Fri 29 Aug – The Faint

The Faint - Phone Pics from Cargo

Sat 12 Jul – UNKLE

Pics here: UNKLE - Somerset House

Fri 13 Jun – Exotic Creatures Of The Deep

Pics here: Sparks Exotic Creatures Pics

Review to follow tomorrow.

Sun 8 Jun – Balls

Pictures here: Balls pictures

Venue not as packed as it was for Plagiarism.

Caught the support act, Royworld tonight. Entertaining and well played pop/rock if a little too 'ordinary'. They can certainly play, and did have some appeal over the bog standard though.

Sparks were just the standard band tonight, as expected, but with the female drummer they had for the original Balls tour. (Don't know her name.)

I love this album, some sublime melodies on it, and it seems to get unfairly overlooked in favour of the more themed, arty recent albums like Lil'…

Sat 7 Jun – Plagiarism

Pictures here: Plagiarism pics

Missed the support act.

Sparks were very prompt come their alloted time.

Plagiarism album in full in order, 19 tracks (bargain!). The only guest vocalist to join them on stage was Jimmy Somerville, for No.1 Song In Heaven. A shame Mike Patton wasn't there too.

The venue was absolutely packed. Chatted to a few people and got the impression a few were there because of the classical musicians. I don't recall which music college they were from.

They had three violinists, two cellists, trombone, and trumpets for all the orchestral versions,…

Mon 26 May – Evolution Festival 2008

Evolution 2008 Photos

Blazing sunshine, £3 entry, cheap(ish) beer and food, top bands. Sorted.

The Whip were on very early, but gave a spirited performance on got the crowd dancing within a couple of tracks. (Very young crowd probably due to cheap entry and lack of age restrictions. Was pleasantly surprised with the distinct lack of attitude too.) Hope to see them again maybe a bit higher up the bill.

This was the only band I bothered with on the Spillers stage. A bit of a trek back to the Baltic stage, but…

Thu 8 May – Delerium

Delerium Islington Pics

Didn’t bother too much with the support, although one was half decent.

Live, Delerium consisted of Bill on keys/sample triggering, a guitarist and bassist and live drumming. (Guitars - Sean Ashby, Bass - Mike Hiratzka, Drums - Ash Sood) All the vocals were done by Kristy Thirsk, but as well as singing the tracks she performs on, she also sang some of the tracks performed by others on the albums, including Silence (and a magnificent job she did of it too). Full tracklist, courtesy of User Error, was:

Angelicus
Love
After All…

Tue 8 Apr – Holy Fuck, Free Blood

Pics: Holy F**k - 100 Club 2008

Support was from the guitarist/percussionist/sometime singer from Chk! Chk! Chk!'s new band Free Blood.

Which is just him and a girl and a DAT/laptop/whatever and a few tracks with guitar. Even though it was pretty much all on tape it was reasonably close to the !!! sound. Nowhere near as good as !!! But a very pleasant unexpected treat.

Holy Fuck were sitting right next to me and just got up onto the stage. (I hadn't recognised them, for shame.) By this time the place…

Fri 11 Apr – Chromeo

Pics: Chromeo Koko 2008

A-MA-ZING

Best gig I've been to so far this year. So, so much fun. Everybody in the audience really friendly (even though I reckon I was twice the age of most of them), dancing, laughing, having a great time. No attitudes or posing going on at all. A very pleasant atmosphere indeed!

The young things Djing beforehand did an exceptional job of mixing up all this current Justice/Ed Banger/Boys Noize type stuff. It sounds so much better on a big system, and really comes into it's own when mashed up together.…

Mon 14 Apr – Trentemoller

Pics: Trentemoller - Forum 2008

DJ support from Alex Patterson.

When they guy next to me asked who it was and I stated the above, his face lights up and turns to tell his mate "it's The Orb guy!", his mate sneers and says "That's not Alex Patterson!".

I wasn't confident enough of what he looks like to argue the toss, so just shrugged. Sure enough, just checked recent photos of him, and, yes, it was Alex Patterson…. The world remains full of wrong people…

He did a set of dub and reggae standards, then…