing was so good that this behemoth track was mesmerising.

I actually found the Genesis material disappointing because, if I’m honest, the set was for people who are even more Genesis-purists than me – there was nothing that wasn’t originally recorded before 1974. But Steve did it again with Firth of Fifth, to finish the evening. Another mesmerising performance. It was worth going just for that.

Collins and Hackett back in the day

And then the old men cheerily emptied their bladders again after the encore.

At the Shepherd’s Bush Empire, on levels one and two, you can actually stand if you want to, up against a wall. I did this and obviously used the wall for leverage, being over 50, for the whole three hours.

Because I just wish, in some small way, that I was down the front again, moshing and fainting to Steve Hackett…and Phil Collins. 

A bit more piss-whipping? Latitude festival, 16-19 July 2015.

I fell into conversation with brother-in-law Andrew, just as this festival was coming to an end. We'd had a 'moment'. You know, when all of the factors come together to make a perfect festival performance. 

Here comes the nice. Stornoway, 19 July 2015

The band? Stornoway. The venue? The tiny 'other voices' stage, with a few hundred inside a pulsatingly hot room, with loads outside trying to get in. All the boxes were ticked: the music, the venue, the banter, the intimacy - and - the crowd. That crowd were lovely. 

But...we discussed whether the whole festival was a bit, well...too lovely. How can that be? Well, on the Saturday night, a young man brushed past me on a bridge crossing the lake, and then came back to fully apologise in the most grovelling way. The teens camping near us confirmed that they preferred the Latitude vibe (man) to say Reading or the V Festival. It was fantastic. 

But, we're veterans of those other festivals. From 2005-2012, our group went to the V. We went because the bands were good and some of us hadn't yet entered our sixth decade alive. We've since retired from the V...But, in 2013 and 2014, various members of our group had to chaperone teens at Reading. 

Those festivals have an edge. A few years ago, during MGMT, a cardboard pint of urine struck me on the neck and drenched two nearby-standers. So, to put it bluntly, we've been pissed-whipped and exposed to a feral end-of-the-world young people's hades. After that, seeing a good performance was all-the-more deserved and earned. 

At Latitude, perhaps the way to look at it is to say that the reason our group loved Ezra Furman, the Vaccines, the Charlatans, and many other bands, is because we've done our time in hell. We bloody deserved this. 

And, if it's any consolation, we got told off for building a fire far too high. Naturally, the security guards were apologetic in asking us to put it out. So, we were the worst behaved at the whole Latitude festival. Practically feral.

Below is my list of bands I saw in order of how much I enjoyed them. 

But forget what I said when I started this blog. Latitude was amazing. I'll take nice, polite people any day. Just like Stornoway. A fantastic memory. 

Stornaway 
Ezra furman 
Charlatans 
Vaccines
Two Bears 
Femi Kuti
Rob Delaney (comedy)
Margaret Thatcher quiz show (cabaret)
King Creosote 
Django Django
Speak Galactic 
Boomtown Rats
Manic Street Preachers
Alt j 
Ivo Graham (comedy)
Liane La Havas
Laura Marling
Black rivers

And talking about bollocks......Courtney Barnett: Electric Ballroom, Camden - 10 Apr 2015

"Give us an anecdote", this guy next to me shouted as Courtney Barnett addressed the audience after her second song. Painfully shy, it seemed that her clever lyrics were in direct disproportion to what she had to say to the crowd. But then a strange thing happened. 

She visibly relaxed and started talking bollocks. Just anything that came into her head, and somehow it worked. And, somehow, it also improved the music. Courtney Barnett and her band became progressively intimate with the audience, at one point saying they loved us and at other times telling us to bugger off. 

And when she gets going and gets the confidence up, she's fantastic. So, to the lyrics. They remind me of early Elvis Costello, who sang: "The chairman of this boredom is a compliment collector. I'd like to be his funeral director." (Opportunity, 1979). Courtney: "I'm having an existential time crisis. Want bliss, daylight savings won't fix this mess. Under-worked and over-sexed, I must express my disinterest." (Pedestrian at Best, 2015) 

Very clever. And all supplemented with a great show....after about four songs. It was all uphill from there; and not an uphill struggle. At times, she was practically shouting and as the evening went on, this mingled with the bollocks chat to make it really special.  

Which is a shame, because the next time she comes over from Australia, she'll play a much bigger venue than this. The only advice I'd give Courtney, when she does start filling stadia, is to remember what made her so good tonight; that is, to bash out the songs, ignore the anecdotes and to keep talking bollocks.

J Mascis and my curly fingertips: Scala - 8 Jan 2015

My fingertips are trying to creak themselves back towards my knuckles, as instinctively I don’t want to write what I’m about to type. Last night I saw someone with zero personality, no stage presence and nothing to say to the audience between songs; no one apart from the front row could see him properly as he sat down to do his acousticy set.

And I loved every minute.

I’ve always lived by the mantra that there are only two bands that don’t need to talk to the audience and interact. One is the Rolling Stones. The other is the Stone Roses. Both are as cool as a stone. Everyone else must, you know, get involved. Whip em up into a storm. You see too many bands who look like rabbits in the headlights between songs as if it’s a massive shock that they now have to talk to the audience.  

But J Mascis doesn’t embrace any of that. Like a curmudgeonly friend who deigns to grace you with his presence on curry night, he mumbled his way through the talky bits and practically stormed off – and on again for the encore. He’s not a people-person.

I’d been warned. Earlier in the day he was on Lauren Laverne’s Six Music show and Lauren had done sterling work trying to get something out of the mono-syllabic Mascis. She did well, keeping Six Music from becoming ‘Dead Air Live’. It was embarrassing.

But all my prejudices were thrown asunder and now my fingertips are starting to relax because boy can he play guitar. My gig-buddy Steve wondered whether he overdid the fuzzbox on tracks such as Heal the Star, but I loved the distorted sound he put into it. It was loud and raw and not actually that acousticy.

J played for about 75 minutes, which would have taken much concentration given it was totally solo. Nice for the sound tech guys who didn't even have to say: "One/two"; more like "One" - it was easy to set up but complicated to perform. 

A guitar virtuoso session. After the gig, three women excitedly exclaimed that there wasn't a queue for the loo. That's because this gig was an unashamably male, stroke chin (probably with ironic beard affixed) event. 

Bloody brilliant. I'll never look down my nose at a non-chatty artist again. Promise (Fingertips; behave yourselves now)

Memories of Franki Valli on the birthday bash

Teleman: Heaven, 22 October 2014

My Sis and I aren't getting each other birthday presents any more. Instead, twice a year, we're going to a gig together. And last night, watching Teleman, my mind went back to the first gig we went to together. I've realised it was 38 or 39 years ago. OK, we were kids, but all the same; long time...

So we were understandably concerned about the 'in-crowd' last night at a with-it, hip venue. (Alright; stop that. You never talked like that, even in the 70s). No need to worry though. Music's changed and the people in the band are now just as likely to witness their parent's generation in the audience, possibly moshing. 

The band we went to see in the mid-seventies? Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. And strangely, a few weeks ago, Six Music played a track of theirs; The Night. And what a song that is. I often think of "Oh what a night; December 1963", mainly because I was one at the time and it was a very cold winter apparently. But if you listen to the Night, you'll see that Franki has legacy.

He could have easily come on stage and performed with Teleman last night, who were better than when I saw them at the Green Man festival in August. (OK; it sounds like I'm a Teleman groupie, but remember I'm old enough to be their Dad). They played a longer set and that can sometimes spell disaster. But, in this case, more was definitely more. I just hope they can build on the momentum and one day I can say that I saw this big band at a small venue. 

Happy birthday Sis. Let's book another. 

ELO and that Adidas bag

Jeff's Lynne's ELO: Hyde Park, 14 September 2014

I just got back from a downtown party.....The lure of ELO playing their first gig in 28 years was enough to see me leaving a tout almost in tears as I got a bargain last-minute ticket. (If only he knew I'd have paid much more...) I'm so glad I made the effort, not least because mixed with the nostalgia was a fantastic sound. Jeff Lynne and Richard Tandy, the two ELOers present, were on top form. This, despite their three-decade-absence. 

And during 'Livin' Thing' I turned from being 51 to 15. The memories flooded back:

• Matthew gives me Chris's copy of 'A New World Record' (there was a taping rotation system). He has it in his Adidas bag. I tell him that is a poor transit vehicle for an LP. The cover's edges are buckled
• Chris writes the track names of the above record on a tape box (so perhaps he taped it for me. What about the rotation system? Bear with me; these are old memories)

• Chris and Richard laugh when I wear my 'Wish I was a Wild West Hero' badge at school
• My Sis and I go to Wembley Arena to see ELO in the big spaceship hamburger

It would have been amazing and nostalgic on Sunday even if they’d been rubbish. But it was a great stage show, every bit as good as Wembley in 1978. My brother-in-law and I kept looking at our watches as we both started to worry that 80 minutes wasn’t nearly long enough for the back-catalogue we wanted to hear. So, there was no ‘Rockaria’ and no ‘I Wish I was a Wild West Hero’, among others. No matter; I’ve been listening to 'I Wish I was...' on repeat every since and I’m still really in a classroom 36 years ago with my home-made badge on. Thank you ELO. 

"Ride the range all the day till the first fading light.
Be with my western girl round the fire, oh, so bright.
I'd be the Indian's friend, let them live to be free,
ridin' into the sunset, I wish I could be."

Yes: New Oxford Theatre; 29 April 2014

In 1980 I shelled out 99p on a second-hand album at J and J Records, Hatfield. Last night I slogged my way through tube-strike-hit London, and on to Oxford, to see the band who made that album. And last night, they played that self-same album in its entirety.

The band? Yes. The album? Close to the Edge.

Getting into Yes in the 1980s was deeply unfashionable. Why didn't I listen to Depeche Mode or Siouxsie and the Banshees? Well, I did listen to those bands as well, but Yes are my guilty pleasure. And I was hooked from the moment I heard the title track of Close to the Edge. Last night was a challenge as it was the first item that they played on the first night of the tour. It was a bit rusty. But half way through I had a "hairs on the back of the neck moment". 

The big thing was Steve Howe's guitar. I went all the way to Oxford because their London gig is at the Albert Hall, where the sound is awful, because amplified electric guitars bounce badly off those mushrooms in the ceiling. Last night I had a great view and the sound was perfect. Steve is 67 years old and he played his guitars like the man in his prime that he surely is. The hairs on the back of the neck were practically turning into a 70s long hairdo all by themselves.

So, the moral of the story is: Don't turn down the opportunity to spend 99p. OK, that might be difficult in the 99p shop, but, perhaps you know what I mean. Because 34 years later, I bless the day I made an impulse buy in J and J Records, Hatfield.