Gary Numan - Back To The Phuture

I think I might become a Buddhist. Karma is real. I found this out after giving my Rock Band drum kit to my old pal Matt. He offered me cash, but I honourably declined. He said he would buy me a pint next time I saw him, but he only went and won a competition for 2 guest list tickets to see Gary Numan at The Troxy and gave one to  me.

Now Matt likes to get a good spot as he has filmed some great live footage in the past. He said he would be there around 3pm. Doors didn't open till 6pm and Gary wasn't due on till 10:30. Now I don't trust myself in that situation and would have probably got drunk and leg cramps if I had gone that early. No one else on the bill really interested me, although I wouldn't have minded seeing John Foxx.

As I've said before I've been a big fan of Gary Numan for many years. "Are 'Friends' Electric?" came out in 1979 and I've followed him ever since, seeing him live on a number of occasions. I managed to meet Gary a couple of times: once outside the STV studios in Glasgow when he was there to do an interview and again at the launch party for the "Random" tribute album. He's a nice guy, and remarkably approachable. I met him again at Reading Festival a few years later. I was there with my ex, who had banned me from playing his music when he was round, but at the time he had a local radio show and wanted me to get an interview. I had a chat with his wife who introduced Greg to Gary and they had a lovely little chat, while I sat on the side lines with the wife, seething with jealousy.

Anyway, after a dreadful journey on the Hammersmith & City line I got to the venue. It was a brilliant venue. Much nicer than the likes of the Shepherds Bush Empire that I've seen him more often than any others. My mate and also my flat mate had been to see Morrissey there last year and both of them said the same.

Matt was right down the front so there was no hope of seeing him, but he texted me to say that a couple of people I haven't seen for many years, possibly the 90s were in attendance. I sent Jon a message and managed to meet up with him and Karen and we managed to get a fairly good vantage point front right.

Gary opened with an epic version of Down In The Park, which was the single before AFE that has since been covered by the likes of Foo Fighters and Marilyn Manson. The stage looked amazing with huge LED screens that showed some pretty awesome images, but best appreciated towards the end of the gig when i had moved to the back of the room. A few other older tracks were played, such as That's Too Bad and Zero Bars, and of course AFE.

Some new songs from the upcoming Splinter album were played, such as Captured Underground Noise Transmission and The Fall, and he even through in a new song that he had only written on Monday (Everything Comes Down To This?), which was a brave move. Out of the new songs, this one was probably the weakest and could do with a little more work, although Gary did tell us in advance it was going to be rough!

Gary was energetic as usual, banging his head, thumping the stage with his mic stand and throwing some shapes. He seemed to be having a great time too. Anyway, my hangover from the morning was really catching up with me, and I felt sad to be leaving early, but I was exhausted. All in all, a great night out and even though he has been performing now for 33 years still as fresh as ever.

There was a documentary on Sky Arts about Gary that I couldn't see because I was at the gig. And I don't have Sky, but hopefully I'll be able to track it down somewhere. Any ideas?

Incidentally, Gary is now on Twitter - @numanofficial

I recorded a few videos on my phone which were not too bad, but they suffer from rather poor sound quality. I have put a couple of them after Matt's much better quality movies. Thanks to him for putting these up, and thanks again for the ticket!

1. Crash

2. Films

3. Haunted

4. Everything Comes Down To This

5. Zero Bars (Mr Smith)

6. Pure

7. Halo

8. Down In The Park (poor phone camera quality)

9. Captured Underground Noise Transmission (poor phone camera quality)

A couple more tracks - this time from supilangweilig on youtube:

10. I Die: You Die

11. Are "Friends" Electric?


Update: Thanks to AK on the comments below I have found the Re:Invention documentary. OK, it's recorded off the telly and there are Danish subtitles, but if you want to check it out, it's here

Gutted: A Revenger's Musical

Gutted was the talk of the Edinburgh Fringe. Having never been to Edinburgh I had missed it, and my long-running fear of musicals meant that I didn't go to see the previews at The Riverside Studios beforehand.

Gutted was written by Martin White and Danielle Ward (Dave Gorman's sidekicks on his Absolute Radio show, as well as the creators of Karaoke Circus), and stars Colin Hoult and (for tonight after only 2 rehearsals) Isy Sutie: better known as Dobby from Peep Show.

The story is one of joyful revenge. Sorrow (Sutie) saw her parents killed by her husband-to-be (Hoult) and spends the next hour and a half of the show murdering his entire family. The show had been described as Glee meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, with jazz hands as well as inappropriate violence and was an absolute joy.

Photo stolen from Edward Moore's Facebook page.

I met up with Hitch, Misha, Jack Binoculars (if that IS his real name), and Simon at The Montague Pyke. I think Jack may have chosen this as a "Precious Little" pilgrimage as it is now a sacred site where one of the first "pubcasts" were recorded. We treated it with the reverence it deserved and drank beer.

We got to Leicester Square Theatre (seems that all the bigger gigs I go to seem to take place here) and joined a rather odd queue. No one was moving. No one seemed to really be queuing so Hitch and I just went to the front and picked up his ticket and ended up being first to the bar. If we hadn't, the whole night could have been ruined.

Now I have a 6 week residency in seat A14 for the next run of AIOTM so was naturally upset to see someone else sitting in "my" seat. However I was in A11 so it wasn't too bad. I could still keep an eye on it.

"Gutted" has an extremely talented cast. I would happily pay the same money to see any one of them, so seeing so much talent on stage was a treat: As well as the aforementioned Ward, White, Sutie and Hoult (who played the entire Bewlay family) we also had The Penny Dreadfuls (David Reed, Humphrey Ker, & Thom Tuck), Michael Legge, Margaret Cabourn-Smith, Sara Pascoe, Doc Brown, Lizzie Roper, and for all you 90s indie kids out there, Jim Bob from Carter USM.

As this was a concert performance, I think the only reason I could have enjoyed it more would be to see the full play with sets, costumes etc as I did get a little confused as to who was who and may have got lost a little along the way. The original play was backed by a rock band. This time Martin had written a full score with his Mystery Fax Machine Orchestra which must have been a massive amount of work.

Thanks to Martin for allowing me to post this clip of "Pretty Amazing Guy" (sorry for cutting Humphrey's head off but he IS too tall.)

There was a Q&A session after the performance, hosted by Robin Ince, so Hitch and I took some nice comfy seats at the side. Unfortunately I must have relaxed too much, swallowed my cider the wrong way and coughed uncontrollably, soaking my jeans and any unfortunate passers by. Luckily there weren't any. I hurriedly left the main room in a cloud of tears and shame and spent a lovely 10 minutes coughing and choking to death in the toilet. And to my amazement, Hitch actually found this funny.

Jim Bob (Thanks to Edward Moore again)

Colin Hoult and Isy Sutie
(Stolen from Edward Moore)

After the show I met back up with Hitch, Jack and Simon. Unfortunately Hitch had to go and get his train and we spent a little time chatting with Jim Bob. After JB let us into some unrepeatable showbiz secrets, I told one of my own involving Elastica. I'm not sure how this happened, but lets just say "Elastica" prompted Jack to tell us a story about his ex-girlfriend's vagina. At this point I went to the loo and Jim Bob quickly made his excuses and went to talk to someone/anyone else.

I hope Gutted will be back and if you don't like musicals, go and see it. It will cure your phobia as it seems to have done with mine. Also, make a note that The Trap's "Bad Musical" shall be doing a run at The Soho Theatre soon. That's one you won't want to miss!

The Trap - Bad Musical

I hate Edinburgh Fringe.

Mainly because I haven't been and all the fun people abandon me for a month leaving my blog empty and my life just a shell.

However there was the smaller and less known Camden Fringe just a short bus ride away and I decided to see "Bad Musical" by The Trap.

The Trap consist of Jeremy Limb, Paul Litchfield and Dan Mersh and release their own free "Sodcast" every week or two on iTunes. t's an hour long barrage of non-sequiturs, amusing voices and odd logic and if you're a fan of Collings & Herrin or Precious Little then it's well worth a listen. I mainly know The Trap as being 3/4 of Los Quattros Cvnts who perform at The Phoenix on the first Wednesday of the month (shows start again in October after a short break)

Bad Musical was at The Etcetera theatre, which is a small rather warm room above The Oxford Arms in Camden. I got there about 45 minutes before show time and waited for @Neal55 to arrive. It was hot and noisy in the main bar so I decided to wait outside. I said a brief hi to Paul but took a seat in the corner as I don't really like to disturb performers before their show (afterwards is a different matter!)

It didn't look good. I seemed to be surrounded by a group of proper lads in pink T-shirts bearing the words "Rugby Addict", being rather raucous and singing songs about pissing in the sink. At first I thought it could be an impromptu satirical Camden Fringe performance, but I soon realised they were just annoying twats.

We took our seats and the show began. An official voice informed us that the show was written as a 3 hour piece but had to be truncated. Every so often as the show progressed we were informed that the next long chunk of the musical had been removed, which negated the need for any important plot and allowed the characters to get out of whatever hole they had dug themselves into. We were also told that Lloyd Webber had threatened legal action and the song had to be changed.

Starting with "Life Is A Musical", The Trap tried to reference as many musical as possible with increasingly contrived lyrics. Yes, this was living up to its name (in a good way!)

"When you come back from Vietnam and you miss Saigon - that's a musical"
"When you steal clothes from Derek Acorah's line - that's a musical"
"You're a Chicken Kiev eater - that's a musical"

Prizes are available if you can guess the musicals above..

The plot rotates round Dan Mersh's character (Johnny Everyman) growing up in a small town and eventually leaving for London, becoming a banker, causing the melt down of the economic system, becoming homeless, and ending up in space. All the other characters are played by Paul and Jeremy and the array of voices they use is pretty impressive (though regular listeners to the Sodcasts will be used to this).

I just wish I had more reference points for these songs. A great Rocky Horror show style song and the aforementioned Lloyd Webber song with every 8th note painfully changed were highlights for me, as well as the many (well-rehearsed) "technical problems".

As usual for a show I'm enjoying, it finished far too quickly and we retreated downstairs to the beer garden. Luckily the pink rugby cunts had gone. Neal and I spent some time chatting with Paul (mainly about Doctor Who) and as often is the case with Paul, he utterly bamboozled and confused me with his many shifts in characters and voices. And this is after the show! Sometimes an after show chat with The Trap can be as entertaining as the show itself. They are a lovely collection of nelly sweariness.

I do hope the team play some more dates soon. Now the other Cvnt (Michael Legge) has also become a muscial star at Edinburgh with "Gutted" I imagine the next LQC could be quite a camp affair!

Raging in the Park

I'd been counting down the days to see Rage Against The Machine for weeks and finally the day was here ! As you know, after quite a groovy Facebook campaign, the British people mobilised and bought the 1992 hit "Killing In The Name" in order to stop the predictable 5th consecutive Christmas number one by The X Factor. Finally the charts were getting interesting again. Fans were asked to donate to Shelter, and the band put all their royalties from the sales of the song to the same charity.

So back to the day. I met my mate at The Garden Ladder, a little pub on Green Lanes near where we both used to live for some Sunday lunch (at 430pm - is it still lunch then?) and then headed off to the Old Ale Emporium (or OAP as we affectionately call it). Its a traditional old man's pub that plays football at any opportunity and seems to have a constant stream of 70s rock music playing. I should hate it but I don't. It used to be our local even though I have nothing in common with any of the people that seem to go there.

We were going to originally get to the park for around 8.30 but I was told on Twitter that I really should see Gogol Bordello (or whom I had zero knowledge) and I'm so glad we changed plans and caught them. (Thanks @IanReentrant). They were amazing. Not sure how to descibe them. A mixture of punk rock, accordion, violin, and a general gypsy vibe going on. Like a modern day Dexy's except actually good. They ended the set by throwing one of the drums into the crowd which was followed by the drummer launching himself into the crowd in order to retrieve it. This ended up with the crowd supporting him on the drum, as though it were the base of a statue.

After a beer break we got back into place for RATM. The crowd was getting more packed and more people were trying to get into their prime spot. One lad with a large rucksack kept banging into my mate (accidentally) until he snapped back. I calmed the situation down and tried to explain that people are always going to be banging into him and to not worry about it.

Immediately after that a rather large man apparently catapulted himself past us rudely pushing everyone aside. "Don't be a dick" I said and was told to fuck off. I gave him the finger (as did at least two others) and I explained to my mate that this situation was different to the one that he found himself in, and that I was acting in the right. (obviously)

We were beside two girls with wooden spoons who were admonishing any rude people who pushed in with a sharp thwack to the back of the legs.

We liked them !

It was time for Rage, and the opening was done with a real sense of humour, with a cartoon Simon Cowell introducing the band before they launched into "Testify". Al the sings you would expect to hear were played and the only gripe I had was that the overall volume could have been louder. but then again, i'd say that about any gig.

Zack encouraged the UN to take action on the blockade of Gaza, but other than this, the politics were kept to a minimum (which was a shame). The band brought on the organisers of the Facebook campaign and hugged them, before presenting Shelter with a giant cheque, however we didn't find out how much it was. Anyone know how much was raised?

A security man told a guy near me that he wasn't allowed to make his own beer in the park. He turned to him and said "Fuck you, I won't brew where you tell me" (This bit didn't actually happen.)

The show ended. But no "Killing In The Name". However, SURPRISE ! The band came back on to a montage of quotes and stats from the Christmas campaign, each provoking lots of good natured boos and cheers, over a soundtrack of the X factor song. The place exploded as it had done back at Reading Festival in 1993 which was the last time I had seen them.

As the track ended we started heading to the exits. Once out of Finsbury Park it struck us that the tube would be rather hideous so we decdied to go to the pub on the corner till things "died down". This was rather naive as the pub soon got rammed not long after we had got our drinks and when we left it turned out that nothing had died down at all. We decided to walk into the crowds and get to Manor House where he could get on the tube easier and i could get my bus home.

Oh yes, incidentally, most of my pictures of this gig were taken via the giant screens. The reason for this was the far too tall man who stands in front of me at every single open air gig I attend. Here he is >>>

As I was waiting for the bus I was told I was at the wrong stop. I turned and said to them "Fuck you, I won't queue where you tell me." (This didn't happen either but I really wish it had)