Posts Tagged ‘Live’
Owl City – Manchester Academy 1
March 4th, 2010 by RBROwl City
Support: Lights
Manchester Academy 1
22nd February 2010
With his number one single fireflies, it was no surprise that the venue for the gig had been moved to Academy 1 from 3. Two thousand five hundred owl city fans queued from 5PM and fought the bitter cold.
Opening up the stage was a three piece electro pop band from Canda, Lights. Considering the singer Valeria Poxleitner had to cancel her last two shows due to loosing her voice, they performed well, singing songs from their debut album The Listening like Lions, Ice and February Air. They even pulled out two acoustic performances for the last two tracks. Unfortunately, they seemed a little uncomfortable on such a large stage and lacked movement.
At 9.20 silence broke, then the instrumental came in for umbrella beach. Two young violists appeared on stage to kick start the performance. Once the beat started started to flow Adam Young appeared on stage with a cup of tea! The crowd pushed forward so much that they were extremely compact at the front of the venue. Most of the songs played were from the album Ocean Eyes, while Adam Young flailed around on stage and the crowd began to dance and jump around to the songs bird and the worm, tip of the iceberg.
Within the hour long set Owl City played fireflies starts and 2500 fans begin to scream the lyrics out as if they weren’t even trying. If you didn’t know any better you would have thought he wasn’t singing as the fans drowned out his vocals with their own ecstatic voices. Hello Seattle broke out of the speakers for the encore. His presence on the stage was enormous, he was using all the stage possible dancing to his tracks and playing the keyboards and guitar while he looked as if he was having the best time ever!
His final words were “see you again Manchester, deal?” the crowd was not at all disappointed and will definitely be coming back for more.
Words: Steph Readman
Photos: Jordan Green
30 Seconds To Mars – Wembley Arena
March 3rd, 2010 by RBR30 Seconds to Mars
Support: Street Drum Corps, LostAlone
Wembley Arena
23. 02. 10
Jared (vocals, guitar) and Shannon Leto (drums), Tomo Milicevic (guitar) and their touring musicians Tim Kelleher (bass) and Braxton Olita (keyboard, guitar, effects) are on their very first Arena tour called ‘Into The Wild’ and incredible enough, sold out Wembley arena. Years of touring have paid off.
The outside speakers announce that the doors time is delayed due to a late sound check. Could this be due to Jared spending the afternoon at another fashion show, according himself the luxury of a trip above London by helicopter?
The arena is slowly filling up and is only at half capacity when the lights go off and Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds intro echoes in the huge hall. Derby rockers LostAlone walk on stage, going straight to the point blasting their energetic riffs and rich lyrics. Front man Steven Battelle bounces on stage without missing a note but not always singing right in the microphone leaving a few blanks. The set list is short but a good mix of old songs from their 2007 debut album “Say No To The World” and fresh new songs with strong harmonies that include drummer Mark Gibson and new bassist Alan Williamson. First tour after a couple of local shows and a German festival but his presence on stage certainly cannot be denied.
Like the set list, Steven is mixing new and old. A special designed jacket reminding us of Luke Skywalker at the very end of Return of the Jedi, along with the drop-on-knees-for-riffic-madness and the very famous flip-catch-guitar-solo-with-shoe that is sort of LostAlone’s signature.
The trio are nervous after being asked to open the tour only a week before the first date and there are lacks of interaction with the crowd, but none the less they deliver a quality set that please 30STM fans who already saw them opening the Winter 2008 UK Tour and a respectable number of new potential fans.
Long time friends and collaborators of 30STM, Californians Street Drum Corps are almost as expected as the headliners, though not many know what they are gonna sound like. Pure drumming around visual stimuli? Yes… and no, Street Drum Corps are now a proper band, a very original one. The set begins on one side of the stage were the official line up, composed of brothers Bobby and Adam Alt and Frank Zummo, hitting plastic bins. They are joined by a guitarist and a bassist while Bobby Alt takes the place of a front man trading the drumsticks for a microphone. The set is a succession of catchy, entertaining songs, each with a different style, the drumming remaining the common point and strong originality of the band. Adam’s drumming can sometimes not be heard enough although very present in their first two albums ‘Street Drum Corps’ and ‘We Are Machines’. Bobby’s moves are more innocent than what we saw at the Nottingham show but just as diverting, especially for the feminine crowd. New song called ‘Marry Me’ manages to stick in your head for days even though it isn’t released yet. It’s their very first European tour but they have no problem winning over most of the arena. We cannot wait to see them come back.
[To learn more about Street Drum Corps, click here to read the interview we had with them that day]
After a reasonable time, it’s 30 Seconds To Mars‘ turn to heat the venue with ‘This Is War” intro ‘Escape‘ playing from behind a huge black curtain. Shadows and shapes are only seen before it drops, revealing Jared fist in the air, imitated by a whole crowd singing the words “This is War”, members of SDC holding huge flags on stage.
This is followed by the energetic Night of the Hunter (”La Nuit du Chasseur” in french as the woman voice at the beginning says) where everyone jumps up and down in rhythm. One thing is noticeable straight away though, Jared’s voice is completely off.
The singer is clearly sick and struggles to reach the high notes, keeping verses a few octaves lower. Attack and A Beautiful Lie (where images of the video are displayed on two huge screens at the top-back of the stage) are delivered with the same difficulty. On Search & Destroy, vocal cords are miraculously coming alive though you can still feel the huge effort Jared is putting on to keep his voice in control. Long criticised but normal and essential for 30STM, it’s time for a little chit chat with the crowd, though this time it might have been wiser to save the voice for the singing as the talk literally last the length of a song but both artist and crowd (most of it) enjoy the exchange a lot.
Next Leto announces Hurricane, apologising in advance for the disaster as it’s never been played live before. Despite the vocal challenge it is, he nails the song. After From Yesterday, it’s time for the new single This is War. Before the song, Jared makes the seating area compete with each other in a screaming contest to illustrate the lyrics of the song “To the right, to the left, we will fight, to the death“, then makes the whole crowd chant “THIS IS WAR” while the words appear on the screens followed by images of wars and politics. The song features SDC members showing up on stage with single drums which then flows into the quiet 100 Suns.
Blacked out for a few instants, Shannon Leto (who was already more noticeable, his drum kit placed on the side of the stage) arrives to play a singing bowl then continues to play L490 on the acoustic guitar, song he fully composed himself.
The stage is then left empty for the Monks mesmerizing voices who are represented by bright orange lights.
A huge spotlight and one second later, Jared is suddenly revealed at the top back of the left stands. Old school song Capricorn is played on fan request, followed by A Modern Myth.
The Kill is started acoustically with Jared then bravely launching himself into the crowd still singing, trying with difficulties to join his band mates who are rocking out on the second stage (specially installed in the middle of the standing area for this arena tour). The singer finally reaches the stage for a brilliant Buddha For Mary, Shannon’s amazing performance on the drums being displayed on both screens.
Back on the main stage, Jared’s voice gives up one more time on Closer to the Edge with the singer subtly leaving the crowd fill the notes he can’t reach while huge white balloons are launched into the pit for Vox Populi.
For Kings and Queens, last song of the night, Jared requests people to come up on stage to sing and various lucky fans are pulled from the front of the crowd.
To conclude, you can say 30 Seconds To Mars have finally learnt to put on a show and play longer after years of touring. They’re definitely up to the challenge that headlining an arena tour is. Is it over the top? Maybe for the average audience, but not for 30STM fans.
Words: Claire Violin
Photos: Sophie Egboh
Enter Shikari – Hammersmith Apollo
February 21st, 2010 by RBREnter Shikari w/ Rolo Tomassi and The King Blues
Hammersmith Apollo
12th February 2010
Kids have been queing for at least three or four hours now. I knew Enter Shikari was popular, but I didn’t expect this kind of response. Still, for me it’s always a good sign of an evening to come when you see that the front row is willing to stand in the biting wind just to be up against the metal.
Opening the evening is the hugely underrated experimental math core group Rolo Tomassi. Led by the wraithlike Eva Spence the band play a brief set including fan favourites like Abraxas and I Love Turbulence as well as the new track French Motel. After seeing them in the Fighting Cocks earlier in the week I am inclined to say that they still need to work on their stage presence before trying to hit the really large venues. In smaller venues they slay the audience, but it all felt a little detached at the Hammersmith.
Following this is London’s The King Blues. The basic trio are fleshed out into a full band for tonight’s set which draws heavily from their second album ‘Save the world get the girl’. Their songs really fill the venue and set the party atmosphere alight with Itch leading the five thousand strong crowd in a anti-bnp chant. Although the motivations are good, I couldn’t help but wonder how many people in the crowd are actually old enough to vote.
Backlit by a light set up which probably used a small forest’s worth of electricity every song Enter Shikari take to the stage. Although you wouldn’t guess it, vocalist Rou Reynold’s had been previously banned from speaking on health grounds prior to the show. It was clearly for the best as he whips the crowd into a frenzy. Opening with the title track of their newest album, Common Dreads, they go on to rip through a set drawing heavily on older material, only taking a second to introduce the new track ‘Thumper’ off Tribalism. The highlight for me was The King Blues joining Shikari for Fanfare For The Conscious Man before finishing the set with Ok, Time for Plan B. Returning to the stage to play Enter Shikari and Juggernauts, I can confidently say that no fan had been left disappointed or sweat less by what they experienced tonight.
Words and Photos: Richard Heaven
Lacuna Coil – ABC Glasgow
February 4th, 2010 by RBRLacuna Coil
Live at the ABC, Glasgow
02/02/10
With my only previous experience of Lacuna Coil being listening to them on CD prior to this gig, I was a bit sceptical about a ‘metal band’ having 2 singers, one of whom is a gorgeous female.
Was it going to be a bit of a gimmick? I thought it might!
Was it going to be a bit of a letdown? I thought it probably would!
Would they rock my socks off? I had faith my footwear was safe!
But not since Rino Gattuso signed for Glasgow Rangers in 1997, has an Italian export came to Glasgow and kicked ass with so much style!!!
As the crowd anticipated the bands arrival with the lights down, and the backing music playing, Cristina Scabbia, clad in her black and white PVC outfit from the Falling Apart video, and Andrea Ferro marched onto stage, accompanied by the rest of the band apart from bassist, Marco Zelati, who had gone back to Italy to nurse an injured shoulder.
They kicked straight into Survive, as both singers and guitarists worked the stage, with its raised drum platform and staircases. They kept up the pace with songs like Underdog, Not Afraid, Fragments of Faith, Falling Apart.
Andrea worked the crowd up with the bands 2003 single Heaven’s a Lie, before finding another notch and taking us up with Fragile Earth, which was met with much head banging and ‘devil horns’ from the crowd, and just about lifted the roof off the place, with the walls and floor of the ABC trembling in fear under the strain of the immense volume of sound.
After a 2 minute break, the band returned with the singers having had a quick change of clothes and took up where they left off. The second part of the set included a sing along to the band’s Depeche Mode cover, Enjoy the Silence. This slotted in seamlessly and proves how relevant Depeche Mode were, and still are, with the amount of ‘Mode covers that there have been in recent times, notably ‘Personal Jesus’ by Marilyn Manson.
The show was rounded off in resounding form with the crowd singing along to Spellbound.
Before the show, I kinda likened Lacuna Coil to Evanesance. But instead of some tepid, diluted, kiddie metal, LC blasted that notion away with hard rocking, head banging sounds.
Lacuna Coil may be Italian for empty spiral, but there was nothing empty about the performance.
As for support acts, well California’s Dommin were blinding. Looking like a 50s rock and roll band, playing like a metal band and just being good at what they do. There was however, a surreal moment in their set when they played a cover of Cutting Crew’s Died in Your Arms Tonight. There were plenty of rumblings around me of people wanting to know who the support was as they were class. I have to agree.
There were 2 support acts for the UK leg of Lacuna Coil’s European headline tour. The second act up were Dirty Little Rabbits. Not much to say really except that the non UK part of the tour will be getting a better deal than we did as it is only Dommin on the rest of the tour! All I can say is… this is when I went outside for a smoke! Sorry guys.
If I had to sum the gig up in one word… in sospeso (well it was one word in English!!)
Words: Wullie Marr
Photos: Stuart Westwood
Funeral For A Friend, Koko, London
October 21st, 2009 by RBRIt’s a busy night in London. Not only are the Welsh hero’s of post hardcore Funeral for a Friend are playing the Koko but just down the street is Alexisonfire, hitting the London leg of their Eastpak Antidote tour. It’s a time for some of us to sign the sheet and pledge our allegiance to one of the bands. And for me as well as the fans which are already waiting outside the entrance it is clear as day: We chose Funeral.
Opening tonight is Telegraphs. The southern rock band have been seeing a fair degree of success lately with the release of their debut ‘We where ghosts’ and the popularity of the single ‘Rules of Modern Policing’. Watching them tonight with their male-female vocals and duel guitars it is clear that Telegraphs are currently more suited to the live scene as opposed to the studio. That isn’t to say that their releases lack punch, but the tunes definitely take on a life of their own when played live.
Next up is the pop punk outfit Save Your Breath. Hailing from the city of Newport and gearing up for a winter on the road to promote their debut album ‘Nothing worth having comes easy’ they hit the stage with a certain amount of energy and promise. I cannot really say too much about the set because, as entertaining as it was, there was nothing which really lodged them in my memory. It was an enjoyable half hour of energetic pop punk but at the end, we where only there for one band.
Now being the 30th birthday of front man Matthew Davies-Kreye you might expect certain members, if not all of them, to look slightly worse for wear after the inevitable celebrations. Not the case – this band is professional. The set for tonight is slightly different to the normal tour selections – a few weeks ago the band asked the fans what they wanted to hear. After all the votes had been counted it became clear that, for the long-time fans at least, this tour will stand head and shoulders above the rest. Featuring a healthy selection of songs from their debut album ‘Casually dressed and deep in conversation’ as well as more up to date singles the night was warming up to become a very memorable event.
It is hard to believe that the confident, extroverted singer prowling the stage in front of us is the same gentlemen who can make you feel at ease and at home within seconds. The same can be said for the rest of the band – but standing on the rail as they play it is clear that 7 ½ years of non stop touring and recording have turned them into an extremely talented live act.
They proceed to rip into mosh favourites ’Bend your arm’s to look like wings’ and ‘She drove me to daytime television’ as well as new tracks ’wrench’ and ‘No honour among thieves’ which both proved to be almost perfect for the live circuit. Eventually the set winds down, the band leaves the stage and the crowd head off with no doubt that four albums and five EP’s later Funeral for a Friend still have it.
Richard Heaven
Photos by Sophie Egboh
Nirvana Live At Reading on DVD
October 16th, 2009 by ClaireNirvana Live At Reading
NIRVANA’S LEGENDARY NEVER-BEFORE-RELEASED 1992 READING CONCERT SET TO DEBUT IN NOVEMBER
“Nirvana headlining at Reading in 1992 was something you had to see, and if you didn’t see it then it was something you pretended you saw.” –Kerrang (October 2003)
“The staggering energy and intensity radiating from the stage never let up… Cobain’s ravaged pop songs coming off like some dream marriage of the Sex Pistols and the Beatles, borne on bracing waves of distorted guitar noise.” –Rolling Stone (October 29, 1992)
Watch the performance of ‘School’ now:
Ranked #1 in Kerrang Magazine’s “100 Gigs That Shook The World” and voted as “Nirvana’s #1 Greatest Moment” by fans in an NME poll, Nirvana’s historic August 30, 1992 headlining appearance at the UK’s Reading Festival is one of the most bootlegged concerts in the annals of rock’n’roll. Now, fans will have an opportunity to own a pristine copy of that entire performance – with colour-corrected video from the original film with audio sourced from the original multi-track masters. Nirvana Live At Reading will be issued in a limited edition DVD+CD Deluxe Edition as well as DVD-only, CD-only configurations on November 2, 2009, followed by a 2 LP version on November 16, 2009.
While the show’s centerpiece was a performance of nearly the entire Nevermind tracklist, also noteworthy were early performances of three as yet unrecorded songs which wouldn’t be released until two years later on - In Utero’s All Apologies, Dumb and in its first ever public performance, tourette’s. The career-spanning setlist also reached back to the band’s 1989 Sub Pop debut album, Bleach, for Blew, About A Girl, School, Negative Creep and first single Love Buzz and even further back to the mid-‘80s for Spank Thru. Other songs from the Reading set would appear in studio form on the Incesticide compilation later in the year: Aneurysm, Been A Son and Sliver. Additionally, the band played a pair of beloved covers by two bands that helped shape the formative Nirvana sound – The Money Will Roll Right In by Fang and D-7 by The Wipers.
Only 2 of the 25 performances on the DVD have ever been released before.
Nirvana Live At Reading DVD:
1. Breed
2. Drain You
3. Aneurysm
4. School
5. Sliver
6. In Bloom
7. Come As You Are
8. Lithium
9. About A Girl
10. tourette’s
11. Polly
12. Lounge Act
13. Smells Like Teen Spirit
14. On A Plain
15. Negative Creep
16. Been A Son
17. All Apologies
18. Blew
19. Dumb
20. Stay Away
21. Spank Thru
22. Love Buzz*
23. The Money Will Roll Right In
24. D-7
25. Territorial Pissings
