The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart at The Garage. August 4, 2009.

The first time I heard of The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart was when Luna mentioned it on Plurk. Having an overall shoegaze feel, I immediately liked them and started to listen to them quite a bit.

Due to all the irregularities in my shift for the past few weeks, I had Tuesday off and had the chance to see them live at Relentless Garage in Islington.

There were two supports that evening, Veronica Falls and Hatcham Social.

First up was Veronica Falls from London and as per their MySpace page are Pop/Goth/Shoegaze. I would have to say they are more shoegaze than anything else. I love this band to bits and not only because of the lovely lead vocalist with awesome bangs. Of the bands I saw this evening, they sounded the best in that every instrument can be heard clearly with no one overpowering. The vocals were also very clear. It is a real shame though that they don’t have a record out yet and only one song is available on their MySpace page.

As for Hatcham Social, I was not too impressed. For the most part, I thought they played too loudly for a small venue and it was not the sound techs fault as they set up their own instruments and indicated they were ok with the levels. Their performance and songs were pretty much ok, nothing too special. The loudness clearly ruined it for me. It was entertaining though when they started their set by reading a piece from Lewis Caroll’s works.

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart was supposed to start at 10 in the evening but did not come up on stage until 10 minutes after. However, this did not mean they started their set right away. Kip (lead) spent a few more minutes tuning his guitar which he continued to do every 3 or 4 songs.

As soon as they started playing, it was clear they had their act together. They started out with a song most likely from one of their EPs as I only have the one album. It was good though. I will not go into set details as I do not remember anything at all especially with the songs from the EP thrown in the mix.

It was a great gig though and the crowd really loved it. Most of the songs from their self-titled album were on the setlist with a few old ones from the EP and new songs as well.

Unfortunately, the instruments didn’t sound perfect. They had an additional guitarist on stage but you can barely here it.

I mentioned previously when I watched Bloc Party at this venue that I totally love it. Well, I now take this back because of one minor issue, overcrowding. The venue was packed. I know it’s a tiny venue but it is not a very good idea to pack so many people into such a small venue as it sort of spoils the whole atmosphere of having a small venue. The poor ventilation did not help either. I am pretty sure this is the hottest venue in London once filled up and I mean this literally.

This was another great evening of indie and shoegaze music which I really enjoyed quite a lot. Sadly, I am quickly disliking this venue.

of Montreal at Shepherd’s Bush Empire. July 14, 2009.

There are bands which are so completely different and unique that it is both crazy and totally weird but surprisingly refreshing. of Montreal is one of those bands especially with Skeletal Lamping which is the first album I downloaded after hearing about them.

Due to the concept of the album Skeletal Lamping, it took quite a few listens before I started getting it into my system. When I purchased tickets for this gig, I was still not sure I made the right choice. Eventually, I started loving it which made me excited about the gig.

I downloaded their whole discography which had a whopping 9 studio albums plus several EPs and compilations. Scary really as it stayed untouched on my computer for months until only a few weeks before the gig.

Then I decided to listen to their 4 latest albums which included Skeletal Lamping, Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?, The Sunlandic Twins and Satanic Panic in the Attic.

Excellent choice which really built up the anticipation for the gig.

On Tuesday, I finally had the chance to see them at O2 Academy’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire which is remarkably one of the more popular venues in London which I’ve never been to.

Support for the evening was Local Natives, a band where 4 of the 5 members have mustaches. They sounded pretty good and quite melodic even though almost everyone took lead vocals at some point. Definitely worth checking out again when they release their first full-length album.

After the long wait, a guy with a tiger mask plus a few other masked guys came up on stage and started to cheer up the crowd, building up the anticipation for the band. A few moments later the band came in followed by Kevin Barnes being carried on the shoulders of two masked guys.

Most of the band were dressed quite normally but Kevin Barnes and Bryan Poole had interesting costumes.

Then the familiar and very recognizable intro of Nonpareil of Favor started which is the first track off Skeletal Lamping, and immediately the crowd started going crazy. This was followed by Bunny Ain’t No Kind of Rider from Hissing Fauna, a great song with a tremendously catchy chorus.

Every other song, a group of performers would play out skits on stage which ranged from the normal to the odd and bizarre which is to be expected if you have seen some of their music videos. The masks they wore involved gas masks, pigs, tigers, and ninjas.

With all the dancing, it was hard to keep up with everything going on stage as there was the band to watch, the performers doing their bizarre skits, and a screen which showed pretty graphics similar to their music videos.

They played one catchy song after the other with most of the crowd going crazy for each. The setlist was a good mix of songs mainly from Skeletal Lamping and Hissing Fauna with a few thrown in from The Sunlandic Twins and Satanic Panic Attack.

A cover of Bat for Lashes’ Daniel was also performed in it’s entirety. I was only able to get a video of the second half.

I’ll be honest since the gig has been almost a week ago, I can hardly remember any specific details about each and every song they played. So I’ll be grabbing the setlist from Last.fm as posted by schmeep.

• Butt Bank
• Nonpareil of Favor
• Bunny Ain’t No Kind of Rider
• Id Engager
• And I’ve Seen A Bloody Shadow
• The Party’s Crashing Us
• Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse
• October Is Eternal
• A Sentence of Sorts In Kongsvinger
• Beware Our Nubile Miscreants
• Daniel (Bat For Lashes cover)
• Metal Finds Troll
• For Our Elegant Caste
• Touched Something’s Hollow
• An Eluardian Instance
• Rapture Rapes The Muses
• Wraith Pinned To The Mist
• She’s A Rejecter
• The Past Is A Grotesque Animal — encore

There was only one song for their encore but it was a 12 minute song, The Past Is A Grotesque Animal and it was pretty epic. Other highlights of the evening would be Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse, An Eluardian Instance, and She’s A Rejecter.

It was quite an enjoyable evening in almost every possible way. Most people on the Last.fm event page complained about the sound, but I found it quite adequate being right in the front. Or I could still have been partly deaf due to The Mars Volta’s gig the evening before. It was also a visual threat with all the antics the band and the performers were up to.

The setlist was also a good mix of songs but could have used less Skeletel Lamping. I would have gone absolutely manic if they included Suffer for Fashion and Disconnect The Dots.

Nonetheless, it was absolutely one enjoyable evening for almost every sense.

This is one band I cannot wait to see again and I am eagerly anticipating their return to London.

The Mars Volta at Somerset House. July 13, 2009.

When you are about to see one of your favourite bands for the 4th time, you tend to know pretty much what to expect. However, in no way does this degrade the experience but deep inside, you are hoping there would be some sort of surprise, something to spice things up a bit.

A couple of things made this gig different, unique and special.

First, The venue.

The venue was in the courtyard of the lovely Somerset House along the Victoria Embankment. It was an open air venue, a first for me since I’ve always seen The Mars Volta indoors. When I think about it, this is only the second open air venue I’ve been to after Hyde Park as London has several awesome venues. Then, there’s the flaky weather.

The Mars Volta has always been known to be pretty loud and this gig was not an exception even whilst outdoors. I guess the setup of the speakers and how they bounce off the four sides of the courtyard was quite optimal. Actually, I I really try to think back on previous gigs, this may have been the best they have sounded live. The vocals were very good as well.

Second, Cedric talking to the crowd.

Yes, Cedric actually talked to the crowd through much of their set and was introducing almost every song before playing it. The past three gigs I’ve been to, the most you’d hear from him was “Thank you.” while they’re walking off the stage. Highly unusual but the change was pleasantly welcome as it gave a different and friendlier feel which tremendously helped the atmosphere in the venue and of the crowd.

Also, due to the size of the stage compared to ICA, Omar and Cedric had more space to move and this meant more crazy dancing from Cedric.

I didn’t push forward to the front as much as I could since I’ve already seen them up close at ICA and The Roundhouse so I decided to close to the sides.

Here’s the setlist viat Last.fm.

• Goliath
• Cotopaxi
• Roulette Dares
• Viscera Eyes
• Halo of Nembutals
• Cygnus
• Desperate Graves
• Ilyena
• Teflon
• Drunkship of Lanterns
• Luciforms
• The Widow
• Wax Simulacra

I really enjoyed this open air gig and sort of a departure from the norm for the band with Cedric talking and no obscenely long jams to bridge one song to the other. I guess the main reason I enjoyed this gig quite a lot was lowering my expectations and not expecting a performance like they did at Brixton.

Blur at Hyde Park. July 2, 2009.

Last week was pretty much a blur for me. For most of the week, I was sick with the flu (the “common” one) and missed out on two days of work. On the two days in which I did work, I hardly did anything which is quite typical these days.

In between the week, I got well enough to head over to Hyde Park on Thursday and catch one of Blur’s comeback shows after being away for so many years. Mind you, this was a date I booked the day off for weeks before I got sick.

I’ve never been the biggest Blur fan but I am so glad I managed to grab some tickets when they announced the second date of their Hyde Park shows. With my health not being a 100%, I spent a lot of time on the day itself deciding whether to go or not, right up to the moment I stepped out the door. It was the responsible thing to do as long as I still showed up for work the next day.

Even though I left pretty late, I arrived at just the right time when the massive queues to get in have disappeared and 30-45 minutes before the first support band was to start.

Four support bands were up that day, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Golden Silvers, Crystal Castles and Foals. Friendly Fires was earlier mentioned to play on the Thursday date but sadly were missing from the official timetable for the show.

I’ve never heard of Hypnotic Brass Ensemble nor Golden Silvers prior to this event and I don’t think I am missing out on much. They are ok, but not impressive enough especially with the wide open area.

Crystal Castles however was fun. Alice, the female singer, is freaking crazy though and could hardly stand up straight. She was properly wasted. I started listening to Crystal Castles when I found out they’d be supporting Blur. Somehow, the electronic samples using an Atari 5200 sound chip, immediately drew me in. They sound pretty ok live but not as forceful as I hoped. This can be attributed to the wide open space again. I’d pay to see them again at smaller venues.

Next up was Foals, a band I quite like and made me somewhat happy of scoring Thursday tickets instead of Friday ones. Their set was longer than when they supported Bloc Party in April. I enjoyed the songs they decided to play but the wide open space sort of distorted their sound. I’m still waiting for the day I’d see them headlining their own show at a much smaller venue.

The support acts made me think about the second date which had Florence and the Machine, Deerhoof, and Vampire Weekend.

Still, the 50,000+ people did not come for the support acts and neither did I. We were all their for one band which finally came up onstage a few minutes after 8 in the evening.

Blur played a very well constructed set which was a mirror of their headlining show at Glastonbury. Screencap is from their Glastonbury page where you could also watch 30 minutes of their performance (if you are in the UK).

Unlike all the support bands, Blur sounded amazing outdoors with Damon asking if everything was adequate and it sure was.

Being less of a fan than 60% of the other people in the event did not hinder me from enjoying the show in huge amounts. Most songs are very catchy and after a few lines you’d be singing along with the crowd. That’s britpop for you.

One of the best parts of the evening was Tender. It was pretty much epic. The crowd was still singing bits and pieces of it on the way home.

You can also see how much fun the band was having being back in London playing such a massive show after being away for so long.

The crowd was quite fun as well with everyone being big fans, dancing and singing along. A large percentage was around my age which was totally cool. Gone are the emo teeny boppers.

Blur at Hyde Park was one of the better gigs I’ve been to this year and I am thankful I decided to grab tickets right away when they announced the second (Thursday) date of their show.

My biggest regret was not listening to Blur as much as I could have when I was in highschool and college. One could easily say that Blur (and Oasis) were the definitive (brit) bands of my generation. Damn, that just made sound quite old.

Friendly Fires at HMV Forum. May 15, 2009.

Last Friday, I was off to another gig, the first one for this month of May. It would be a relatively different gig than usual but a very familiar venue.

I can no longer recall exactly how I came to listen to Friendly Fires but the moment I did, I fell in love with their unique brand of dance-pop-punk. I knew watching them live would be a different experience than usual and boy was it different.

The venue was the HMV Forum in Camden which was the site where I saw Bloc Party last year and will be seeing Deftones later on in the year. It is still one of the better venues I’ve been to.

Support acts were not mentioned on the Last.fm event page but with just one album yet to their name, we knew there had to be something.

Three drumsets were on stage and at some time close to 7:45, a guy sat on one of them and started playing. The act was one guy playing on the drums with back up techno beats which was quite entertaining albeit being unusual. He played a few songs which did help the crowd ease into the evening. At no point did he mention what his name nor his act was called. He did mention that Magistrates was playing next. After some googling, I found out it was Wax Stag.

After his entertaining set, it was time for the longest wait for a second support band I have ever endured. I’d say Wax Stag finished a few minutes after 8 but Magistrates did not start playing until past 9 which is usually when main acts start.

Anyway, Magistrates finally came up on stage. I’ve never heard of them before this gig and had no idea what kind of music they played. Not having them listed on the Last.fm event page didn’t help either. Nonetheless, watching them on stage was quite enjoyable and surprisingly entertaining. Man, that sounded real lame but seriously, what can be said about a band you’ve never heard before. Believe me though, they were real energetic on stage and their music was pretty good.

At almost 10 in the evening, Friendly Fires finally came up on stage. As far as I remember from their videos, the band only has three members but I was surprised to see 6 come up on stage. With only one album released, you almost knew they’d play every song but of course in a different order. They started off the show with Lovesick which really got the crowd dancing early.

Yes, dancing. I was actually at a gig which was more like a rave than a rock concert. It’s a little out of my shell, but I went on with it and danced a little even though the (dance) floor was packed.

This is dumb. What good is a music gig post-slash-review if I can’t even remember the set list or how each song played out live. Setlist.fm does not have one for this event but I’d go with the top of the list as it does sounds close to what I recall so I’d go with it.

• Lovesick
• Jump In The Pool
• Skeleton Boy
• In The Hospital
• White Diamonds
• Strobe
• Photobooth
• On Board
• Paris
• Ex Lover

Notable songs would be their singles Paris, Skeleton Boy and an extended rendition of Ex Lover as sort of their encore.

Friendly Fires was an amazing and enjoyable experience. They have a ton of energy and unleash it onstage which I am pretty sure, feeds off from the amazing response from the crowd all singing and dancing.

It won’t be long until I see them next as they are supporting Blur on the 2nd of July. I am a bit skeptical about how they would sound in a huge open venue such as Hyde Park but if they pull it off, it would be a massive dancing party.

Apologies for the ridiculously blurry and awful pictures. I just felt the post would be duller without them. Doubt it helps really though.

Ticket Mania

Last week, there was a sudden in flux of gigs announced in London and most of the tickets were released for sale on Thursday and Friday. Not wanting to realize regret later on, I went ahead and splurged on ticket shopping. Heck, we just received our paycheck.

Thursday tickets (Somerset House events) were pretty easy to acquire. Friday tickets (Greenday and Deftones) were a little trickier since one is a big band playing a big gig and the other is a band playing in a smaller venue. Being an O2 customer finally paid off with priority ticketing with Greenday. However, there was a little worry with Deftones as tickets did not seem to be available at the time advertised which usually means they sold out. Thankfully, the correct purchase link came up around 20 to 30 minutes after the time initially posted as being available.

After the dust settled, I ended up purchasing tickets for 4 different shows as listed below spending close to a couple hundred quid.

• The Mars Volta at Somerset House on July 13.
• Bat For Lashes at Somerset House on July 16.
• Deftones at HMV Forum on August 27.
• Greenday at The O2 (previously known as Millenium Dome) on October 24.

Of the four, I am looking forward the most to see Deftones as I’ve been listening to them for the longest time. Plus, they haven’t been touring much outside the US so I’ve sort of written them off as a band I’ll not be seeing. With the announcement of them playing at this year’s Reading and Leeds festival, a small window opened for them playing a gig in London. This venue happens to be the same one where I saw Bloc Party last year.

To put in perspective, I would have been more frustrated in missing out of tickets to see Deftones than Greenday. I almost never purchase tickets from Ebay (the exception being Taking Back Sunday at Astoria last year) as I don’t like supporting touts, but I would have done anything to get my hands on tickets for Deftones.

As for Green Day, I am not a big fan but do enjoy them quite a bit. Also, they are the type of band you would have to see atleast once like The Cure. I’ve already missed watching Foo Fighters twice so consider this my redemption.

The Mars Volta is a band I will be seeing for the third time now, the first being one of the best gigs I’ve ever been to and the second being quite a let down. With a new album coming out, the third time should be a charm and could quite possibly live up to the brilliant performance at Brixton.

The last would be Bat For Lashes which is an act whose sound I’ve been digging quite a bit and far different from all the other British female artists like Lily Allen and Kate Nash. She (Natasha Khan) performed a few weeks ago at Shepherd’s Bush but I was at GIAN. This should be fun.

This at a time when I am supposed to be saving as much as I possibly can for an automobile, which is still up in the air anyway since I need to pass my practical exam first.

Seeing now that standing tickets for every gig, except Bat for Lashes, have already soldout somehow makes me feel better.

Managing The Workflow

For the past few months, the work load has been pretty much non-existent. We still get a few tickets here and a few servers to build there, but most of the time, it is dead quiet with nothing at all to do.

Time has been spent mindlessly checking social networks, RSS feeds, checking email, and playing games on the PS3.

Also, there’s only so many tricks you can learn and master on the scooter before getting bored. One cannot be too crazy with the tricks as there are cameras all over the place and we wouldn’t want to see ourselves on Today’s Big Fail for a scooter trick gone horribly wrong.

With this in mind, I have taken it upon myself to divide the work hours into something that would be more productive and organized. We cannot carry on any longer simply wasting the hours of the day away. We have at least 3 months of this left.

Besides, it would at the very least show that I am actually doing something than just sitting around all day.

Here’s what I have devised so far.

• 1320-1500 — Check all email accounts starting with work, Plurk, unread RSS feed items, social networking sites (Quizbook) and play Zork. Seems like a lot, but I’ve checked and can normally get through all of them by 1500.
• 1500-1700 — Study time for career advancement. Seriously, I’ve been extremely lazy and uninspired so allotting time in the day for this should help.
• 1700-1800 — Lunch break which includes trips to ASDA or Subway for food. This involves a little plurking, emails and RSS feeds. Yes, even during lunch break, I’m in front of a PC.
• 1800-2000 — Play with Slicehost server, WordPress site (themes, plugins, layout) and think of something to blog.
• 2000-2120 — Check back plurk, RSS feeds and emails until 3rd shift comes in.

Sounds like a solid plan, right?

Now for the tricky part, sticking to it and avoiding distractions as it is so easy to Alt+Tab to a new window and Ctrl+# to another opened tab.

With this said, this would not hinder anything which needs to be done that is work related like tickets, tasks and server builds. We are of course, fanatical.

Anyway, let’s see how it goes. I’ll start tomorrow.

A New Slice Of Life

A few weeks ago, we were offered a 75% discount for our own slice of cloud computing via Slicehost, a sister company of Rackspace. We basically get a cloud server with a Linux distro on it, 256MB of RAM, 10GB of storage 100GB of bandwidth, and the complete freedom (almost) to do pretty much anything on it.

Considering the price and the freedom, I decided to go ahead and dive in as our workload these days is pretty much none. This would give me something to play with aside from the PS3 whilst at work. At the same time, this would teach me a few more things about Ubuntu (the Linux distro I choose), managing an actual web server and hosting a website, things I learnt back in school but never put into actual practice.

With all the guides available, setting up a website running of wordpress was pretty easy and I guess it is about time to share it to the world.

I’ve been maintaining blogs on Livejournal (since January 2004), WordPress.com (since August 2007), and Multiply for quite sometime now, however, they all have exactly the same content. I doubt I would be killing anyone one of them off as I did with my Geocities website which started back in April 2003.

Speaking of Geocities and it’s coming demise, another thing I could do is migrate the old site over, just so I can preserve it online.

Going back to this new site, I doubt it would host any new content as well as anything drastically different from my other blogs. I don’t really have a passion for one exclusive thing nor a niche in some kind of field.

Hence sticking to the blog title, Perfecting Loneliness, which again is one of my favorite Jets To Brazil songs.

With that said, I am hoping to post more creative entries as well as post with more regularity as I have been completely lazy these days. One thing though, extremely emotional content will stay in Livejournal as it was designed for.

So, add me up on your RSS reader. You do have one, right?

Give It A Name 2009 at O2 Brixton Academy

Last summer, I went through such an ordeal listening to friends back in the Philippines and raving about how great one of my favorite bands is. As I was already living in London at this point, I missed out on quite a performance at two venues back home, one in Makati and the other in Camarines Sur.

The pictures, the experience, the road trip, the conversations, and hanging out it with the band were all missed.

Sure, I live in a country where there are more live music performances than you can shake a finger at, but this is one band I wanted to see first. Plus, I am sure, it was quite an experience for them. Yes, you can call it bloody selfish.

And on Sunday, I finally got to see them live and it was a real wicked experience. I would love to jump in to their performance, but I can’t help but be sequential.

After quite a walk from Stockwell Station (Brixton Station and the whole Victoria Line was closed) to Brixton Academy, I was relieved to see no queues outside as we were already a little late and the first band was already starting.

From GIAN 2009

Whole Wheat Bread was up on stage and more than halfway through their. I ‘ve never had the chance to listen to them before so I decided to buy some merch first and grab a pint. They were still on stage by the time I was done and from what I heard, I didn’t miss anything much.

From GIAN 2009

Next up was Versa Emerge, a band which at first look and listen, sound like Paramore as they were similarly aged and had a female on lead vocals. I quite enjoyed their performance and will go out and say that Sierra of Versa Emerge can sing better than Hayley of Paramore. Hayley and Paramore have more stage presence though as they have been around longer and are more popular. Still, a real interesting and promising set from another relatively new band.

From GIAN 2009

Since Brixton was much smaller than Earl’s Court, there was only one stage for performances which made the wait between bands a bit longer. With the next one being a new discovery for me, a band I really dig, the wait really felt longer.

From GIAN 2009

It was Innerpartysystem on stage now and thankfully, my fears were alleviated as they did not turn out to be something like last year’s Cobra Starship. They sounded as good as they did on record which was quite dance-inducing. Their set was limited to a few songs but it was quite well rounded. They ended their set with Don’t Stop which was just amazing.

From GIAN 2009

Now for the next band, Escape The Fate. What can I say aside from them being quite horrible. Sorry. I wasn’t looking forward to see them but did slightly enjoy their album Dying Is Your Latest Fashion. Nothing really special but it was an ok record. Seeing them on the bill didn’t get tme all excited but for me, it was a nice addition to the already great lineup.

They were too flashy but sounded ridiculously awful live. I still can’t wrap my head around how many people wanted to see the band and were actually enjoying their performance. As I was pretty close, I remained standing but none of the songs even made me move, bob my head nor tap my feet, just shaking my head in utter disappoint. It was that bad. Not knowing the songs has nothing to do with how I felt towards the band. Good bands would at least get you moving. This had none of that.

In fairness, there were two songs which sounded a bit close to their album, in other worst, almost good. These were The Guillotine and Situations. While writing  this post, I learned that they changed the vocalist after their album, Dying Is Your Latest Fashion. This explains quite a bit but the awful performance goes beyond the vocalist.

Seriously, if they headlined the event, I would have left right away. This was the worst live performance I have ever seen.

Thankfully, their set eventually came to an end and what better way to wash the awful taste left by ETF than the band I’ve really been looking forward to see this day, Thursday.

From GIAN 2009

As they came up on stage, I couldn’t control my excitement and tried to get as close to the stage as possible.  They kicked off their set with For The Workforce, Drowning. Geoff was really quite a sight to watch onstage with some massive mic-flailing action going on. Keeping the pace they started with, they followed suit with Understanding In A Car Crash which was epic.

From GIAN 2009

A member had to go home during the tour, so Geoff mentioned they would only play one new song, Friends In The Armed Forces, which had me smiling as I was really hoping to hear old stuff. The next song made me really go mental, it was Jet Black New Year. It was an absolute blast hearing this song. I knew they played this in Manila but that was a full setlist. GIAN usually only give 6-7 songs per non-headlining band. This trend of old songs continued with Cross Out The Eyes at which point I almost had no voice from all the singing/screaming. To close out the set, they played War All The Time which almost had me tear up.

From GIAN 2009

It was master performance by Geoff and the rest of the guys from Thursday. Of course, the setlist was terribly short but I had already set my expectations before hand about this. I am so glad I have finally seen them live. Another band ticked off the list. Here’s hoping the band would announce a tour here to promote their new album, Common Existence. I’ll surely be up for that.

From GIAN 2009

Underoath was up on stage after Thursday and it is safe to say that all hell broke lose. This band really shook the place up, stirred it around and shook it some more. I’ve listened to them before and really enjoyed their album They’re Only Chasing Safety. Their other album, Define The Great Line is also quite good but I have not listened to it as much as I would have liked to. Sadly, I was expecting them to sing Reinventing Your Exit but they didn’t.

A friend (Niche) once told me that Underoath is a Christian back then. I never gave this much thought since last night. Somewhere during the end of their set, the vocalist, Spencer, preached a little which really surprised me. Obviously, this got a lot of boos from the crowd.

From GIAN 2009

It was then time for the headlining band, Taking Back Sunday. I saw them last year at London Astoria but for some reason, did not blog about them. They were as entertaining to watch now as it was back then especially with Adam Lazzara’s now perfected and masterful mic-flailing.

From GIAN 2009

Their set was a great mix of very old songs as well as 2-3 new ones from their upcoming album which Adam clearly mentioned as coming out on June 1. Here is a quick rundown of the setlist as per Setlist.fm: You Know How I Do, Error: Operator, Set Phasers To Stun, Carpathia, You’re So Last Summer, One-Eighty By Summer, New Again, Liar (It Takes One To Know One), Cute Without The ‘E’ (Cut From Team), Sink Into Me, A Decade Under The Influence, What’s It Feel Like To Be A Ghost?, and MakeDamnSure.

The songs from Tell All Your Friends are still emotional ones for me. Actually, most of their songs from each album all have some kind of effect on me and with them being quite catchy, it was time to start singing and dancing again.

All good things do come to and end as well, and as this was a GIAN event, there was no encore.

From GIAN 2009

All in all, it was another amazing night and in comparison with either day of GIAN 2008, I would have to pick this one as the best as almost each band gave a superb performance. Also, it is so good to be back in Brixton Academy again.

BTW, I love the pictures I took using Inara. This is the first time I brought here along for a give, and it was good. I should take her out more often. For more pictures, check out the Picasa album.

Here We Go. Thursday on a Sunday.

Later on in the day, I will be going to this year’s Give It A Name festival.

Last year’s event, was a quite a two-day extravagance of quite epic proportions. Got to see Finch and Glassjaw and discovered a load of new amazing bands such as Billy Talent, All Time Low, Cobra Starship and Envy On The Coast.

This year though, the two day festival has been scaled down tremendously with a smaller venue and fewer bands. Friday’s line up didn’t even budge me at all and I completely ignored it.

However, the best part about this festival is one band. One band who performed in Manila which I missed out on and made me envy friends back home who even met and hung out with the band.

The band is of course Thursday, one of my favourite bands of all time. Due to this, I don’t really care whether or not GIAN was scaled back. The important thing is that I am finally seeing them live. I’d gladly pay to see Thursday even though all the other bands are awful.

This is not the case though as Sunday’s line-up is beyond crazy. In addition to Thursday, we have Underoath and Taking Back Sunday plus two new bands I am digging at the moment, Innerpartysystem and Escape The Fate. I saw Taking Back Sunday last year at Astoria and it was a brilliant show.

Here’s looking forward to one hell of an evening.