Sun 6 Sep – A Flock of Seagulls, Mechanical Cabaret, Komputer DJs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjignIfu7u8

Wed 2 Sep – Friendly Fires HMV In-Store appearance

Pictures here: Friendly Fires HMV Oxford Street Pics

http://www.onthewire.info/Friendly%20Fires%20-%20HMV%20Oxford%20Circus%202009/slides/Friendly%20Fires%2023.jpg

Review to follow.

Sat 22 Aug – Posthuman at Electrowerkz

No pics. Still haven't got it into my head that they seem to allow cameras in Slimelight these days.

We were really there to see Problem Being, after taking a shine to them supporting Mechanical Cabaret. And £5 to see 5 bands and Red Stripe at £2 a can in a club may also have been factors… not that I drank much.

Isolated Atoms were on first, a 'trad' goth band, in many ways, not just the emphasis on the 'rock' part of Goth Rock. They weren't dressed for a fashion show. BLUE…

Sun 26 Jul – The 1-2-3-4 Shoreditch Festival

http://www.onthewire.info/1234%20Shoreditch%20Now/slides/Patrick%20Wolf%2001.jpg

Pics here: Shoreditch Festival Pics

Only got a ticket for this the day before. £15 for loads of bands seemed too good to pass up.

Weather was OK to start, and the light drizzle later on wasn't enough to spoil things. I was still OK in a t-shirt. But then I'm no Southern Jessie.

From the off the organisation was a bit of a shambles. Stage times bore very little relation to the website details or free-sheets given out at the entrance. With 2 tents and the main stage to get…

Sat 18 Jul – KMFDM, Trauma Pet, Leech Woman, AlterRed

Pictures: All pics are here

http://www.onthewire.info/KMFDM%20-%20Islington%20-%202009/slides/KMFDM%20026.jpg

We didn’t get to this until about quarter to nine (other commitments!), so missed the support. Having seen both Leech Woman and Trauma Pet before and not being terribly impressed I’m not too dismayed about that.

What I was mortified about was that all the tour t-shirts had sold out already. 
The venue was absolutely rammed full of sweaty, tattooed gents (and ladies). So there was absolutely no hope of getting anywhere near the front. Despite this I still managed to get some…

Tue 7 Jul – ATP Presents: !!! + The Temper Trap + De Tropix

http://www.onthewire.info/Chk%20Chk%20Chk%20-%20Electric%20Ballroom%20-%202009/slides/Chk%20Chk%20Chk%2014.jpg

Pics here: Chk Chk Chk Electric Ballroom Pics

De Tropix were pretty bad. Singing/shouting over a backing track that was on the verge of distorting.

The Temper Trap were superb. Never seen or heard of them before, but their set had punch and vitality as well as some great-on-first-listen tunes. Will be checking them out again.

The music between bands I found to be painfully loud, and !!! were too. Which took some of the edge off it.

The first 50 minutes of !!! was…

Sat 4 Jul – The Hop Farm Festival 2009

http://www.onthewire.info/Hop%20Farm%20Festival%202009%20-%20Day%201/slides/Florence%20and%20the%20Machine%2009.jpg

Galleries here:
Hop Farm Day 1 pics

Hop Farm Day 2 pics

Beautiful, cheap weekend's entertainment.

I don't think tickets sold well for this, as I got in based on getting £250 worth of weekend tickets through buying a £10 rain mac. (I sold the rain mac to a colleague going to Glastonbury.)

Was hesitant right until getting in that this was going to work. Seemed to good to be true. Seems there were a lot of offers for cheap tickets with different firms.

Even despite the seemingly practically giving…

Thu 2 Jul – Blur, Crystal Castles, Foals, Golden Silvers, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble

Blur Hyde Park gallery here

http://www.onthewire.info/Blur%20-%20Hyde%20Park%202009/slides/Blur%2010.jpg

What an amazing day.

Blazing sunshine, lots of happy, friendly people and some great bands.

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble were engaging enough, made a pleasant background to a wander around the site. The veggie burrito I had was scrummy. Got myself a 'Midlife' t-shirt. (Instead of Parklife, geddit?)

Managed to miss the next support whilst drinking perry cider and chatting. Didn't even notice they were on!

Saw most of Crystal Castles who were much better than when I saw them in Newcastle.…

Fri 5 Jun – COSEY-NIGHT

Onstage about 1:40 am.

Not as 'live' as they were at Islington.

Got myself a Nitzer Ebb datastick with 2 new tracks on it too.

The shirts only went to Large, so I 'had a word' with the merch chap about the band's fans age profile….

Oh, and someone at the Ebb site doesn't know what enamel is. The free badges are just normal pin badges. Morons. (I note the site now just says "pin" badge.)

We were near the back on a raised bit at first, and the sound back there was awful. I…

Sat 6 Jun – White Rose Movement

WRM Islington pics

http://www.onthewire.info/White%20Rose%20Movement%20-%20Islington%20-%202009/slides/wrm15.jpg

Didn't catch the support. No XL t-shirts. (Another band discriminating against us fatties! Sort it out, eh?)

Sound as ever at this venue was superb. Nicely full but room to move. Youngish audience, fairly high percentage of ladies in attendance.

I've seen WRM a couple of times before, and they always put on a great energetic show. Sound was tight, crunchy and about as live as it could be.

New keyboardist on stage. She did vocals on one track, and I think the intention is she'll do more. Clearly…