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As part of the Anime Season showing at the Curzon cinema, I went along to see the screening of Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence a couple of weeks ago. The first Ghost in the Shell is a classic cul movie and although I don’t really remember what its story line was about, I do vaguely remember some of the characters.

As part of the festival, a lady told us a few points to focus on throughout the movie, and described some of the events and thinking that lead to the 2004 release of Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. Sure enough, many of the points she listed hit true to their mark. The movie is superbly visual, almost to the a point where it is cloying with its oversaturated colours and the soundtrack is unnervingly haunting, adding to the overall atmosphere of the movie.

The storyline follows the same robotic investigator from the first movie, although this time he is partnered with a new human investigator after the apparent demise of his first partner. Their investigations follow a set of related murder cases involving a specific type of robot model doing the murdering and then committing suicide afterwards, both apparently violating well known rules of robot law. I won’t go into any other detail because I think the movie does a much better job of uncovering the details behind the murders and their origin.

I’m glad to have seen this movie on the big screen. I can hardly imagine the sounds and rich pictures having as much impact on a much smaller TV, or in a home environment. I’m not sure the movie will be for everyone, particularly those not interested in watching anime movies but I still think it made a pretty good movie.

TheKua.com Rating: 7 out of 10

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On Sunday I ended up at Shepherd’s Bush Empire to participate in one of the Secret Cinema events, a themed evening out where the movie is secret right to the very end and the location disclosed just a few days earlier. When I signed up for the ticket, all I knew was that there were going to be “Rock Gods” and “Shady Promoters”. Later I find out the theme of the evening is 80s rock, so I end up buying a vintage leather jacket on the weekend to accommodate. I found a decent bargain at Rokit in Covent Garden too, so pretty stoked about that.

To be honest, I don’t remember that much about the 80s other than lots of curly hair and bright coloured slacks. After all, I hadn’t even hit my teens at the end of it. I had a much better understanding of 80s rock when I saw everyone else. Ripped shirts, brightly coloured, tight fitting trousers and tights, and lots and lots of messy hair apparently was the idea. The extras hired by (or from) Secret Cinema also came in complete theme and entertained us as we lined up in all of our different lines. We had bikes come through, rock papparazi, a skirmish between two rocked out blokes that made the line up in Fabric on a Friday night look super tame.

When we entered the empire we took to our second floor seats, complete with a bottle of Vitamin Water and a packet of crisps. Other attendents stood around in the aisles, handing out small buckets of popcorn as everyone else eventually made it to their seats. Complete with band kit, it wasn’t long before we witnessed a rock weding, watched a small film about a Heavy Metal Drummer in the middle east and began the session with Toronto based band, Cauldron.

It wasn’t long before the real movie was announced, apparently the premiere of Anvil! The Story of Anvil, though my sister had recently been to yet another “premiere” of it earlier in the week. It’s a great movie though be warned it’s a documentary and probably not for everyone. I’d seen it advertised and I can’t say it was one that I’d go to the cinemas for. It follows the tragic tale of a Canadian band who had a profound influence on the heavy metal music scene, yet never found the fame that they deserved. Throughtout it, we see them and their, almost, unwavering belief and passion for their music. What was surprising at the end of the movie was that Anvil the movie was suddently displaced by Anvil the band in real life. They played three songs before calling it a night, and what a night it was!

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Last weekend, my sister asked me along to see a new circus/art stage show at the Peacock Theatre called Traces presented by a French-Canadian based troupe of four guys and a girl. The performance is best described as a fusion of different performance styles encompassing everything from dance, various circus skills, some acting and comedic styles. Everything had clever touches including the welcome note at the start and the intermission joking about the things that you could do that most other theatres would prohibit.

I was particularly impressed by their use of less conventional circus objects including basketballs and skateboards to create some visually stunning tricks. Considering that the stage wasn’t that big, and there were five constantly moving bodies, it’s obvious they’d rehearsed a great deal to put on a show that truly impressed. Not everything worked out well including their mock simulation of a “big brother”-like vote off, but for a couple of hours it was still worth the money we paid for it.

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It’s been a while since I’d been out to the movies, and this time I went to Islington to see Frost/Nixon. Someone told me it was based on a stage play, and even though I was a bit sceptical about watching it, thought I’d give it a go. Focusing around the even that propelled David Frost into being taken seriously as an interviewer, and the trial that Nixon never had, the movie kept me on the edge of my seat for quite some time. It helps that it also starred, easy on the eyes, Rebecca Hall, and had moments of laughter, seriousness and tension without many potentially boring bits. The ending is a little bit sad, and didn’t finish quite the same way they started, but it’s a great movie worth watching.

TheKua.com Rating 7 out of 10

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The last two weeks have been fairly busy and in between travelling away on long weekends, I’ve managed to get to a few concerts around townw. Last Monday (December 1, 2008), I caught The Kooks at one of my favourite venues, The Roundhouse. Okay, I’ll be the first to admit that their music is indie pop, but regardless of genre, their high energy songs and enthusiasm mean that they just put on an amazing set. They played a mixture of their first and second albums with a couple of new songs thrown in just for the mix. Of course, the only downer at the end of the evening was trying to escape The Roundhouse with their main staircase the only way to exit. I can’t imagine what it would be like there if they ever had a fire (although fortunately they also have the lovely outdoor terrace to escape to I guess).

The Wednesday after (December 3, 2008), I saw Coheed and Cambria’s Neverender Tour at The Astoria. This was my first, and sadly, probably my last time to go to see a gig in one of the more relatively intimate venues in London (since it will be demolished to make way for the crossrail). It’s a great sized venue with the standing area being slightly wider than it is deep meaning that pretty much every gets a great view of the stage. Anyway, back to CoCa… I was surprised to first read about CoCa’s Neverender Tour, a series of gigs, one night after another where they would play one of their albums each night, with a bonus acoustic set for those fans that went every single night. Although I like them, four nights in a row was a bit excessive (and impossible since I was leaving the country for a long weekend) yet it still seemed to sell out. Gerrod and his mate Al, were one of the many that went every night.

As far as the evening went, their progressive rock went down a treat with the audience with a lot of people in the audience singing along to many of their songs. Funnily enough, their lyrics are quite different from your typical band, instead reflecting the storyline and tales of the fictional universe from The Armory Wars comics, written by one of the band members.

Finally, on Tuesday this week (December 9, 2008), I saw Californian born and Texan raised musician, Ben Kweller at the Union Chapel. Firstly, the venue is simply amazing with fantastic acoustics and an extremely intimate feel. Unfortunately I found the pews to be quite uncomfortable by the end of the evening. Extremely talkative and obviously very friendly, Ben Kweller struck me as an American version of Ben Lee. Kweller seemed to have some story to tell about a lot of his songs and talked casually to the audience. Also, considering it was just him and his buddy, Kitt Kitterman, I liked the way that he still seemed to be energised, and unphased by anything, such as when a guitar string broke for their “specially tuned” encore song and he simply shrugged it off and changed songs until Kitt mended his guitar.

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Luca had another spare ticket to see yet another Italian artist, although warned me that he wouldn’t be like any of the artists that we’d seen recently. Looking up Franco Battiato, it’s no wonder since he’s a 63 year old singer who’s been wowing Italians for several generations and continues to publish albums without any visible end in sight.

Held at Koko on Tuesday night (the night it snowed across the country), I stood in line with, what seemed like, only Italians around me. Even the ticketing people spoke Italian rather than English! Inside it was quite the mix of different ages yet the common thing that bound them together was their appreciation for Battiato’s music as made evident from how many songs everyone seemed to sing along to.

I find it hard, even now, after listening to him perform how to describe his music. It’s surprisingly contemporary mixing together elements from many different styles with his vocals. He sang alongside a fairly large band with a number of string instruments, a pianist, and a few guitarists (two of whom were extremely attractive dread-locked ladies) and had a phenomenal amount of energy for such an elderly performer.

Despite not knowing any of his songs, and only understanding the one or two songs he sang in English, Battiato impressed me by simply putting on a great performance. I can’t say that I’m going to listen to his songs anytime soon, but it was a enjoyable night experiencing something I wouldn’t go out of my way to do myself. All the Italians present seemed to enjoy it and it clearly obvious he enjoyed performing for them, so what more do you need?

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To celebrate the launch of their latest album, the Kaiser Chiefs played at The Forum on Monday night and I managed to get a couple of tickets. It was cold and wet outside, so I was thankful that we had standing tickets for downstairs that made heading out after work completely worth it. We managed to get fairly close to the front, bordering on the edge of all the more energetic people who jumped around most of the night, or pushed their way in for at least some of it. Other than a couple of, rather excessively drunk and, agressive people, the audience was rather quite friendly. Compared to the last concert I went to, the average height of the Brits made me need to weave in and out between the flowing gap between shoulders.

We caught the end of the first support act, The Hair and didn’t really hear enough to be able to give them any fair review. The second support act however was much more memorable with four really young looking kids called Late of the Pier. Energetic doesn’t even begin to describe them, each member playing several instruments throughout their set and the lead signer managing to knock over a couple of pieces of their kit on stage, to the point we would have bets what piece would be next to go. They still impressed me with their passionate performance, crazy antics with some decent beats and riffs to boot. I think that we even signed up to their mailing list.

The set changes came quickly and it wasn’t too long before the Kaiser Chiefs came on stage. With dazzling lights and tonnes of energy, they played a mix of all the songs from their previous album with a handful of ones from their recently released one.

In terms of entertainment value, it’s obvious the band cares about their audience having a good time, to the point where the lead singer ran through the crowd a couple of times, making sure everyone seemed to have a good night, and the lead signer encouraging the small number of crowd surfing antics with his own deeds.

I can’t remember how long they playted but they continued to impress all night, even getting the audience involved singing Happy Birthday to one of the band members. I don’t think I’ve been to a gig where the band have had such consistently high energy for all night and it really shows in their excellent performance.

TheKua.com Rating: 8 out of 10

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My Italian friend, Luca had a spare ticket to see a band from his home country called Subsonica at Kentish Town’s The Forum on Wednesday night. It’s probably the first time that a thousand or so Italians descended upon the area and, at least, the first time I’ve been to a concert with so many of them. I couldn’t help but notice several differences in the crowd such as when, in the early part of the evening, heaps of people sat themselves down on the ground near the stage (apparently it’s a habit when waiting for a concert to start on all those lovely summer evenings). I always find that strange since most venues in the UK have seen more spilt beer, empty plastic cups and (formerly) cigarette butts than they had the underside of people attending.

People also didn’t seem to have any difficult pushing their way in, or out, of the crowd without so much an an ‘excuse me’. It didn’t really bother me, with the only noticeable impact being that I was slowly moved away from the front of stage by the audience as the more energetic people shoved their way to the front. I think I ended up at least a metre or two behind where I was standing by the end of the night. This may sound stereotypical, but even being moved back, I was still amazed that I had a pretty good view of the stage since most people were not significantly taller than me for once!

It was obvious that Subsonica meant business and that they only wanted to play for the audience – they didn’t have a support act and played a decent set of around an hour and a half. I listened briefly to their stuff on LastFm, although I can’t say I recognised any of the tracks they played. Either way, most of the people seemed to know a lot of their lyrics and jumped and danced alongside their upbeat riffs. Interestingly I found they drifted back and forth between different genres, and yet it all seemed to work out. They pulled out some trip hop stuff, sounds I’d classify more jungle, some pop rock and dance tracks and even a ballad or two throughout the night.

After a bit of confusion about whether or not they should perform an encore (it’s one of those things that don’t really happen in Italy apparently), they came back on stage obviously unprepared asking the audience and talking amongst themselves about which songs to play. They played probably two or three more songs before the lights came on one more time, though this time signalling the end of the evening.

TheKua.com Rating: 7 out of 10

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