Mixing it up

At the Concorde before a gig (Plan B I think), Rosa and I managed to mix 4 songs in to one. I don't know why.

Tonight I was bored and decided to make the dream a reality. Here it is!

Check out the awesome editing skills!

CSS and Amy

Boring obvious Mercury Prize! Oh well.

We saw CSS at Audio on Saturday. It's a very weird (and perhaps rubbish) venue for a gig like that, but it's better than nothing. There was a mix up with the license and lots of under 18's with tickets were given a refund at the door, so it wasn't full even though it *had* sold out.

We arrived at about 7.30pm and they came on about an hour later (after a moustache-wielding support act) and it could have done with being a late night gig once everyone was a bit more drunk. However... any energy initially lacking from the crowd was more than made up for by the lead singer. She's a tiny ball of Asian/Brazilian energy and she loooooved it! She was quite literally crazy and repeatedly said things like "this song is about the seagulls eating the eyes of the humans in Brighton" and even crowd-surfed!!

This is a fairly arty photo taken with my mobile phone. Notice how no-one has a face! The guy on the right with the moustache seemed like he was in charge of the 5 girls and took over the guitar playing when it got more complicated. I assume he's their musical pimp - he certainly looked like it.

The music was great but it was worth the money just to see the lead singer.



Then on Monday it was Amy Winehouse at the Concorde. Supporting her was a guy called Ben Earle - a 17yr old singer/songwriter with an acoustic guitar and keyboard. He was impressive and the crowd reacted in a way I've not really seen before. There was lots of friendly banter which kinda came out of nowhere. He'd obviously never had a crowd like it and wasn't sure how to take the praise.

After a short break, on came 6 band members in pyjamas, 2 backing singers in white Tuxedo tails and then Amy in a scandalous outfit - hotpants, bra and open jacket. The backing singers were superb: they didn't get much to sing, but they sure did dance!

She has a new album coming out and it has a massive Motown feel to it. It was great seeing it performed with a big band.

And what do singers and band members do after a gig in Brighton? Play pool in a local bar apparently!

Mercury Prize 2006

I always make an effort to listen to all the Mercury Prize Nominees. As always the list is eclectic, with some great albums that I knew and some I'd never even heard of. The reason I get excited about the Mercury Prize over any other is that the shortlist always introduces me to some fantastic music that might otherwise pass me by.

There's not 1 album on the list that I don't like, but I'd be most pleased if Thom Yorke (my favourite album of the year so far), Editors or Sway won. I really don't think Sway will - they like to be different and Sway won the Mobo award last year and a few years ago Dizzee Rascal won the Mercury Prize, meaning it wouldn't be different enough for them to choose.

I don't want the Arctic Monkeys to win. They just don't need it - everyone knows who they are and they've sold tons of albums. It is a cool album but it's over-hyped, over-played and overrated. It's apparently clear favourite to win by the bookies, but I can't see it happening. We'll see...

Xavier fun!

Whilst attempting (and failing) to buy tickets to the TDK festival, I accidentally bought tickets for 3 other gigs instead. Xavier Rudd, Cansei De Ser Sexy (CSS) and Amy Winehouse.


Last night was Xavier Rudd at the Concorde2. I saw him at the Concorde back in April with my sister, Lucy, who's a huge fan of his. He's pretty big over in Australia (where she lives), so she was well excited about seeing him in a small venue. It was a superb gig and afterwards we decided to buy a t-shirt each. We turned around ready to leave and he was there in front of us. Lucy was very star-struck, but we managed to have a conversation and get our t-shirts signed. A few days later Lucy decided to use a blank t-shirt transfer over the autograph so that she could wear and wash it. Let's just say it didn't work out well and she really didn't love it. So.... this time I had a mission to get a replacement!

Farms and I headed down just before 8 and started drinking (just water for me!). I bought the t-shirt at the start and hoped he'd come out at the end like last time. The gig was every bit as good as I remembered from the first time. He really is the most talented musician I've ever seen. Some of the stuff he does is ridiculous - like playing the didgeridoo, guitar and drums effortlessly at the same time and then singing and moving on to the harmonica - again all the time playing guitar and drums. I think the crowd was mainly aussies again and I recognised quite a few from the last gig.

After he finished, we tried to hang around in the main area but after a while the staff started chucking everyone out. We headed to the t-shirt stall and pretended to be interested in buying for a while and made some light conversation with the guy who was selling the stuff. We then stood to the side of the stall, occassionally chatting to the guy and his 2 friends... it looked like we were friends with him too. 10 minutes later we realised that we were the only non-staff left, the doors were closed and they were just clearing up. We even helped them by pushing a bin in their direction to feel like we were involved in some way and not evil imposters. It was weird and we really weren't supposed to be there, but we stayed put. I don't think it helped that we kept looking obviously awkward and out of place with the occassional nervous laugh.

After a while we decided to go find him as he was clearly too lazy to come find us. Off we went in to the backstage area, passed all the equipment guys packing away the instruments and out in to a deserted area. As we were about to leave empty-handed there was a voice of a little Australian kid - blatently Xavier's son! So I just called 'Xavier?' up the stairs and his head popped round the corner and said "hey". I said "Any chance of a favour...?", then explained about the last t-shirt and had a bit of a chat - he loved it! So out we wandered, passed all the staff with a signed t-shirt in hand :D

Woo!

Hello there!

I'm hopefully gonna fill this space with all sorts of music-based fun.