Jimmy Eat World @ Brixton Academy

This Monday I went along with Ben, Gerrod and Nathan to the Brixton Academy to see American emo rock band, Jimmy Eat World. A forgettable support act played before hand only soon to be replaced by the high energy of the band. They played a great selection from a huge number of them albums, returning with their encore of four songs and finishing off with their, probably most well known song, “The Middle”. Their light show was literally dazzling and epilepsy-inducing levels of flashing lights the most I’d ever seen.

The only downer to the night was when we headed back to the tube only to find that Brixton had shut at 10pm for maintenance and confusion reigned as everyone struggled to find the right bus they needed home.

Paramore at Brixton

It’s been… how about… never since I’ve been to a concert and felt so old. That much probably tells you quite a lot about the audience at Brixton Academy on Sunday night. American punk rockers Paramore, headed by the itsy bitsy Hayley played an energising set for their Riot tour and Saturday was their last in London. They certainly attracted many young people, many of them accompanied by chaperoning parents. The age difference really made no difference to me as we watched the upbeat sets of supporting act New Found Glory and Paramore’s main act.

Paramore

Admittedly I hadn’t listened to their album as many time as I’m sure everyone around me had. Most of them seemed to know all of the words to all of their songs or, if not, made up for it by jumping around in quite a frenzy – something quite a feat on Brixton’s slanting floor. A lot of their music is just plain fun although the tiny punk rocker girl lead, the super fast beats and the atmosphere just kept leading me back to an image of a younger and more modern Avril Lavigne-like band, that I have to admit, is a little unfair on Paramore.

They do put on a pretty good show, and the energy of the entire band continued to feed the frenzied jumps of the people way up front. So many people got dragged out for crowd surfing and we even saw one guy literally pushed from way up front all the way out of the back by a couple of security guards, I guess for excessively disorderly conduct. Paramore played a decent set, performed two encore songs and it felt like everyone went away pretty happy.

Albums of Choice for 2007

In the wake of even more lists and reflections on last year and a touch of inspiration from Ben’s blog entry, I thought I’d share a number of albums I either listened to a lot last year or really caught my attention.

Best of British rock

Pigeon DetectivesWait for Me by The Pigeon Detectives – One of those very easy albums to listen to and watching these guys perform live is pretty amazing too. It’s great to listen to get you going in the morning. Favourites from this album include Wait for Me, I Found Out, Don’t Know How To Say Goodbye, and I’m Not Sorry.

The CribsMens Needs, Women Needs, Whatever by The Cribs – Certainly much more upbeat riffs and high energy from another British band. Songs are short and sweet except for the epic, six minute long song, Be Safe. With songs like Our Bovine Public, you know they’re having a bit of a laugh and the they’re a sure to be a long time favourite on many an Indie dance floor. My favourite song on this album is Moving Pictures.

Kaiser ChiefsYour Truly, Angry Mob by Kaiser Chiefs – Ruby, ruby, ruby! It’s one of those lyric sets that you continue to hum long after you’ve heard it, especially with the cover done by these guys. Listen to it and another song called Heat Dies Down. The rest of the album is pretty addictive too.

Rock around the world
Foo FightersEchoes, Silence, Patience and Grace by the Foo Fighters – The album tends to sound like a lot of their other albums yet a number of the songs off their latest album still manages to hit the right key. Both the song and the film clip to the first track on this album, The Pretender is amazing, starting in the soft undertones, quickly building into the well known sound of the Foo Fighters. I also really enjoyed the strangely repetitive and hence, maybe mesmerising track Come Alive.

GrinspoonAlibis and Other Lies by Grinspoon – Another winning album from this Australian rock band that have continued to churn out great tracks. The usual combination between the heavier tunes and the melodic acoustic tracks and yet somehow the album seems different from their previous ones. You can tell this band is maturing as the sounds are far from their early albums. Listen to the tracks What you Got and Living In The City.

Dance trax
KlaxonsMyths of the Near Future by the Klaxons – A mix probably better classified as electro rock, this band mixes up the rock sounds into a uniquely sombre and dark album. Starting off with something that sounds alarming, they take you through a journey that based on their film clips take you through space to other worlds (or at least I guess they’re supposed to). They also picked two of their best songs for a colourful and symbolic film clips – Golden Skans and It’s Not Over Yet.

Mark RonsonVersion by Mark Ronson – Mixing it up with a number of British artists performing covers to other British artists songs puts together an eclectic mix of sounds you wouldn’t hear anywhere else. The interesting part is mixing up the different styles from different artists whose covers are just completely different takes. My favourite off this album is the cover of Maximo Park’s Apply Some Pressure.

Calvin Harris - I Created DiscoI Created Disco by Calvin Harris – With cheesy, simple film clips and a fun attitude, this Scottish artist creates an album that somehow makes you laugh. Lots of synthetic mixes and some very simple lyrics that just keep looping in your head after you listen to them. Best songs off this one, Born in the 80’s, Merrymaking At My Place and The Girls.

PendulumHold Your Colour by Pendulum – This drum and bass outfit presents an album that takes you on a journey worth taking if you’re into this sort of music. My favourite song here is Slam.

Honourable Mentions
Cross by Justice – Though I didn’t really get into the whole album, the song D.A.N.C.E. is light and entertaining. Its film clip is even more innovative and interesting to watch. See it below

Hoo Ha for Supergrass

After having a lovely dinner with my fellow trainers at the Lowlander, I headed out to Camden to see the new band, The Diamond Hoo Ha Men. Actually a front for the band, Supergrass, they performed a number of their new songs and a couple of their older songs at the very intimate venue, Barfly.

It’s so rare to watch the very passionate and talented band play in a venue that holds a maximum of maybe one hundred people. Their set didn’t last that long, starting with a rock cover of Michael Jackonson’s “Beat It” followed by a series of their own songs. Disappointingly they didn’t bother with an encore.

The set list went something like this:

  • Beat It (cover)
  • Bad blood
  • Three, four, five
  • Outside of the darkness
  • Rough knuckles
  • Never done nothing like that before
  • Diamond hoo ha man

Christmas Party in India

Christmas MiniBDespite most people in India following Hinduism, everyone still seems to get into the Christmas spirit. Our office tended to be rather noisy yesterday as plenty of secret santa-like jokes and presents unleashed themselves upon their victims, constant song dedications played, Santa (AKA yours truly) handed out gifts, and a series of skits performed by each team to everyone else in the office, all leading up to a fantastic Christmas party.

EveryoneThe party coincided with the first anniversary for our office in Pune and so was a double celebration at a nearby hotel. With two huge reasons to party (who really even needs one?) it pretty much guaranteed most people on the dance floor for most of the night until the music ran out. There’s really something about large gatherings in India – the dance floor seems to be the centre of all attention and regardless of how well (or not so well in my case) you can groove it, everyone gives it a real good go. Last night, for instance, the first bus load literally spilled out of their seats and onto the dance floor where the DJ spun some (awfully mixed) tracks.

See the rest of the pictures from the day here.

Bestival 2007

British festivals typically mean lots of music, lots of camping and of course, generally lots of rain. Considering how “summery” the last few months had been, I was a little worried that this last weekend was going to be washed out because I was going along to Bestival 2007. We were all banking on good weather, taking Friday off to drive down to the three-day festival and Monday to have a bit more of a leisurely pace back to London.

Bestival

It turned out that we had fantastic festival weather, and the entire Bestival experience was thoroughly enjoyable. Music highlights had to be The Chemical Brothers who put on their typically awesome act accompanied by a spectacular light show, the ever energetic The Gossip and then The Foals, a new Indie band who put out a great set in the BBC Introducing. On the disappointing side, The Beastie Boys who I’d seen perform a brilliant set back at Big Day Out, managed to cause the crowd to thin out quite well during their Saturday night set. We also caught the end of Carl Craig’s rather dull and low key set which didn’t seem to match the energetic mood everyone was in at 4 in the morning.

Although there were plenty of music acts, many of them were I didn’t rate on the “must see” list. The upside is that there wasn’t as much pressure to go to all the stages, and I could indulge in the company of other festival goers, chill out in the sun and just generally meander throughout the rest of the festival. There’s plenty of alternative entertainment, including glitter wrestling, an inflatable castle with almost hourly marriage services (Ben and Polly’s one on Sunday was a stunner), a burlesque tea tent, a comedy tent and just plenty of places to lounge around and soak up the atmosphere.

Another big draw card, quite unique to this festival is it’s fancy dress theme. Even though it’s based on a poem, all of it is optional, and so here’s what I went as. It was amazing at how much some people really got into their costumes, with many of them hand crafted to superb detail, especially those that co-ordinated an entire group costume.

It was a great taste of what British festivals should be like when it’s not raining and full of mud and could definitely go back another year.

Keane at the O2

KeaneOn Saturday night I ended up at The O2 to see British band Keane perform. It was my first time at the O2 and is easily the strangest venue I’ve been to, looking like it was part shopping centre, part convention centre and stadium merged into one. It’s got plenty of restaurants with the only probably being you have to join a queue of at least twenty to thirty people for every single restaurant to get a table. Inside the venue doesn’t seem as big even though it apparently can hold up to 23 000 people. It certainly doesn’t seem as big as Earl’s Court of Wembley Arena. It probably helps that the first of the three layers of seating start next to standing and the stage is very accessible to everyone.

Keane are really great performers and often called upon the crowd to get even more involved at many times. The lead singer would often tell a little story before a few of the stories, sometimes drawing a little bit of haggling from the audience who just wanted to listen to the music. Our standing tickets ended up being perfect for this performance since there was a second stage right in the midst of the standing crowd and Keane performed a number of their softer songs from it.

To finish the night off, the band ended their half hour encore with a bang, with what almost looked like an endless stream of confetti blown into the rafters. Overally a fantastic

Oxegen 2007

What: Oxegen, rock music festival
When: July 7 – July 8, 2007
Where: Punchestown Racecourse, Ireland

Highlights
Muse rocking OxegenI enjoyed Saturday’s line-up the most with an amazing set by Muse finishing at 2am and a stunning light show. A very modest Snow Patrol also performed a very enjoyable set just before them. Pigeon Detective’s lead singer made quite a show when asked to have mud thrown at him and a never-ending supply streamed towards him throughout their entire set.

Other bands we managed to see on Saturday included The Rumblestripes, The View, The Maccabees, The Goo Goo Dolls, The Gossip, The Fratellis, Kings of Leon, and Maximo Park.

I found Sunday’s headliners, The Killers, slightly disappointing with a relatively quiet performance and regretfully missed an amazing light show by Daft Punk on the other stage. Highlights of Sunday must go to the Klaxons who performed a much heavier than expected set and the energetic bouncing Scotsman, Calvin Harris. Thankfully we got around to seeing all the people we wanted to see, even if it was in very small doses including Razorlight, Babyshambles, Arcade Fire, The Kooks, Bloc Party, CSS, James Morrison, The Thrills, Jason Mraz, Unklejam and Bright Eyes.

I particularly appreciated the food options available that went much further than your typical burger and chips with stalls serving food such as hog roast rolls, falafels, fresh salads, crepes, Mexican, Japanese, Chinese, paella and Italian food though most meals cost between €7-€10

Lowlights
Shoe PileI went completely unprepared bringing only a pair of old trainers only to swap them very quickly for some new wellies. It didn’t seem like I was the only one at least. Thankfully my raincoat kept the rest of me relatively dry for the most part. By Sunday almost everywhere you stepped was at least ankle-deep pools of mud or muddy water. Getting back to Dublin on Sunday night post-festival almost ended up in disaster when the organised Dublin bus system completely broke down and people started stampeding their way onto any available bus. I’m amazed no one got crushed.

Overall it was still quite a great experience, as tiring and exhausting and as dirty as it got. Plenty worth it for the number of bands we got to see and the fun and friendly atmosphere. See the rest of the photos that turned out here.