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.

Bloc Party at London Olympia. April 11, 2009

It has been awhile so I have no idea where to start. Actually, I somewhat knew what I was going to say until I saw the setlist for Sunday’s show. It had Two More Years. Oh well, we had Sunday.

So here goes.

Last Saturday, I saw Bloc Party at London Olympia Grand Hall. This was the second time I’ve seen the band live with the first being last September at The Forum and if you know me at all, you would know that they are among my favorite bands, if not, the top band.

The build up to this gig was not as emotional nor problematic as the first time, but I was still looking forward to seeing them again as they know how to put on an epic show. Plus, they are Bloc Party with Foals supporting.

The venue was quite accessible as it was right next to a tube station, one end of the District Line, and included links to Overground and National Rail services. After checking with Google Maps Streetview, you really would not get lost.

The gates opened around 6 in the afternoon and the winding queue slowly subsided at this point. It is quite amusing how such a long queue from the outside seems like nothing once you get in.

As mentioned, the venue was at the London Olympia Grand Hall. They weren’t kidding by calling the place “grand” as it was pretty massive. I think it was bigger than Earl’s Court though The O2 can hold more people because it is a stadium and not a “flat” venue unlike Olympia and Earl’s Court.

From Bloc Party at Olympia

The structure was a mass of steel and glass which allowed quite a bit of natural light to enter the venue which during spring is up to almost 8 in the evening.

The first order of business was to buy a shirt which was pretty easy since I was among the first in (first 200). Once this was dealt with, it was time to grab some food. Similar to Earl’s Court, they had several food establishments inside including a Pizza Express. Went for a Sloppy Guiseppe again.

Sadly, like Earl’s Court, they mostly served Carlsberg apart from cider but I needed a drink. Carlsberg is always a last resort choice for me. It was time to then sit down, enjoy the pint and wait until the support acts start.

From Bloc Party at Olympia

At around 7:30, Wet Paint started playing. I have not heard them before but they had a pretty good show going which was certainly better than Esser, the support band last time. Also, watching a band in natural light and not in complete darkness was quite nice.

From Bloc Party at Olympia

Next up was Foals. Now this is a band I wanted to see live the moment I first saw their video performance at Reading last year whilst at work. When I checked for upcoming gigs last year, their only London show at Brixton was already sold out.

When I learned they were to support Bloc Party, I was ecstatic. Seeing Bloc Party alone was enough but catching a glimpse of Foals was even more amazing. It is safe to say that I was looking forward to see them at the same level as of Bloc Party.

From Bloc Party at Olympia

They started off their set with a long intro slowly dwindling into The French Open which is the first song I really liked from them even though I couldn’t understand it as it is French. They also played other great songs like Balloons, Cassius, Two Steps Twice, and Red Sock Pugie.

From Bloc Party at Olympia

As a support band, they were limited to a very short set but it was a really great one. A nice glimpse on how energetic they are. Apparently, they are working on a new album so I’ll be eagerly awaiting that and the time they’ll be on tour again.

At around 9 in the evening, Bloc Party came up on stage and kicked off the show with One Month Off quickly followed up by Trojan Horse which really got the crowd going. From the moment I heard Intimacy, I loved the energy of these two songs as well as the guitar riffs towards the end of Trojan Horse. I hoped they’d play one during the September show, but they didn’t.

From Bloc Party at Olympia

They then continued the energy levels set by the first two songs with Hunting For Witches and the classic Positive Tension. Bloc Party finally decided to slow things down with Biko but slowly built up pace yet again with Waiting For the 7.18 with Gordon on the gloc. This eventually let to the epic duo of Songs For Clay (Disappear Here) leading non-stop into Banquet.

From Bloc Party at Olympia

At this point, the place was going mental so it was time to slow things down a bit with Where Is Home? and Ion Square. This “calmness” was suddenly blasted with Mercury.

From Bloc Party at Olympia

Up next was a duo of lovely songs with This Modern Love and The Prayer. I was going to say favorites, but aren’t they all. This Modern Love always sounds so epic even on CD/MP3 but more so live. I am pretty sure it brought a tear to my eye. The Prayer actually closed out the first set of Bloc Party’s show.

From Bloc Party at Olympia

After a few minutes, they came back on stage and started off with the dramatic and highly emotional, Sunday which had me all giddy inside as I am currently loving the song more at the moment. “I will love you in the morning, when you’re still hung over.”

The rest of the 2nd set was a trifecta of high energy anthems with Intimacy favorite Halo, Like Eating Glass and the ever popular crowd favorite Helicopter (fave Guitar Hero 2 song). This meant non-stop dancing and screaming along.

At the end of the 2nd set, the band disappeared again and most people thought this was it and started leaving. I knew it wasn’t as they did the same last time, one long set then a shorter second set and then the encore. Also, I remember Kele saying “this is our 2nd set.” Lastly, they have yet to play Ares, a song which they promoted on the Intertubes for fans to watch out and record video of and submit to then.

Sure enough, they came back up, Ares fired up and everyone started dancing to the sounds of sirens. I remember their one song encore last time, so expected this to be it. Thankfully, they had one more song left for the night. To a glorious array of lasers, they played Flux to end the night in such a high note.

From Bloc Party at Olympia

It was a spectacular evening seeing Bloc Party again. They pulled off quite a show at such a massive venue though I still prefer smaller venues. This actually continued the following night with quite a different setlist which included Talons, Signs, Blue Light, Uniform and Two More Years, a song I need to see live someday. This sort of makes me regret why I didn’t just go to both venues.

Looking back, the setlist on April 12 looks almost identical to their show last September.

Funeral For A Friend at ULU

Last Saturday, I saw Funeral For A Friend live for the 3rd time. They are the first band I saw when I moved back to London in 2007. I saw them again in Astoria during the last month of December 2007, a day before my birthday.

This time around, I saw them at University of London Union (ULU), a venue I have not been to before but thanks to the massive queue outside, was quite easy to spot even from a block away.

The venue was quite nice although a bit smaller than Astoria and was quite packed since the gig soldout. There was only one bar though which meant long queues.

Support bands were People In Planes and We Are The Ocean, bands which I haven’t heard of prior to the gig.

People In Planes started playing while I was still in the queue outside and only caught a few songs when I got inside and had a pint in my hand. They were pretty ok, nothing too special about them. They were kind enough to hand out cards as we were leaving the venue for downloading two of their singles.

We Are The Ocean was fun with a lead vocalist who was quite into screaming. The back up vocalist had quite a good voice which was more in line with big old school rock bands than screamo. Check out their song Nothing Has Happened Yet on their Myspace to hear what I mean.

From random

Both support bands played pretty long sets which is always good. We Are The Ocean finished at almost 9 in the evening.

This meant around 30 minutes for techs to get Funeral For A Friend up and ready. A few minutes after 9:30, Funeral For A Friend finally came up on stage and rocked the house.

They kicked off the show with All The Rage which really surprised me as I expected them to open with a song from their latest album, Memory and Humanity. Of course, I was more familiar with the old songs so I was all giddy about this.

From random

This turned out to be the theme of the night, more old songs than new ones. Since they had their album tour around November of last year, they used this gig as an opportunity to blast out their old songs and fan favorites which was a real delight for me.

I would have tried and mentioned each song as far as I can remember but I already cheated by googling for the setlist. It would not be fair to pretend. Apparently, there is a website dedicated to setlists.

• All The Rage
• She Drove Me To Daytime Television
• Rookie Of The Year
• Rules and Games
• The End of Nothing
• To Die Like Mouchette
• Juneau
• Constant Illuminations
• Red is the New Black
• History
• Ghosts
• Into Oblivion (Reunion)
• Roses for the Dead

Juneau and History were crowd favorites and brought back good memories.

From random

Of course, the night did not end with Roses for the Dead. As expected, there was an encore which was composed of Streetcar, Maybe I am? and Escape Artists Never Die. Looking back to my first FFAF gig, this is exactly the same encore minus Maybe I Am?.

All in all, it was an amazing set which highlights the best songs they have, songs they really enjoy playing even if they are more than half a decade old. This made the gig more special.

So what’s next? This April, I will be seeing Bloc Party and Taking Back Sunday for the second time as well as Thursday, Foals, Innerpartysystem and Underoath for the very first time. Thursday!

Lights Action at O2 Islington Academy

I first heard of Lights Action by accident when I went to watch Saosin back in June ‘07 at the now demolished Mean Fiddler (later known as Astoria 2). First impression of them was pretty good and looking back at the entry just shows how surprised I was back then.

They didn’t have an EP or album back then but I remember listening to their songs on Myspace quite a bit.

Forward to 2009. As I was stumbling across Last.fm looking for recommended events, I noticed one for Lights Action. Purchased tickets and researched about the band to check what they have been up to. Apparently, they already have an EP released, All Eyes To The Morning Sun, and a full studio album, Welcome To The New Cold World (which was released just 2 weeks ago).

As they weren’t available on the torrents, I downloaded both from Amazon which is a rarity in itself. Aside from Bloc Party’s Intimacy, these are the only albums I have purchased and downloaded.

Enough history and on to the gig.

The gig was last Friday, March 13 at O2 Islington Academy. This was formerly known as Carling Academy Islington until all the Carling venues changed to O2. Not real sure and a bit lazy a the moment to get into the specifics.

I’ve been to Carling Academy Islington in the past to watch The Used (with Mute Math) and Coheed and Cambria. It was a venue I fell in love with right away because of it’s adequate size and reasonable sound.

So when I arrived, I expected the place to be the same one I fell in love with. Apparently, a lot more than the name changed. The venue has been drastically scaled down in size. The entrance used to be at the ground floor with the box office and the cloakroom and a large venue on the 1st floor with more seats in a small mezzanine area.

Now the entrance is on the 1st floor with no cloak room (or I didn’t see one) with a small stage which was slightly bigger than Mayric’s and a much smaller floor area than before. At the least, there were a few places to sits and one long bar.

As it was smaller, I immediately felt awkward being the only person by himself with everyone else in a group, chatting up. It was time for a pint of Strongbow.

The gig started quite early with the first support band, Young Guns, on stage before 19:30. They sounded ok and quite lively, but didn’t really reel me in. I am pretty sure I’d give them a second try sometime.

Up next was SaidMike which was surprisingly good and I even enjoyed a few songs such as Perfect Mistakes and Antics. It was also nice of them to hand out CD samplers after the gig. Most probably another new band I’ll be seeing in the future.

Of course, this night was not really about them but about Lights Action. The band started before 21:00 which is unheard of in my book.

From random

They started out with Moscow, as I predicted since it was the kind of song which simply build things up. Most songs were obviously from their new album. The songs I can remember they played are Battle of Lovers, Signals To Radar, Passions Of The Lonely, Young Scarlett Young, Travellin’ Man, and The Bottom Of The Sea. They may have sung two more songs but I can’t remember which exactly.

From random

A slow version of Satellites from their EP was also played although I would have preferred the original version instead. Hearing Signals To Radar back to back with Passions Of The Lonely was quite lovely as they are my favourite tracks from the new album.

From random

Sadly, the gig ended before 22:00 which was really disappointing as I’ve never been to a gig in London which finished before 22:00. I was expecting to hear a few more songs hoping for something from the EP. There was some sort of club night after so they wanted us out early. Boo!

Overall, it was a pretty good albeit short gig of good music from bands which are just starting out. I’ve mostly watched the bigger and more popular ones so this is sort of getting my right foot into seeing smaller more indie acts in and around London. Camden Crawl anyone?

There is a whole other aspect to this evening which is worthy of a separate post.

Asobi Seksu at ICA

Last week would have been huge had I been able to see Black Kids on Wednesday at KOKO. Additionally, it would have been the first time I’ve been to back-to-back gigs at two separate venues. Sadly, due to unforeseen circumstances, I was not able to go.

At the least, I was able to see Asobi Seksu the following day.

Asobi Seksu would have been a band I’ve seen last year but for some reason I gave second thoughts as to buying tickets and let the event pass by. This became a decision I really regretted everytime a track from their two albums came up on my playlist.

Last week’s event was to be held at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) which is smack in the middle of London right along The Mall. It is a museum with exhibition halls, a few cinemas and a theatre for live music.

Like always, I was early but unlike other events, I did not have to queue outside the venue to get in which is a welcome surprise. After claiming my tickets, I roamed around the open exhibits and watched a few videos upstairs.

At exactly 7:30, the doors to the theatre opened and I leisurely walked in surrendering my ticket at the entrance. Yes. Surrendered and all I got was a stamp on the hand.

From Asobi Seksu at ICA

At other venues, they usually tore off a portion of the ticket and then let you in with no stamps. Then again, most venues did not allow readmission as everything you need, food, drinks, and toilets are within the concert hall as well.

With ICA, the bar and toilets were outside the theatre. Sadly, this means I do not have anything from Asobi Seksu to pin to my wall.

When I got in, there was still hardly anyone around so I found my own corner and sat down. A random guy did start a random conversation to burn the time while waiting for the support band. This guy was able to Asobi Seksu last year.

Grabbed a pint (they had Becks on tap!) and when I got back, the lights finally dimmed and the support band, Sennen, came up on stage.

Sennen is an English indie band with shoegaze roots. They sounded pretty good and are one of the best support bands I’ve seen. The played an interesting set which kept the crowd on our feet.

Once they were done, band techs started clearing things up on stage and finished around 9:00. At around 9:10, Asobi Seksu finally came on stage.

From Asobi Seksu at ICA

First of, Yuki is quite short but had high platform boots which gave her an extra boost on stage. I was quite close to the stage but close to the right side with the right subs blasting straight into my ear.

From Asobi Seksu at ICA

Since it has been a week since the event, I can hardly remember what the first song was. It was most likely a new one which would explain why. As such, I am grabbing the setlist from their Last.fm event page as posted by schmeep.

• Sing Tomorrow’s Praise
• Strawberries
• Me & Mary
• Meh no Mae
• In the Sky
• Thursday
• Gliss
• Transparence
• Familiar Light
• Blind Little Rain
• Pink Cloud Tracing Paper
• Red Sea (encore)
• New Years (encore)

At first glance, I would have hated this setlist as it contains 8 songs from the new album which came out a few days before this gig. However, the band played with such intensity that the new songs really made an impression and of course, they started sounding real familiar.

From Asobi Seksu at ICA

Of course, what really rocked my socks off were the old songs. Strawberries set the mood for the evening which they played after a new song for their opening. Thursday, which is one of my favourites, brought a smile and tear to my eye. Then there’s the encore, which had Red Sea and New Years which was quite epic especially with the part were Yuki went manic with the drums on stage.

I was hoping there would have been more old songs as I am more familiar with them. Also, a bit more singing from James Hanna would have been nice.

From Asobi Seksu at ICA

Still, it was a very enjoyable and fun gig at a venue which is not so crowded as other dedicated music halls.

As for band merch, I run out of the shirt I fancied because I waited until the end of the show to buy one so I settled for an acoustic recording of the band.

Normally, this is where my blog post on a gig night would end, but the walk back to the Piccadilly Station needs to be mentioned.

From Asobi Seksu at ICA

It has been ages since I’ve been in Central London and longer still since it was at night. The walk from ICA to Lower Regent Street to Piccadilly Station was quite a delight with all the lights making the old buildings glow. Walking past them made me feel great about being in London and how I haven’t appreciated living here much. I will now try to explore London as much as I can and not only go into Central London when there is a gig.

From Asobi Seksu at ICA