So after my night at Paper Dress Vintage (audience c100, price c£10) I proceeded to two days at Finsbury Park (audience c20,000, price nearer £100 per day). And if I am honest, the night at Paper Dress Vintage was more fun. Which is not to say that the bill and performances on the Saturday at Finsbury Park were not great. Really some were very good indeed. But in terms of overall value for money....
Lets start with entrance. At Paper Dress Vintage the guy on the door just has a list of names. He ticks me off and we have a laugh that we are both called Mark. I get a drink, have a chat with a couple of band members then walk upstairs to the venue. No bag check.
At Finsbury Park there is a queue in the sun until outer gates open, then long walk to security to check bags, get searched and then show one's ticket. And guess what? My ticket doesn't scan. The guy with the scanner asks a colleague. She does some checks. I point out that I bought the ticket through Ticketmaster and the ticket is obviously genuine. She goes off to check with someone else. They have another go, put in the number. She asks me to wait a few moments. Guys in the next line have the same problem. "Just give me another couple of minutes as we have to find out what the problem is and scan you in"
"No you don't" I reply. "You can see and recognise I have a valid ticket. If you can't scan it, that is your problem, not mine." I have arrived early to get my choice of spot, not to watch people work out their technical issues. She relents and I get in. But not an ideal start. And given the horrific admin and booking fees that these ticket companies charge, I do expect them at least to have a ticket that works.
So I get a spot, not at the front barrier but at the second set of barriers. They essentially have two compounds with barriers on three sides. Then there is a gap for security access then further barriers. Since I had been delayed and people had taken spots at the front, I went for the very middle at the second set of barriers - photo below gives you an idea of how far back that is.
And this is a photo looking across the corridor for security. The stage is on the left. Acts could, if they wanted, proceed through the middle
First act was a girl called Sofy. This was so much the female equivalent of James Marriott that I had seen the week before supporting Two Door Cinema Club. Vest, shorts, baseball hat, fit looking, utterly banal songs, lots of swaggering, nothing to back it up. All they differed was that Sofy didn't have a mustache.
However underwhelming Sofy was, next up was a stalwart of rock, Miles Kane. Suddenly the atmospheric temperature shot up (the physical temperature was already around 30C. No shade at Finsbury Park - a day of baking). He was great and the crowd responded. This was the sort of act the crowd had come to see.
I had never seen the Ks before, but immediately took to their energy. As did the crowd
Razorlight have been around a lot longer. Excellent set of hits from what one would have thought should have been the main support to Kasabian
At this point, as he has been wont to do, Johnny stripped off his shirt to reveal a body which, with a life in rock n roll with drugs, he really shouldn't have. He looks amazing for 46. He could pass for 26. That is not a dad bod!😃
However, Razorlight were not the main support. Louis Dunford was. Even
he said we were probably thinking who is this guy and how did he wangle support to Kasabian. He said he was thinking the same thing!
The only song I know him for is the Angel, which has been adopted as a kind of fans Arsenal song. I was sceptical about him at first but he grew on me. And to my surprise a lot of the crowd could sing along to his stuff. He must be more popular than I thought. Likeable personality
Now if you are wondering about these next few photos of a flag held by folk in the compound in front of me, let me explain. There was a young man that appeared in front of me whose face was familiar but I couldn't place him. Until he pulled out of his bag this Coventry City flag. He runs some Coventry City devoted you tube channel. And why did he bring it? Well, Kasabian are a Leicester band (and there were a lot of Leicester City tops around, for those who were wearing any tops at all - God it was hot) and Leicester are Coventry's arch rivals. He clearly felt a good time to rub in Coventry's promotion to the Premier League coinciding with Leicester's slide into League One
Quite a long wait between Louis Dunford and Kasabian (another nice thing about "pub" gigs - much faster turnaround times between acts) They put up a counter to count down the last 10 minutes to the band's appearance
So on came the band with Sergio pounding around as the front man. Which is not the role he started in. He was mainly guitar with Tom Meighan as lead vocalist when the band started (and indeed in what I would describe as their heyday). He has a decent enough voice and he does use the full stage, but I just find him a little tedious as a front man. Two much crowd rousing but of the banal kind. "Left side, make some noise!" that sort of thing
He also instructed the crowd to get on each other's shoulders, which is a spectacle in its own right but does rather block the view. Also I have to say this was the rowdiest crowd I had been in for a long time. Massive amount of shoving and I got hit by a randomly chucked beer can. And it was half full. I like youthful enthusiasm, but there is a limit....
Finally the skies darkened enough to offer a little light show
And Sergio did come right into the crowd
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