Friday night my lodger and I headed off to my local comedy club, in a back room at my local pub the Fox. Its always an odd evening, quite unlike going to see a gig at say the Apollo. Some of the acts are pretty crap, the audience is small and therefore the heckling actually works. The audience included a hen night (how cheap a night can you have, as the MC made clear? The world's your oyster for a hen night and you choose the back of a pub in Palmers Green). Headline act was a cockney of East African Asian descent, Imran Yusuf. He benefited from the stark contrast of the awfulness of the first two acts, but was really pretty good. A lot of ethnic/political material on the middle east and Muslims which I usually find a little tiresome but he had some good stuff. "People say I shouldn't do this stuff. They say I am anti-semitic, but I'm not. One of my best friends, he's...." (we wait for a Jew, but get)... , "HE'S an anti-semite. You know who killed the dinosaurs? The Jews. No, you don't see that in Jurassic Park do you? But they cut it out. Why? Directed by a Jew. But clues in the name innit? JEWrassic Park."
Wireless Festival
Then onto Hyde Park on the Saturday for an all day music festival. Now this one was rather different to my norm for two not unconnected reasons, the first being it was a mostly dance rather than indie bill and second because I had the privilege of taking my friends' 15 year old son to his first music festival.
I say "privilege" on two grounds. Firstly, much of the music is of a pretty "young" taste so it helps to see it through the eyes (or should that be hear through the ears?), of someone rather younger. Indeed there was a much younger audience here than my previous Hyde Park ventures.
And secondly, and this is where I defend myself against any thoughts that I am slipping into Michael Jackson's shoes, my friends' lad is an incredibly mature young man for his age. Indeed a couple we met towards the end of the gig guessed he was 20. (When I said I was 48 the woman said - "That's alright, my parents are older than that. " Am not sure what comfort I was supposed to take from that - it is possible for me to live on a few more years before awful death from senility ensues.) But he is also so amazingly level headed its just not like talking with a kid at all, just an adult with L-plates. Of course the downside of this is where one would like to play the aging sage casting pearls of wisdom, one finds he knows it all already. And he really does. I think we so underestimate what youngsters are capable of, if they are just given a bit of support.
And such a cool chap. No idea who he gets it from. Can't be genetic (his parents are lovely but cool wouldn't be topping their CVs by their own admission). Anyway, he seemed to enjoy the whole day which was great, though when I asked if he would like to go to more he hinted rather heavily that he would, but with his mates. I am not sure that a whole day with a middle-aged pension lawyer quite fitted into his ideal (funny that eh? What could be cooler?) But he managed to hide his disdain quite well for the day, for which I am grateful. And I think he got a feel for the vibe of all this - its just people of all sorts wanting to have fun. And one place where it really is fine to talk to complete strangers. Gigs are just so safe - even though some people will get tanked, what outside a pub on a Saturday night would result in a fight, at a festival will just produce toothy grins. Anyway, every time I looked round he seemed to be enjoying it, and I got a bit of a kick out of that.
And back to the band reviews, starting with
Janelle Monae
A great opener for the main stage. Knew nothing about this act other than she was supposed to have gone down well at Glasto. Really lively performance from her and her monochrome band. Very watchable even if not really my cup of tea music wise. Slipped in a Jackson 5 cover in the middle - her voice being really similar to a prepubescent Michael Jackson.
Katy B
Now here the views of my young companion and myself diverged. He was really into her stuff while I could only recognise a pretty strong voice over uninteresting songs while she jauntily paced from one end of the stage to another. And she, like Pendulum, and Chase & Status who followed later, have what I can only describe as a shouty cheerleader to make up for a lack of personal stage presence. Basically a bloke who shouts for the crowd to make some noise for the act. I hate this on so many levels, not least my aversion to audience participation. If I want to make some noise, or put my arms in the air or whatever, I will do so of my own accord thank you.
Digitalism
However, on drifting round to the second stage we saw Digitalism and our tastes reconverged. Great heavy techno stuff from this German band rather in the footsteps of Kraftwerk, but much heavier. Glorious intense sound. And all the better for the enclosed atmosphere of the big tent. I think we were both buzzing coming out of that. Or that might just have been our ears. Boy that was loud and heavy.
Now here we probably diverged again, and an age gap was probably at the root of this. These two acts were on at the third stage, a rather smaller tent. Both are essentially just DJs. And the aim of this stuff is to constantly bring the audience to climax, ie the endless dance music leads up to a cliff edge which leads to a renewed bout of audience bouncing. However, to my mind there is only so many times I can be teased to climax before I feel shot.
Chase & Status
So then back to the main stage for the two big acts. The first a new one, Chase & Status. We were both interested as to how this act would perform given that there album has a different guest vocalist on each track. The answer was that many of the guest vocalists turned up, and the big video screen at the back filled in for the rest. Again they employed a young black chap to prance around the stage and exhort the crowd to more noise. While all credit for energy, he really didn't exactly have a wide vocabulary. And the trouble with this outfit to my mind is that the quality of their stuff is so dependent on the vocalist. While for example I would like "Embrace" as it features White Lies, some of the stuff featuring miscellaneous rappers leaves me cold. But their best single, Blind Faith, features a black singer called Liam Bailey, who has a really nice voice which sits very well over the music. A bit hit and miss.
Chemical Brothers
And finally the Chemical Brothers. They have been going for some years now. I hHave always liked this sort of dance music, but never seen it on stage before. Its quite a different proposition to my normal indie scene. First, the music just runs through - you don't get one track after another, but one is melded into the next. Second, its all about playing keyboards and things, so they don't really do anything very exciting on stage themselves, but still they found no need for anyone cheerleading. Instead they hold the attention visually with a light show. Obviously, all bands use lights, but this is way more serious. I can best describe it as a modern art show. Wonderful bits of abstract and semi-abstract scenes on the big screen at the back, with a huge cage like circular structure of lights being suspended over the middle of the stage. Ended the set with versions of Galvanize and Block Rockin' Beats. A very happy audience at the end. Very entertaining, visually and aurally. Loved it.
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