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Underground > Radio & Music >

Gig moments that made your heart soar

20:13 / 25.03.06

I once saw Tom Hingely of the Inspiral Carpets play an acoustic set at a local folk club. There were 15 people there. But it was one of the best nights I have ever had. Listening to him singing "Saturn 5" and "This is how it feels" which were the anthems of my yoof, in a beautiful plaintive voice, was pant-wettingly exciting and swoonsome.

22:24 / 25.03.06

There's this guy, Rory McLeod - he's a rather fab folk singer-y type, and he's the most incredible harmonica player, proper whooping percussive folk harmonica like Sonny Terry or something, but moreso. Anyway, when I saw him, he had this way of starting shows by beginning to play his harmonica right at the very back of the venue, just parping away without any announcement or amplfication, and then continuing to play as he walked to the stage straight through the crowd. Who move aside and slowly twig that wow, this guy's pretty good, maybe he's not just some random scruffy loon, oh he's getting on stage, omg so that's Rory McLeod.

And this still just feels like it was about the best stage entrance evah. It was heart-soaringly good, if Jesus played harmonica he'd probably do this whole walk-thru-the-crowd thing, too. It totally works. *swoon*

ORA ORA ORA ORAAAA!!

01:03 / 26.03.06

The Flaming Lips, singing "Do you realise" and turning a crowd of drunk aussie yoofs (yooves?) into a weeping mass of heartstruck cosmic travellers.

Good times!

17:37 / 26.03.06

LTS (the folk-punk band, not the rapper — see here) playing a gig at the renowned Villa Squattus Dei in Leuven, Belgium one fine late summer evening.

One man short and with a drum machine that didn't always do what it was supposed to do (punk, right?), but the ambience was incredible. You know you're doing something right when even the most serious black-clad anarchist crusties end up laughing and dancing instead of just drinking and quietly falling over after a couple of hours.
The rest of that week felt like one long come-down. The studio recording pales in comparison to what they did that night, and that's saying quite a bit because it's still one of my favourite party albums...

power vacuums & pure moments

21:37 / 26.03.06

The [second to] last ever gig of ridiculously un-hyped post-hardcore band Milliondead at the underworld. Soundtrack to the last few years for me...they finished with an altered version of their 15 minute masterpiece The Rise and Fall which utterly blew me away.

22:47 / 26.03.06

Might be an predictable choice, and not a particularly informed one either, taking in consideration lack of gig experience, but Mogwai was brutally beautiful. There were points where it wasn't so much about processing melody or rythm anymore but taking them in as vague afterthoughts, with this swelling feeling of disconnection from my surroundings taking over that was just beautiful beautiful beautiful. Everyone else around seemed positively zombified as well, which felt right.

Pardon the descriptive wank, but it's not so much an oh so poetic thing. Just, y'know, a feeling of utter simplicity which felt insanely healthy, for mind and heart.

And along the same lines, a Portuguese band, Blasted Mechanism, provided the gig where I most felt the exact opposite - this wonderful connection to most around, where it was all about jumping and dancing about and sweating like a crazed pig, and getting in this wonderfully electrified common mood.

Both of them bands I can easily pass out on as far as records go, ironically.

02:12 / 27.03.06

I used to be in love with the Pixies and Frank Black. After five years of listening to his solo stuff on a daily basis and loving it like nothing else, I finally managed to go see him live. The band opened up with the 'UK Surf' Wave of Mutilation and I nearly died of happiness...

About 3 years ago, without having heard what they sounded like, I saw Dirty 3. I think that I didn't know what they were like added to the beautiful shock, and I was left speechless with how amazing that concert was.

Oh, and hearing Bowie sing 'Heroes' live changed my life as I realized what true love was. No lie!

uncle retrospective

08:08 / 27.03.06

Wow, where do you start on a topic like this with years of giging under my belt? Hum... Here's a few.

Radiohead 2004 at Glastonbury. When the crowd started singing "for a minute there, I lost myself", mixed with acid I was on nearly broke my mind.

Spiritulized 1998 at Glastonbury. Jason brought most of an orchestra and had the Brixton Gospel Choir backing him up. He finished up on "Oh happy day" and all the shit we slogged through, the mud, the rain and the cold vanished. If only I could find a bootleg of it.

10:02 / 27.03.06

Finsbury Park, Oasis, 2003. In many respects a dreadful concert. Having got there early, sat through various dull and uninteresting bands, and then having to move from our excellent position to the edge of the crowd as the scull of one of our party mystically attracted every single plastic bottle thrown from the crowd behind giving him slight concussion (also: I was hit by a quarter-full can of Slimfast, making me smell of strawberries), plus we were generally tired of getting covered in warm beer.

And then we stood there on the fringe and it was pissing it down with rain, and there was a bloke near me who was so drunk he collapsed and the St John's Ambulance had to deal with him. And in general I was feeling pretty murderous, especially as I had only taken the ticket to help my semi-concussed friend out.

And then Oasis came on and the entire mood of umpty thousand people visibly lifted, and they started to play Hello and as soon as Liam finished the line "Nobody ever mentions the weather, can make or break your day" the rain stopped and everybody around me was dancing, and scary looking men were hugging me, and somebody up a tree was dancing so hard that he fell out with an almighty thud, lay stock still for five seconds and then leaped to his feet and carried on dancing, and all of a sudden I was 16 and going to to see Oasis at my first, and still best, ever gig at Rock City in Nottingham and the world seemed so much more alive with possibilities and for the only time (compared with, say, seeing Radiohead at Glastonbury or The Flaming Lips (twice) or Morrissey thrice or Roots Manuva at a small gig where everybody was more insanely into the music than I thought possible or The Fiery Furnaces gig where Eleanor stared me in the eyes for an entire song at one point) I was totally and utterly transported like wot you read about and in a shitty field in London having been on nothing more than four warm bottles of Holsten I felt plugged into the universe.

The rest of the gig was a selection of gold hidden in dross and it took ages to get back and we had to be shepherded for miles by police horses and some youth got his head kicked in by six blokes about 50 metres from me, but for that one shining moment...

12:00 / 27.03.06

'Oasis at my first, and still best, ever gig at Rock City in Nottingham '
i was at that too, very good night

but truly earth shattering for me was Low, at Shepherds Bush Empire a couple of years ago, when Things We Lost in the Fire was out, and the whole place was totally silent, maybe 500 people just concentrating on this band, you had to whisper at the bar when you were getting a drink, and the intensity of the experience, the shared understanding of sorrow and triumph between the audience and the band
absolutely magical, totally intense, very very real.

Keith, like a scientist

14:21 / 27.03.06

three stand out in my mind:

1. Pavement, Peabody's Downunder, Cleveland. I can't remember the year, but this was the Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain tour. I can't remember who opened, but we were all there for Pavement, anyway. There was a lot of waiting and anticipation. Finally they take the stage and get all in their places. What's going to be the first song? Will they be good live? Are they going to ruin this music by doing it live? NO. The exact moment that made me write this is the very first notes of the first song, still my favorite, "Summer Babe." The band starts as one, Steve starts singing, and within seconds of starting, the crowd goes completely fucking nuts, jumping up as one...I literally looked to my side and saw everyone leap like a wave, and go completely out of their minds. They went on to play an incredible on point and awesome show.

2. Laurie Anderson, Palace Theater, Cleveland. Again, I can't remember the year, but it was a revelation. I believe this was shortly before The Ugly One With The Jewels album. The entire show was incredible. I was astounded with the bodysuit section where she had pads all over her body that triggered samples...she did a whole rhythm track by playing her body. The most beautiful moment was part of the lightshow, though, when a beacon of green light spread out over the heads of the audience and everyone put their hands up to try and touch it.

3. X-Ecutioners, Peabody's, Cleveland. We drove the 4 hours up from college to go to this show. It was insane. The most amazing part was what my friend described as the "Four Tops routine," where the four members all started out scratching their individual instrument parts, and making a completely song. Slowly the groove coalesces, and they beginning doing bodytricks with their parts...over time, they all get into the same move. A timed, cascading spin down the line, each member in time, just like the Four Tops used to do. What's more amazing, is that the during this, they all end up scratching the same sound in time with their spins...totally unreal.

unheimlich manoeuvre

22:07 / 27.03.06

uncle retrospective - Radiohead 2004 at Glastonbury. When the crowd started singing "for a minute there, I lost myself", mixed with acid I was on nearly broke my mind.

Mine's also Radiohead at Glastonbury but 1997.
I was off my tits, in a crowd and knee deep in mud.
Trying to so hard to skin up. Then they came on.
Fake Plastic Trees was beautiful.
(And if I could be who you wanted)
Jesus, nine years ago. Vivid memory still.

12:06 / 28.03.06

so what is it that makes a truly remarkable gig for you lot?

for me i think it is a mixture of how big an emotional response i got to it and a dash of the snob value of being at something that felt special, or remarkable and made me feel kind of cool for just being there (which is shallow i appreciate)

the emotional side can come from many things, the resonance of the songs (as with Low above), what being at that gig with that person meant or from exposure to the emotion of the performer, plus anticipation

The Return Of Rothkoid

01:52 / 29.03.06

Dirty Three at the Three Weeds in Rozelle, Sydney, during the tour for Ocean Songs. Tiled pub gig, and my first non-tented experience of the band. The set went for a couple of hours, Warren was at his rambling finest (this was before he cleaned up his act thanks to kids - he was seen wandering around the venue complimenting the attendees on their assorted finery, before the gig, which was awesome) and the version of Deep Waters they played went for about 40 minutes, with most of it played while Ellis was laid down on the stage.

I got picked out 'cause he liked my T-shirt (a rather first-year Paradise Motel fanshirt with "The agony will set you free" on the front, made more awkward by the fact that Merida Sussex from the band was actually there) and asked what I wanted played, so ended up with Everything's Fucked being dedicated to me, which was heartswelling.

People sat on the stage through the gig, and being an urbane kind of host, Warren went out back, brought back the band's rider and handed it out to them and the front row. Set ended with a raucous Dirty Equation that saw the whole pub dancing.

Just one of the most magical nights I've experienced from watching music. Everyone in sync, everyone entranced, and not a sound while the band was playing. Hot, sweaty, and smiling.

lord nuneaton savage

09:36 / 29.03.06

The triumphant return of Arthur Lee and Love at the Concord 2, in Brighton, a couple of years ago. It could've been horrible; he had a new, young band, had been in prison for a few years and enjoyed a reputation as something of a misanthrope. Would he smile? Would he bother singing? Would he fire a gun at anyone in the audience? We simply didn't know (bear in mind that this was the first gig of the tour, so no-one had seen any reports or knew what to expect).

They fucking ROCKED. Huge bits of "Forever Changes" were done without the strings, revealed in new skin as snarling Troggs-esque monsters. The band were young, energetic and obviously having the best time they'd ever had. Arthur was cracking jokes, pulling faces and, at one point, even did a Townsend style windmill arm. Utterly life affirming.

The songs took on new levels of pathos knowing of Lee's prison experiences and my heart was leaping about all over the place as the end of one particular "Forever Changes" classic ended in a mass chant of "FREEDOM!" between band and audience. I cried. I've never done that at a gig before. The best show I've ever seen.

23:57 / 29.03.06

saw the clash on their 'magnificent seven' tour, not so long after london calling. got inside the barriers down the front, paul simenon gives me his water bottle after having a drink and diving into the second encore, a packed capitol theatre in sydney and the allniters - one of the better local ska groups of the early eighties two-tone revival period in oz - supported.

got home and mum was mad as i broke curfew to go, so i was in the shit and ran away from home to my sister's in the blue mts west of sydney. stayed away for a couple weeks! what a gig! ahh, yoof and days of yore.

remember ub40 similar time being a great gig - a largish hall in the back of a pub (the family, at rydalmere if anyone remembers) with mebbe three hundred people. they kicked! and johnny winter in a club playing for almost three hours non-stop (nearly) was doubly fabulous in that i paid, say, ten bucks when i'd paid about forty to see him at a much larger venue a few days earlier and he played for just over fifty minutes. looked bored. this time he engaged with the smaller audience and he was scintillating.

damn, buddhistpunk, so hard to choose! seen some smaller gigs of no-one in particular were wondrous moments, seen buddy guy play three tunes just for me in his club (well, about mebbe ten-twelve in there to play at an open stage jam night, and me!) is hard to top. saw ian dury, the kinks, st germain, all brilliant nights.

worst ever gig? cure, playing in their 'pornography' stage. bloody awful!