Berichte

Today's Tuesday Ten is slightly different to the norm. Mainly because I've not been to that many gigs this year, or seen a lot of films, here are five of each worth mentioning.

So, gigs first:

05
Akercocke
Damnation Festival | Leeds
24-October 2009
amodelofcontrol.com review

Better organised, but less well-attended, than last year's one, this had a number of great performances, but for me Akercocke's vicious hour of death metal was by far the best. Savage, brutal, heavy-as-fuck and no time-wasting by nattering to the crowd for extended periods, they delivered exactly what the baying crowd wanted, and left me wondering how I'd never seen them live before...

04
Machine Head
Sonisphere Festival | Knebworth Park
02-August 2009
amodelofcontrol.com review

Returned to the bill as "special guests", MH took to the stage like conquering heroes and got a reaction like I've perhaps never seen for a band at a festival. …

This journal post does not contain any reviews!

Apologies for it appearing in the reviews section of these gigs but I had no idea that last.fm is set up to do that simply because I linked to each gig from this journal post. This post is for my own reference really and it's taken too long to write it out for me to be bothered to take it down or remove the links.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Paul McCartney, Earls Court, ?? September 1993


Chas 'n' Dave, The 100 Club, 2006?


The Miles Hunt Club, Camden Dingwalls, 4 April 2002

Fleadh Festival 2002
The Pogues, Cornershop, Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros, Gemma Hayes, and The Wonder Stuff
Finsbury Park, 8 June 2002

Ani Difranco, Shepherds Bush Empire, 23 June 2002

Fun Lovin' Criminals, The London Forum, 30 October 2002

Badly Drawn Boy, Brixton Academy, 10 December 2002

Miles Hunt, The Underworld, 20 December 2002


…

Further to last week, it's time to move onto the next stage of my rundown of the last decade.

Last week: My top 100 tracks 2000-09 Pt.01: 100 to 81

80
Girls Against Boys
Basstation
You Can't Fight What You Can't See
2002

The only album one of my favourite bands released in this decade, and it was a minor return to a form for a band who had been through such a bad few years previously. Following the somewhat distastrous flirtation with a major label, and a producer that simply didn't work (while some of it was great, I'd love to know who thought that GVSB would make a great industrial-rock band), they retreated, regrouped and came back with an album that followed along the perhaps more logical path from career high-water mark House of GVSB. Which meant a two-bass-player led groovy rock attack, with Scott McCloud drawling his words of wisdom over the top. Opener Basstation - also the single, of course - was a great example of this, in other words what GVSB do best. …

Sun 2 Aug – Sonisphere

Long wait, I know :S Thank my lazy arse for procrastinating and eating cheap Ben & Jerry's, and doing volunteer work. And playing scrabble. And sleep. And pretty much everything that's not typing this.

Sunday. We got a good nights sleep actually, but we felt rugged. Dirty. Crap.

So, the genious that Brad is, hatched the deviously brilliant plan of washing our hair! Clever, eh? You never feel cleaner after you've washed your hair. Baldies, if that doesn't work for ya, where else do you have hair? I'm guessing that'll definately need washing.

Anyway, on with the bands!

Buckcherry - errr who?
First band, not heard of them before, we were tired, these guys needed to be good for us to give a crap. They were... alright? Yeah they were good. Singer was good, sound was good. Everything was... good. I'm awake and paying attention now, good job lads. 7 out of 11

Paradise Lost - zzzzzzz...
..er..*sniff*.. …

Tue 4 Aug – Taking Back Sunday, The worldonfire - 9.5/10

OK... So, after Sonisphere I really wasn't holding out much hope for Taking Back Sunday, on Saturday, they were absolutely dire, let's be honest, however I paid £60 to get to the gig, so there was no way I was going to miss it.. But I wasn't far off, took an age to get there! Because of this I didn't get to see The worldonfire, but by the sounds of it I didn't really miss much.

So after getting a shirt that my mate wanted (for myself) I managed to squeeze myself into a space a few rows back, so, as the lights came down I got ready to be disappointed...

But I wasn't, they were amazing! They played a lot of the same stuff as with Sonisphere, but in the somewhat smaller Heaven it sounded fantastic. Even Lazzara's voice was less annoying, and he seemed somewhat less of a prick. What I'd be waiting the whole of the Sonisphere set for, Everything Must Go, was probably one of my highlights, as well as the almighty timberwolves in new jersey
…

Sat 1 Aug – Sonisphere
*deep breathing* Take the next left, and prepare to make the jump to hyperspeed....

Firstly, would REALLY recommend Brad's blog of the weekend: http://anotherthoughtprovokingnight.blogspot.com/ REALLY LONG, but so's this one, so buckle up.

This, wonderful event by the way took place in Knebworth Park.

Not a clue where it is, except that it's down south, somewhere. And it's fucking ages away. Want to give props to Brad's dad and stepdad for the lifts there and back, not many would make the effort. Bonus points to his dad for having Muse CDs that didn't work and a Darth Vader satnav.

Anyhoo, Saturday morning. Before I attempted sleep, and while Aaron was still getting/already was wasted from drink, I went on a 'wonder' around the night time activities.

Most mentionably the Monster Camp DJ set, which was INSANE. The likes of Soulfly and Drowning Pool (LET THE BODIES HIT DER FLOOR) and an insane amount of goths and hardcore moshers pushing the shit out of each other. …

Sat 1 Aug – Sonisphere

So I broke my festival viriginity to a great line-up, full of bands I love, and bands that I now love.

Friday

Obviously, with no bands on, this was a fairly uneventful day and allowed me and the lads to get accquainted with the site layout and get to drinking.

We checked out the Pirate Camp party, which was pretty gyarr! We went with a few new friends to the Monster Army Camp DJ party, which was good until the Drum 'n' Bass and other such songs came on. There were a few good warm-up pits; we had to leave however due to the effect of alcohol :P

Buttscratcher!

Saturday

Ok, so here come the bands:

SOil opened on second stage, and did a beautiful job of it. I've only heard Halo by them, but I'm not a fan of nu-metal, however I did like the atmosphere they created. They knew they were openers and they opened beautifully.

Alien Ant Farm

I should've gone for a beer when these guys played. I thought the lead was a bit of a dick (you can't say…

A new month, so time for my usual round-up of tracks I think you should hear this time around.

VAST presents Bang Bad Sixxx
Loneliness Is Fine
Relay

Jon Crosby finally remembers that he used to do more than just increasingly insipid acoustic balladry (I challenge "old-school" VAST fans to get through recent release Me and You without stifling a yawn, or simply turning it off). OK, so in the main it's balladry swathed in electronics, but there are moments when it bares teeth for a short while, and this track is the pick of the six tracks here. I've been listening to this band for ten years-plus now, and this EP apart they barely seem to be the same band anymore. It's a download-only EP, by the way, only $1.99 from here

Alter Der Ruine
Relax And Ride It (Be My Enemy Remix)
Beating A Dead Horse

ooooh yeah. ADR's most dancefloor friendly track gets rebuilt from the ground up with new vocals and guitars all over it. It gallops in, then stamps all over your head. Which wins, obviously. …