Chillis, Monkeys, Thrills and Pixies...
...well.
There was a time swore that I would never go to a massive outdoor gig ever again. Too much hassle, especially when you live in Limerick. Dodgy sound systems that make it hard to even make out what song the band is playing. Lame support acts. Shitty organisation. Drunken eejits. Cringe-worthy prices for shit beer and shit food. Rain. Mud. Trying to catch overstuffed Nitelinks. etc. etc.
Then I went to Lisdoonvarna (RDS), which was a revelation. Everything just clicked. I regained faith. I went to REM (Marley Park). It was incredible, a band playing as though their lives depended on it and really connecting with the crowd.
I went to see the Frames in Limerick, and even though it pissed rain and the gig was badly organised...the band transcended it all and emerged triumphant with thousands of people giving them love and belting out the words to God Bless Mom.
So I said, what the hell, and bought a ticket for the Pixies in the Phoenix Park.
By the way, don't let anyone tell you that this was a gig headlined by RHCP. The blistering intensity of the Pixies set would have totally relegated the Chillis set to support status...even if they hadn't sucked.
It was actually a pretty good day, in spite of of, rather than because of the gig. After stumbling through masses of drunken teenagers and piles of empty beercans and carefully avoiding the puddles of vomit and urine - we reached the Phoenix Park gate.
Then began the long march. It started off kinda well. I kept saying, it'll be just after the next set of lights...but after a mile of hiking that just got grimmer and grimmer...we just said "fuck this" and went to the zoo instead.
The long march was an incredibly effective crowd control technique. After hiking for 3 or 4 decades, most people are too tired to cause trouble. By the time they reached the gates, I imagine most people were wondering where to queue for their pensions and were nurturing secret passions for showband music and Radio One documentaries.
By the way, the zoo was brilliant. It was free for concert goers who were accompanied by a paying adult. Surprisingly few people copped this. It had decent toilets, cheap food and good benches. We could hear the Hothouse Flowers boring the audience off in the distance, so we didn't miss anything while we wandered through primate world. For the record, my personal favourite monkeys are the ones with red asses, followed by the Lemurs (it's the eyes) and Colobus monkeys (who are impossibly cute...and were milking it for all they were worth). The Orang Utans were fun too. And I could talk for ages about how cool the sea lions and the penguins were. But this is supposed to be a gig review...
So we spent 3 hours in the zoo. We saw the elephants sway their trunks in time to the groove armada...and the ass-monkeys made that "I see u baby, shaking that ass" song hysterically funny. We had a quick look at the chimps (our closest relatives...it was like looking in a mirror) and noticed that they didn't seem to be half as enthusiastic about vomit and urine as some of the gig goers. We put this down to their lack of sophistication and opposable thumbs (they find it difficult to open beercans).
We left the zoo in the middle of the Thrills' set, confident that the entrance gate lay just beyond the next set of lights. Approximately three ice-ages later our descendents finally made it to security people and got frisked. Finally!
120,000 people is a big crowd. I looked around a few times and thought "holy fuck, one small airplane crashed into this lot...and you could basically eliminate the green/labour vote in the next election". It's lucky for Pat Rabbitte that I'm too lazy and incompetent to be a terrorist.
Anyway, the music. The lead singer of the Thrills must be a bit embarrassed. After all, his only real function in the band is to be the singer...and his conspicuous lack of talent in this area is mind boggling. I mean, there have been lots of dodgy singers in rock music...but at least they had another talent, like playing the guitar or bass. Tim Wheeler comes to mind. But Conor Deasy's *only* job is to sing, and he simply can't. How embarassing. It's not even that he can't sing...there have been a lot of tuneless singers down through the years, whose voices had character and personality...Mercury Rev, Bob Dylan and Moby come to mind. But Conor Deasy doesn't even have that going for him. Which is a pity, cos some of their songs are catchy and the band is pretty talented. But it's like some reviewers said, the Thrills are never going to be anybody's favourite band.
As the Thrills yelped their way through their last song, I noticed that the big screens were intermittently malfunctioning and were strangely dimmed (except for one, which was nice and bright, but refused to stay working for more than 3 minutes at a time). Since we were approximately 30 miles from the stage this was a bit annoying. Another thing that was noticeable was that no account was taken of the time lag between sound and picture for people who were at a distance. Maybe some of the big screens could have be synchronised for different parts of the crowd.
The organisers made a few spirited attempts to play ads for Oxygen in the break between acts, but couldn't get the sound to work properly. All that came out of the speaker nearest us was a torrent of feedback and white noise. To be honest, we thought the Pixies had started their set early. They kept trying to get the sound working, but it kept screwing up. I'm willing to put this down to anti-corporate vibes emanating from the Pixies. Maybe they have an ad jamming field of sheer coolness.
Anyway...with no warning, the Pixies emerged and thundered into Bone Machine. I can't really describe their set. They just played song after song...hardly pausing for breath the whole time. Frank Black howled and sang like a man possessed. Kim Deal sang like an angel with a thing for bass and cigarettes. But for me, Joey Santiago was the star of the whole thing. Jesus, the sounds that guy got out of his guitar were incredible. I could practically see it begging for mercy at the end. I never really realised just how important he is to the Pixies sound...but I swear I nearly stopped breathing when he crashed into the end of Caribou. Amusingly, as they tore through Wave of Mutilation...all the big screens went blank for a minute, and then a few of them displayed Windows desktops in obvious distress. The went bluescreen just as Frank Black started screaming "Taaaaaaaaaaaame". Perfect.
They didn't really stop to chat. They didn't have to. The music said it all. It was like they were taunting the Chillis. Saying, "look, we can play a non-stop set without fucking around and without playing any shit filler songs and without indulging in bass solos". The pretty much played every song from Doolittle. And dozens of other songs. Every note they played came through loud and clear...some of them, you could actually feel in your spinal cord. They were well worth the 60 quid admission price by themselves.
...which was just as well...
Another bout of white noise oxygen ads ensued, and I found to my surprise that there were actually enough toilets (wow!).
The Chillis rolled on stage just after 8. The sky was a perfect blue at this stage, and people in the planes flying overhead must have gotten an incredible view.
The Chillis had a great intro. I gotta admit it, for the first minute...I thought they were gonna pull off a fantastic gig. They had a long, slow build up into Can't Stop. It built and built and built...you could feel the excitement rising. And then...
...they played the song. And everyone around me started wondering, "Is Anthony Kiedis actually singing?". We could see his mouth moving on the few occasions that the big screens worked...but we couldn't actually hear him.
Amazingly, they seemed to have turned the sound down for the Chillis. Maybe the Pixies had it written into their contract, or maybe they just weren't playing with the same primal intensity...but I was able to talk the person next to me without raising my voice.
The sound wasn't improved by the drunken eejits behind us who kept shouting for Rollercoaster (the whole way through the gig) and occasionally sang along with the guitar parts (weeeeeehungaungaungabapbappow!). Although, to be fair, one guy who had vomited down the front of his t-shirt was singing much more tunefully than Kiedis.
After a while, we got bored enough to turn around and watch the drunken eejits trying to build a human pyramid. The fact that they tried about 14 times and never once came even close to succeeding is a testament to both the indomitable spirit and utter stupidity of your average drunken eejit.
There was a brief high point during Universally Speaking...when the sound guy left his desk and the sound suddenly became a lot clearer and louder. But he soon came back from his tea break and the next few songs sounded like they were being broadcast on AM radio.
Eventually we just got really bored and fucked off. I think we left in the middle of their new song (called Shame...I think). As we faced the 4000 mile hike to the buses, we heard them do a pretty decent version of Californication...but we were too tired to care by that point.
To sum up, on a five star scale:
The Pixies ******
Ass-monkeys *****
RHCP ***
Terrapins and Ducks **
The Thrills *
There was a time swore that I would never go to a massive outdoor gig ever again. Too much hassle, especially when you live in Limerick. Dodgy sound systems that make it hard to even make out what song the band is playing. Lame support acts. Shitty organisation. Drunken eejits. Cringe-worthy prices for shit beer and shit food. Rain. Mud. Trying to catch overstuffed Nitelinks. etc. etc.
Then I went to Lisdoonvarna (RDS), which was a revelation. Everything just clicked. I regained faith. I went to REM (Marley Park). It was incredible, a band playing as though their lives depended on it and really connecting with the crowd.
I went to see the Frames in Limerick, and even though it pissed rain and the gig was badly organised...the band transcended it all and emerged triumphant with thousands of people giving them love and belting out the words to God Bless Mom.
So I said, what the hell, and bought a ticket for the Pixies in the Phoenix Park.
By the way, don't let anyone tell you that this was a gig headlined by RHCP. The blistering intensity of the Pixies set would have totally relegated the Chillis set to support status...even if they hadn't sucked.
It was actually a pretty good day, in spite of of, rather than because of the gig. After stumbling through masses of drunken teenagers and piles of empty beercans and carefully avoiding the puddles of vomit and urine - we reached the Phoenix Park gate.
Then began the long march. It started off kinda well. I kept saying, it'll be just after the next set of lights...but after a mile of hiking that just got grimmer and grimmer...we just said "fuck this" and went to the zoo instead.
The long march was an incredibly effective crowd control technique. After hiking for 3 or 4 decades, most people are too tired to cause trouble. By the time they reached the gates, I imagine most people were wondering where to queue for their pensions and were nurturing secret passions for showband music and Radio One documentaries.
By the way, the zoo was brilliant. It was free for concert goers who were accompanied by a paying adult. Surprisingly few people copped this. It had decent toilets, cheap food and good benches. We could hear the Hothouse Flowers boring the audience off in the distance, so we didn't miss anything while we wandered through primate world. For the record, my personal favourite monkeys are the ones with red asses, followed by the Lemurs (it's the eyes) and Colobus monkeys (who are impossibly cute...and were milking it for all they were worth). The Orang Utans were fun too. And I could talk for ages about how cool the sea lions and the penguins were. But this is supposed to be a gig review...
So we spent 3 hours in the zoo. We saw the elephants sway their trunks in time to the groove armada...and the ass-monkeys made that "I see u baby, shaking that ass" song hysterically funny. We had a quick look at the chimps (our closest relatives...it was like looking in a mirror) and noticed that they didn't seem to be half as enthusiastic about vomit and urine as some of the gig goers. We put this down to their lack of sophistication and opposable thumbs (they find it difficult to open beercans).
We left the zoo in the middle of the Thrills' set, confident that the entrance gate lay just beyond the next set of lights. Approximately three ice-ages later our descendents finally made it to security people and got frisked. Finally!
120,000 people is a big crowd. I looked around a few times and thought "holy fuck, one small airplane crashed into this lot...and you could basically eliminate the green/labour vote in the next election". It's lucky for Pat Rabbitte that I'm too lazy and incompetent to be a terrorist.
Anyway, the music. The lead singer of the Thrills must be a bit embarrassed. After all, his only real function in the band is to be the singer...and his conspicuous lack of talent in this area is mind boggling. I mean, there have been lots of dodgy singers in rock music...but at least they had another talent, like playing the guitar or bass. Tim Wheeler comes to mind. But Conor Deasy's *only* job is to sing, and he simply can't. How embarassing. It's not even that he can't sing...there have been a lot of tuneless singers down through the years, whose voices had character and personality...Mercury Rev, Bob Dylan and Moby come to mind. But Conor Deasy doesn't even have that going for him. Which is a pity, cos some of their songs are catchy and the band is pretty talented. But it's like some reviewers said, the Thrills are never going to be anybody's favourite band.
As the Thrills yelped their way through their last song, I noticed that the big screens were intermittently malfunctioning and were strangely dimmed (except for one, which was nice and bright, but refused to stay working for more than 3 minutes at a time). Since we were approximately 30 miles from the stage this was a bit annoying. Another thing that was noticeable was that no account was taken of the time lag between sound and picture for people who were at a distance. Maybe some of the big screens could have be synchronised for different parts of the crowd.
The organisers made a few spirited attempts to play ads for Oxygen in the break between acts, but couldn't get the sound to work properly. All that came out of the speaker nearest us was a torrent of feedback and white noise. To be honest, we thought the Pixies had started their set early. They kept trying to get the sound working, but it kept screwing up. I'm willing to put this down to anti-corporate vibes emanating from the Pixies. Maybe they have an ad jamming field of sheer coolness.
Anyway...with no warning, the Pixies emerged and thundered into Bone Machine. I can't really describe their set. They just played song after song...hardly pausing for breath the whole time. Frank Black howled and sang like a man possessed. Kim Deal sang like an angel with a thing for bass and cigarettes. But for me, Joey Santiago was the star of the whole thing. Jesus, the sounds that guy got out of his guitar were incredible. I could practically see it begging for mercy at the end. I never really realised just how important he is to the Pixies sound...but I swear I nearly stopped breathing when he crashed into the end of Caribou. Amusingly, as they tore through Wave of Mutilation...all the big screens went blank for a minute, and then a few of them displayed Windows desktops in obvious distress. The went bluescreen just as Frank Black started screaming "Taaaaaaaaaaaame". Perfect.
They didn't really stop to chat. They didn't have to. The music said it all. It was like they were taunting the Chillis. Saying, "look, we can play a non-stop set without fucking around and without playing any shit filler songs and without indulging in bass solos". The pretty much played every song from Doolittle. And dozens of other songs. Every note they played came through loud and clear...some of them, you could actually feel in your spinal cord. They were well worth the 60 quid admission price by themselves.
...which was just as well...
Another bout of white noise oxygen ads ensued, and I found to my surprise that there were actually enough toilets (wow!).
The Chillis rolled on stage just after 8. The sky was a perfect blue at this stage, and people in the planes flying overhead must have gotten an incredible view.
The Chillis had a great intro. I gotta admit it, for the first minute...I thought they were gonna pull off a fantastic gig. They had a long, slow build up into Can't Stop. It built and built and built...you could feel the excitement rising. And then...
...they played the song. And everyone around me started wondering, "Is Anthony Kiedis actually singing?". We could see his mouth moving on the few occasions that the big screens worked...but we couldn't actually hear him.
Amazingly, they seemed to have turned the sound down for the Chillis. Maybe the Pixies had it written into their contract, or maybe they just weren't playing with the same primal intensity...but I was able to talk the person next to me without raising my voice.
The sound wasn't improved by the drunken eejits behind us who kept shouting for Rollercoaster (the whole way through the gig) and occasionally sang along with the guitar parts (weeeeeehungaungaungabapbappow!). Although, to be fair, one guy who had vomited down the front of his t-shirt was singing much more tunefully than Kiedis.
After a while, we got bored enough to turn around and watch the drunken eejits trying to build a human pyramid. The fact that they tried about 14 times and never once came even close to succeeding is a testament to both the indomitable spirit and utter stupidity of your average drunken eejit.
There was a brief high point during Universally Speaking...when the sound guy left his desk and the sound suddenly became a lot clearer and louder. But he soon came back from his tea break and the next few songs sounded like they were being broadcast on AM radio.
Eventually we just got really bored and fucked off. I think we left in the middle of their new song (called Shame...I think). As we faced the 4000 mile hike to the buses, we heard them do a pretty decent version of Californication...but we were too tired to care by that point.
To sum up, on a five star scale:
The Pixies ******
Ass-monkeys *****
RHCP ***
Terrapins and Ducks **
The Thrills *
posted by batgimp | 10:20 p.m.
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