Self-described “bootgaze” band and friends of The Horrors, Telegram open the show. Looking around the venue there are some hardcore merch-clad Telegram fans scattered about, despite them having released just one single, ‘Follow’. Lead singer Matt Saunders struts about the stage exuding charisma and confidence whilst guitarist, sounding a mix between a livelier TOY and Roxy Music. Their slot is bursting with freshness and energy, and they are definitely a band to look out for in the future.
But then there’s a blackout as soon as the band everyone’s been waiting for appear, and when The Horrors start playing, the previous performance has been totally eclipsed and almost forgotten. Rocking their signature black attire (with a splash of colour from Rhys Webb’s paisley orange shirt), the band fade into the first track, ‘Chasing Shadows’, which is a synth-tastic build-up of energy, followed by songs from last three albums including popular favourites ‘Still Life’, ‘Mirror’s Image' and ‘Who Can Say’.
The crowd are buzzing with anticipation, erupting even before the song has started. “You can’t tell what song we’re gonna play just from the drums” lead singer Faris tuts with a hint of amused scepticism. His gloomy wit echoes through the set, particularly when he announces “we’re going to play something from Strange House” before going into ‘Sea Within a Sea' (from their 'Primary Colours' album), as they tend not to play any songs from 'Strange House' anymore. It’s a shame because it includes some excellent tracks such as 'Death At The Chapel' that got a lot of people obsessed with them in the first place. However, in context of the show as a whole, the material from 'Strange House' seems misplaced amidst the wave of melodic tunes that have followed.
Faris has always had a distinctively vicious presence on stage, swinging his microphone stand violently over his head and using his microphone lead as a whip, menacingly yet a little sexy. However an even more notable aspect of the show is the lighting effects. Midway through the set a single wide strobe light blasts above as the smoke encompassing the room through the light gives it a water-like effect, making the performance an artistic light show spectacular.
The standout performance oddly is the darkly seductive ‘Change Your Mind’. There is a slight lull at the start of the performance as the band starts playing the much less upbeat track – but as it picks up, Faris gives a painfully intense and luring performance that mesmerises the crowd into a blissfully melancholic state. The omniscient ‘I See You’ is what really gets the crowd going as they chant along, almost ritualistically. For an encore they performed the danceable ‘So Now You Know’ and their usual closer, ‘Moving Further Away’, leaving the crowd dazed and uplifted. So I urge anyone and everyone to see them – because The Horrors are propelling higher and they’re only getting better.
Post by hatter_in_macc on Oct 29, 2014 12:03:08 GMT
Fortunately (although inexplicably, with me for her Dad), she can't stand The Beautiful Game...!
Music is my other big passion, though, and nothing would give me greater pride and pleasure than to see her get into this line of work after graduating. As coincidence would have it, she was approached by her student mag about becoming its gigs/reviews correspondent at around the same point in the Summer as County came a-knockin' on my door. We've been trying (in the nicest family way) to out-do each other journalistically ever since!
A Concert Review: - Earls Court - Led Zeppelin - May 1975
A tad late I agree, but here goes.
We just had to go, but first, could we get tickets?.
14 hours in a queue outside a record shop in Manchester, overnight, freezing cold (despite a sleeping bag), soaked and kept awake by the visit of the occasional tramp. It was worth it. We got our tickets for the Saturday concert later in the year, one of 5 nights they were to perform.
Travelled down by train went to the Concert which was outstanding. Nothing before that concert or subsequent to it, has ever reached the sheer magic of that night. The atmosphere was electric. John Bonham's drumming was deafening, Robert Plant was strutting his stuff, John Paul Jones was Mr Cool and Jimmy Page played like I'd never heard or seen before, especially when he used his violin bow on his guitar - that was just magical.
Heading back to Euston station, we soon realised we were going to miss our train. We did, but we weren't downhearted. By chance, the day of the concert also coincided with a game at Wembley. Yes, England played Scotland that afternoon and beat the Jocks 5-1.
At the station, we managed to find a nice spot to rest in advance of the first train out later in the morning, it also gave us a great view of everyone else traipsing in and realising, like us, this was their home for next few hours. Amongst the stragglers were plenty of drunken, far from happy kilted gentlemen who took great pleasure in slagging us off in passing. It was an interesting few hours to say the least.
Myself and two mates attended the concert and sadly one of them passed away a year later following a massive heart attack. He was only in his 20's.
I am so pleased that I went through the hours of waiting for that record shop to open its doors so that I could purchase those precious tickets, as the concert was simply brilliant and a moment in my life that I will cherish for ever.
i didn't see him doing 'low life'/'brotherhood' - didn't realise he was... i assume he's now already done 'power, corruption and lies' which is a bit of a shame cos it's my fave.
i saw him do 'unknown pleasures' in its entirety a couple of years ago, and he did quite a few tracks off 'movement' as well, and other non-UP tracks like 'transmission', 'atmosphere' and 'LWTUA'. the music was pretty good (although he had a second bassist, which seemed like a cheat!) but the vocals were horrible in places. he also enlisted rowetta from happy mondays to murder a couple, including 'atmosphere'. there were some that he originally sang on 'movement' like 'dreams never end', and they sounded alright.
you'll get stuff like 'perfect kiss', 'bizarre love triangle' and 'as it is when it was' from those albums, which will hopefully be pretty good. will he get someone else in to sing barney's vocals though? - they're a lot higher than his natural register.
here are a couple of clips from the gig i mentioned - 'transmission' and 'ceremony' to give you an idea - i know they're more guitar-based than the new order stuff, but the synthy 'movement' songs were done pretty well also.
it's a bit weird - it's not the same as seeing new order which i guess you probably have if you're thinking about seeing hooky and the light. i wouldn't race back to see them again but did enjoy it - it was as close as someone who was eight when they released 'unknown pleasures' was going to get to seeing it performed faithfully.
I saw New Order at the SECC and NEC in 1989. I seem to remember you saying you'd been at one, if not both of those.
I think the other bass player is his son. The vocalist will be Dave Potts who he worked with as Monaco. His vocals are very Barneyesque anyway so shouldn't be a problem. Monaco split up because Potts thought they sounded too much like New Order. Strange to now tour doing their stuff with that history.
Post by another_ruined_saturday on Oct 30, 2014 20:51:25 GMT
yeah, the NEC show. so you also caught the glasgow one with a guy called gerald in support. i thought the NEC show was pretty ordinary until they cranked up into a run of 'perfect kiss', 'bizarre love triangle', 'temptation' and 'ceremony', at which point it became brilliant!
seen them a couple of times since (including the 'last ever show' at reading in '93), and by the last time, at the apollo in the late nineties, they'd started including a couple of joy division songs.
the dave potts thing makes sense. hopefully it will mean that hooky concentrates on his bass - in the above clips it's mainly decoration because he's singing/being the frontman, and obviously that's why they defaulted the vocals to barney in the first place rather than hooky or steve morris.
will be very interested to hear from you how 'low life' and 'brotherhood' sound all these years later. glad you've got the tickets!
I've just read about the death this past Tuesday of Big Bang Hank from the The Sugarhill Gang. Not a household name to many on here I guess, but he along with the rest of The Sugarhill Gang was responsible for (in my opinion) the greatest Rap song of all time: 'Rappers Delight'. Backed by an interpolation of the fantastic 'Good Times' by Chic, the full-length version came in at just under 15 mins, but here is the shortened version: