New Blog

I've had this blog for a while but I've moved recently onto pastures new for my BA Journalism course at Winchester University.

This link here ---> My Winchester Blogging
contains all the notes and random stuff I do for my course and it's probably more interesting than the rubbish on here.

Go read it to find out about Journalism law, philosophy, a day at the law courts and just life at University.

Until I need this blog again, this is goodbye.

I've been great.

Muse - Live At Wembley

Muse are currently one of the biggest bands in the UK and possibly the world. This isn’t an opinion, check the statistics, it’s a fact. Personally, I have loved Muse for a very long time but as a mark of the adulation shown to the 3 lads from Teignmouth, their 11th of September show sold out in a matter of minutes. So fast in fact that I could only get tickets to the show on the 10th that they added when the original show sold out. Seeing Muse at Wembley on the 10th only came with one downside. Lily Allen was the support on the 10th but my other favourite band Biffy Clyro were the support on Saturday. I’m still bitter but I’ll try not to let it show through.

We, (e.g. My usual gig person Matt, his dad trying to see what the fuss was about and who did, and his brother who’s Birthday it was. Happy Birthday was it?), arrived at the gig towards the end of White Rabbits set. Nothing personal, blame the train timetables. I heard enough though to suggest that were I there for the whole set, I’d have enjoyed it, but it was nothing particularly special.

I had already seen second support act The Big Pink support Muse at The O2 but that time the sound didn’t help their ‘wall of sound’ noise. No such problems in the cavernous surrounds of Wembley Stadium, a venue built better for concerts than Football it seems. There’s the suspicion that you’ve heard it before (Think The White Stripes with an over productive delay pedal) the likes of Brief History of Love and the evenings first sing-a-long Dominoes suggest that The Big Pink could one day be filling their own stadiums if they keep improving.

Onto Lily Allen next who quite rightly at a Rock and Roll gig, I wasn’t looking forward to. I’ve been proved wrong before though and the first thing that struck me after the initial scepticism was how good her band were. Whether they want to be there or not the actual musicianship shown by the band (in particular the drummer who even got my foot tapping) is actually impressive. I didn’t really get into the show however until the song ‘F**k You’. With lyrics like, “F**k you. F**k you very, very much. Cause your words don't translate, and it's getting quite late, so please don't stay in touch”, she couldn’t go too far wrong. And the appearance of Chav King Professor Green in a drum and bass ending to Uber hit ‘Smile’ actually gives the set another lift instead of being an annoying device to fit their collaboration, ‘Just Be Good To Green’ into the set. Finishing her set with ‘The Fear’ I have to say well done Lily Allen and Congratulations on being ‘with child’, in her own words.

Finally though, the moment that 60 to 70 thousand rabid Muse fans have been waiting for closes in. The music being pumped around the stadium is turned up a notch and the crowd sings along feverishly to ‘All My Life’ by The Foo Fighters, ‘Holiday’ by Green Day, and when U2’s ‘Vertigo’ begins to ring through the stadium the link becomes clear. All these bands have absolutely destroyed Wembley at one time or another. As we wonder which band might come next, (ACDC, Metallica, George Michael??), ‘Vertigo’ is unceremoniously cut short. The lights black out. The sound cuts. And the show begins.

Protesters come streaming onto the stage with flags and placards whilst an air raid siren rings out and if you’re not familiar with Muse you might think the night had taken a slightly sinister turn. Fortunately the placards and flags have the words ‘They Will Not Control Us’ emblazoned upon them and as someone who is familiar with Muse I can tell you that these are lyrics of the night’s opening song, ‘Uprising’. Moving swiftly on to ‘Supermassive Black Hole’ the light show is amazing. Having been to Muse shows in the past I already know they put on the biggest and brightest show of them all so let’s just leave the light show comments here. You will never see a light show quite as amazing as the one that night at Wembley. Muse know how to please their crowd musically as well as they pull out the crowd favourite ‘New Born’ within the first 3 songs. ‘That’ riff sounds as powerful as ever in the cavernous Wembley Stadium and as they rock out at the end of ‘New Born’ with the riff from Rage Against The Machine’s ‘Township Rebellion’ it’s proof that Muse can still Rock it when they need to.

Getting the next song out of the way early is a smooth move by Muse as ‘Neutron Star Collision (Love Is Forever)’ has attracted only one sort of fan. Twilight fans. Nothing wrong with that as long as they have the good sense to check out the rest of Muse’s back catalogue but the nagging worry of many tour hardened fans is that the fair-weather Twilight fans aren’t ‘real’ fans. A classic ‘I like the band more than you’ argument. ‘Butterflies and Hurricanes’ follows and if the Twilight fans don’t know the other songs, it’ll be songs like this that encourage them to look deeper into Muse’s past. The classical piano break is exhilarating as usual and it’s a thrill to see the band not just plucking songs from their last two, most commercially successful albums. ‘Guiding Light’ follows but the most interesting thing that happens next is that the ‘Interlude’ from the Absolution album that precedes ‘Hysteria’, actually precedes ‘Hysteria’. It would be a gimmick in the hands of another band but Muse manage to make the Interlude just as powerful as any song they play tonight. ‘Hysteria’ as usual is a huge song with a huge sing-a-long and the appreciation from the fans is apparent the moment that bass riff launches the song into life. It gets a bit funky next as Dom Howard and Chris Wolstenholme, the lesser known members in terms of fame but just as important get their own little slow jam ‘Nishe’, presumably whilst Matt Bellamy transfers himself to a piano to play the Queen influenced ‘United States of Eurasia’. He stays on the piano for the very French ‘I Belong To You (Mon Cœur S'ouvre à Ta Voix)’ which works surprisingly well live. The Piano based section is finished by classic cover ‘Feeling Good’. The bands cover of an old Nina Simone song never disappoints whether you hear it in a live surrounding or in its usual place of an advert for something dramatic looking.



‘MK Ultra’ is a great song from the ‘Resistance’ album and although it doesn’t make it in full, the drummer and bassist get another chance to shine as they run through a techno style jam with hints of the song it’s based on. The jam gives Bellamy an opportunity to strap on a custom made instrument that somehow plays synthesized bass and keyboards at the same time and begin the disco themed ‘Undisclosed Desires’. The song has become a staple of their set and it’s easy to see why as the band raise and descend on a spinning platform in the audience. Yes they really did do that but the spectacle never detracts from the music and it’s that which really shines in amongst the sparkly special effects, (more of which later). A small pause before the unmistakable jangly riff of The Animals ‘House of the Rising Sun’ rings out across the vast audience. It’s the moment that the audience is in its fullest voice as the band lead a supermassive sing-a-long before turning smoothly into ‘Time is Running Out’. The huge chorus sounds even bigger in the surroundings. Finishing the song with the riff from Hendrix’s ‘Power of Soul’, the band run straight into ‘Unnatural Selection’; the most riff heavy of their most recent album and the perfect end to the main section of the gig.

Some people who clearly don’t know Muse, (or clearly don’t want to miss the train), leave after this song but if they really didn’t know that Muse weren’t finished, they miss a treat. The rarely played live ‘Soldier’s Poem’ from the Black Holes and Revelations album is a real lighters in the air moment, even if (as Drummer Dom points out) “you’ll have to use your phones and cameras”. Next comes the first part of the symphony from the Resistance album and whilst the music is atmospheric and impressive enough, the appearance of a humongous UFO makes the performance even more mind-blowing. When an acrobat falls from the UFO and starts to perform whilst hanging from it, the audiences’ ‘flabber-’ is well and truly ‘-gasted’. The ridiculously heavy ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ follows and the chorus is well and truly screamed out by a rabid audience, the band leave the stage again after a few more huge riff-ola jams and at this point, even I’m starting to think they might not return. A slightly weird combination of B-side ‘Forced In’ from the Hullabaloo album and The Teddy Bears picnic whilst images flash across the screen and stage suggest the night isn’t over and whilst the effect is mildly disturbing it at least hints that Muse aren’t quite done with their audience yet.

The second encore begins with Matt Bellamy standing alone on their rotating and lifting stage. Decked out in a lighted up suit and neon blue glasses the guitarist leads the audience through ‘Take a Bow’ and then into the ever popular and ever dominating ‘Plug In Baby’. The riff from that song has inspired people to play guitar and sends a chill down your spine as it rings out around the whole stadium, above the noise of a baying crowd. As is to be expected, the ‘Man with a Harmonica’ intro signals the imminent arrival of what might not be Muse’s best song but most definitely is the best to close a show and they know it. All three times I have seen the band they finished with ‘Knights Of Cydonia’ and as ever, from the western themed intro to the blistering riff at the finish the song is played with power and precision until the show is no more and the band leave the stage. Job done, mission accomplished.

(Pictures not finished... this is a work in progress)

Update to my update

Well the Scott Pilgrim review has been canned until a later date because something else has come up.

Mainly, another Muse gig. And this one will have pictures!!! :O

I was going to write the Muse blog all today but got completely distracted by actually playing the Muse songs that inspired me so much.

Muse blog on the way then and don't lose complete hope that the Scott Pilgrim blog might turn up eventually.

:)

Well I'm Back

I haven't blogged in a hell of a long time and that's your loss but after what seems like forever, I'm now back and will try to blog more often, (promise).

I saw an amazing movie the other day... it was Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World and I've decided that it was so good that it would inspire me to do my first movie review.

I'm working on it now but since I only decided this after I saw the movie, I made need to see it again to know what to review.

P.S. No one's reading this anyway...

Biffy Clyro > Everything else.

Biffy Clyro are easily one of my favourite bands and after seeing them play live, they will always have a special meaning to me. The energy they put into the show was so high and the audience response so electric that it made for one of the best gigs I have ever been to. Before all of that, we had the support bands Rolo Tomassi and The Twilight Sad and for my money Rolo Tomassi were the most original whether you liked their sound or not. This isn’t to say that The Twilight Sad were bad, they weren’t... I quite enjoyed them. What it is saying is that they were nothing particularly new, coming off sounding like The Big Pink with slightly out of tune guitars, (whilst a Scottish Brian Molko of Placebo sings, or at least that’s how it sounded). The singer, whilst good also had a very odd habit of singing occasionally without the mic, something that made even his own bassist give him funny looks. Rolo Tomassi on the other hand were at best completely mental and at worst completely mental, some muddy sound meant that the keyboards were difficult to hear at the start of their set but the most distinctive thing about the band is Eva Spence’s scream. The diminutive front woman has a voice that can switch from melody to blood curdling screaming in a nanosecond and it’s impressive whether you appreciate the effort or not. I won’t be the only one checking out their new album Cosmology, due for release on the 24th of May.

Then came the longest wait of my life, (or at least it seemed that way), as the crew prepared the stage for Biffy Clyro. Having arrived at the venue at 18:30 it was 21:45 before Biffy actually took the stage and even with the quality support bands, it was an agonizing wait. Eventually though, they arrived. With no introduction at all they launched straight into the explosive That Golden Rule sending the mosh pit down below into overdrive. The chorus was sung by band and crowd alike with such emotion that you could tell the night would be a good one. Almost without pause the band launched into Living Is A Problem Because Everything Dies and from the stabbing intro to the absolutely screamed lines of “bathed in white light, with halo’s in your eyes” the energy never drops. A total surprise to me and my friends next but for totally different reasons (something that will re-occur later in the gig), I hadn’t expected any songs from Biffy’s first three albums as their 2007 breakthrough Puzzle gained them a lot more mainstream fans. Imagine my surprise then when Glitter and Trauma from their experimental Infinity Land album suddenly began. My friends with me were surprised by it because, (for at least one of them), they had never actually heard the song before.

Next was Stephen Northey’s favourite from the new album, Bubbles. As amazing as it is on record, nothing and I mean nothing can possibly compare to how huge it sounded live. Next came 9/15ths which, on the album, is bolstered by a choir but instead of a choir, Biffy had the crowd and I think we did a fine job pulling off an amazing version of a song I never imagined they’d play live. Shock Shock was next making an impact purely because it meant we all got to shout the F-word at the top of our voices in the context of a song, “Well you talk and you talk, like you’re trying to shock me. I don’t even know, what the f**k we’re still arguing about”. Who’s Got A Match? followed with it’s “I’m A Fire and I’ll burn, burn, burn tonight” refrain causing a near riot. Even more surprisingly than Glitter and Trauma, the song that follows is from their 2001 debut Blackened Sky, as a fan of absolutely all Biffy’s songs, hearing the opening to Justboy in a show promoting their new album was like Christmas come early. A high five from Matt Deleay was all that needed to be said.


God and Satan is the first respite and almost the first time the band talks to their enraptured audience. “Hello London, It’s been a long time. Are you well?” Mountains follows causing an inevitably huge sing-a-long which everyone knows the words to, Biffy fans old and new. Biffy throw their old fans a bone next by playing Bodies In Flight from second album The Vertigo Of Bliss and although I felt like I was the only one who knew the song in my section of crowd, it didn’t make it any less amazing to see one of my favourite Biffy songs performed live. The funky Born On A Horse doesn’t seem out of place although it seems to be influenced by Simon Neil side project Marmaduke Duke, this is no bad thing either. Two songs from Puzzle come next with Saturday Superhouse blowing away the growing Biffy army of fans whilst A Whole Child Ago's jangly riff sounds even better live than on record. A brief pause to say hello to their guitar backup, (called Mike apparently) before launching into one of their most un-radio friendly songs, There’s No Such Thing As A Jaggy Snake with its angular riffage and screaming first verse. A song that reaches about five minutes and yet goes through so many twists and turns it’s almost difficult to remember how the song started.


A long pause precedes Many Of Horror but when it finally arrives courtesy of that slide guitar effect with that vocal, the whole crowd is moving and singing, totally together under one band. Whorses appears to finish the gig with its soaring chorus and unifying lyrics it brings the evening to a perfect end. Or does it? Biffy Clyro obviously know how to make the tension build and no-one, absolutely no-one leaves their seat, the capacity crowd of almost 8,000 (seated and standing, cheers Wikipedia) collectively pray that there will be an encore. They collectively breathe a sigh of relief when it becomes apparent that an encore is coming, and duly go mental again. Cloud Of Stink opens the encore, one of the most ‘Old Biffy’ songs on Only Revolutions. Machines follows with Simon Neil leading the crowd with just his voice and an acoustic guitar in a performance that was actually beautiful, no other word for it. After getting misty eyed over the emotion of Machines the feeling continued as classic Biffy track Convex Concave from their first album began, the nostalgia hit (for me at least) was huge. What would they play last though, some reckoned Semi-Mental from Puzzle, I heard a different shout for 57 also from their debut but I put my money on The Captain and struck lucky. It was even more amazing live and as its final “Let’s love death away” lyric seemed to sum up the atmosphere in the venue as a large group of devoted fans came together all for one amazing band.


MON THE BIFF

Updates - Basically I haven't done much.

Coming up soon is the Biffy Clyro gig which will hopefully be amazing and of course, easily reviewable. That'll be the next thing published up here but this is also an update on some other things I'm working on.

Firstly, a blog about Time. Yes, it seems a bit broad but give it a chance. It goes into a bit of detail about how time can get wasted and also, just because I can, it mentions relativity briefly. How cultured am I?

I'm also thinking about possibly doing a blog on a Television show in a similar style to Charlie Brooker's Screen Burn columns. This is purely an exercise in developing my own style but I'll put it up here anyway.

It has also occured to me that since no one reads my blogs I could put whatever I want up here. We'll see how the other ideas pan out before I explore that possibility.

Thanks for reading.

P.S. Reason for the inactivity recently is the massive amount of College work I currently have. Much needed though as it's what I need to get me to Uni.

Update on work

Hello my two, maybe three, (on a good day), readers. I haven't got anything coming up at the moment blog-wise with a hell of a lot of things going on elsewhere. Want some examples? Well, I'm learning to drive, doing my A-Levels, attempting to get into University for a Journalism course. So basically I wont have a chance for a while.

The next thing I can think of will be the Biffy Clyro gig on the 6th of May, I'll be doing a review of that and then hopefully there will be some more things in the pipeline with albums and maybe moving into current affairs and sports report type... stuff.

Hope all (three) of you are well =]

Biffy Clyro - Only Revolutions

Horns… bloody horns. Although in most cases I wouldn’t go near them unless they were playing ska music but the opening of Biffy Clyro’s new album, Only Revolutions is full of it when track one, The Captain springs into life. Before that we get the slightly confusing sound of horses’ hooves, (more on this later), but once the album has properly begun it’s hard to see exactly what I had against the horns. The sound may be a little cluttered at times but it’s the Biffy that the fans have come to know and love which is reassuring after their mainstream breakthrough album Puzzle. Recent single That Golden Rule is next which builds on the bands growing promise for more and more stadium sized chorus’ and by the time the song has rung out the strings enhanced final riff it’s pretty obvious you’ve made a good purchase. Coming to third song Bubbles from a position of ignorance I was unsure what to make of it at first but in the great Biffy tradition of amazing but confusing songs it’s almost impossible to work out how the band got from the jangly offbeat guitar line at the start to a Josh Homme guest appearance solo.

Slowing it down a pace is the song God and Satan, a song in the works for a long time as I heard of it first sometime after the last album was released but it’s worth the wait and as the song builds from it’s acoustic ballad beginnings to a finish the band and in particular Simon Neil’s metaphor laden lyrics make you feel like you really belong on their musical journey. Born on a Horse, (Simon Neil is actually obsessed with horses, check the lyrics of the whole album), follows and it feels like it was pinched from the bands funky side project Marmaduke Duke, the opening bass line has a distinctly disco feel as does most of the song until it opens up and goes all huge sounding on us. Mountains was already a massive hit before the album was even in its early stages and in the context of the whole album it sounds even bigger. With a chorus built for festivals and stadiums across the world it’s the song that is slowly turning a trio of cult heroes into world famous superstars.

A song in the great Biffy custom of being abrasive yet still tender, (previous examples include All the Way Down: Prologue Chapter 1 from the album The Vertigo of Bliss) is Shock Shock, which is said to be about Simon Neil’s recent marriage and how he is learning to deal with conflicting points of view. Next is most recent single Many of Horror, it shows Biffy’s more mature side as the restrained strings, (restrained!!! Remember Puzzle’s jarring opening strings on Living is a Problem Because Everything Dies? I sure do and I still get nightmares) and by the time the final chorus has been wrung from the heart of the band and all that’s left is the cello and violin it could make even the most hardened rocker feel a little emotional. With a title taken from the book the album title is taken from, Booooom, Blast & Ruin comes off sounding a little bit like a more accomplished LostProphets, especially in the intro riff, and ends just as abruptly as it sprang into life a little over three minutes before.

Cloud of Stink… not an inspiring song name but with the bands history of obscure titles, (Now the Action is On Fire, There’s No Such Thing as a Jaggy Snake, I could go on) it’s worth giving it a good listen. If you’re not a fan of the singing in the verses at least you can appreciate such genius lyrics as “look up to the sky, is it still good to feel alive, well I, can dance, on top of a hurricane”. Very nice. A lot of the songs are based on the revolutions relationships put you in and penultimate song Know Your Quarry is no different but that doesn’t make it any less of a song. The production by GGGarth Richardson on this record blows me away every time as he has managed to retain Biffy’s sound whilst also polishing the edges a little. The strings once again come to the fore and the lyrics, although sometimes obscure come together to create a Biffy take on a love ballad. Whorses is the final song on this, Biffy Clyro’s most accessible album to date, (Puzzle wasn’t all accessible, Get F**ked Stud gives enough away in it’s name to show its accessibility) and it is very much a final song. Everything about it screams final song, just before the encore if you catch my drift, and the chorus is made for a mass sing-a-long, “We want to affect a change, with voice and electrical noises”. So as those electrical noises scratch out their last I can’t be the only one who wants more from the Ayrshire trio.

P.S.
Stay with this blog for a review of their forthcoming gig at the Hammersmith Apollo.

Them Crooked Vultures. Hammersmith Apollo. Awesome

After what can only be described as 70’s cop show driving to get us to the station and a hilarity filled train journey which will make sense only to those present, we arrived at Hammersmith tube station. We trekked up the stairs from the platform before me and a man who seems to be my gig buddy, (less gay than it sounds), Matt had to stop, having lost Matt’s dad, and his dad’s mate. Nothing wrong about that and we found them alright in the end but this gets a mention because we spotted Rick bloody Wakeman of Yes fame striding out of the tube station with us. Surreal moments for the win.

After talking to a ‘nice' American lady about the nights entertainment, (less pervy than it sounds), we got in the queue for none other than Them Crooked Vultures. Only the superb supergroup made up of Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters, and the legend that is John Paul Jones, the bassist in the most influential band of all time, Led Zeppelin.

First though, Josh’s Queens buddy Troy van Leeuwen presents us his new side project, Sweethead. Their grungy noise has more in common with his day job in Queens than anything else and the group’s female singer seems a bit like a gimmick as opposed to an integral part of their sound. Almost as if they auditioned her by saying… “So. Do you sound a little bit like Brody Dalle?” They depart with as much applause as is customary for a band that no one in the venue is bothered about, this isn’t because they’re particularly bad but when you know that Messrs Grohl, Homme, and Jones are waiting in the wings it’s difficult to give any other music much look in.

Without any fanfare at all except the frantic screams of a couple thousand die hard fans, Them Crooked Vultures take the stage. Grohl first. Jones second. Homme last. Unless of course you count touring guitarist and ex Queens bassist Alain Johannes who contributes mainly by making Josh look good, although he doesn’t need much help, but also by playing some of the other guitar parts since the songs are made up of multiple recorded tracks. They open the gig with album opener and personal favourite No One Loves Me and Neither Do I and by the time the songs huge climactic riff has rung out a final time the jaws of everyone in the audience has dropped, and they stay there for the rest of the evening.

Without too much chat, Josh Homme sweeps his band, (and it really does seem to be his band), into Dead End Friends and Scumbag Blues which sounds a lot like 60’s psychadelia band, Cream. A brief pause before one of their best songs Elephants explodes into its blues-funk-stoner-rock life, (although this can sum up most of the bands output). Next up was a track, surprisingly left off the album but when JPJ picks up his mandolin, worried looks spread out across the audience. We needn’t have worried though as the song is easily listenable, not good enough to get on the album apparently but a nice break from the deliberate ear pummeling that preceded it and will follow. New Fang is the song that follows it giving Dave Grohl the opportunity to pound the crap out of the drums and also an opportunity for some quality slide guitar, yeah slide guitar dammit. Gunman follows and manages to inspire a huge sing-a-long.

To give the guys a break Alain Johannes breaks into some blues before the rest of the band return for a fairly relaxing meander through the musical ideas of Bandoliers before going straight in to inevitable single, Mind Eraser, No Chaser. The chorus alone with Dave Grohl enhancement is enough for the ticket price. Some brief Josh Homme chat is extremely funny as he informs the crowd that Mr. Grohl has told him to lay off the booze which gains a few pantomime boo’s all of its own, “Yeah, who’s your hero now London?” Homme jokes before guiding the band into a classy version of a pretty un-classy song when you check the lyrics, Caligulove, memorable really for JPJ’s funky dancing at the piano. Speaking of funky dancing… Josh Homme get’s his own turn as he puts down the guitar for once to let JPJ pick up a keytar, (a motha’ucking keytar) for the properly weird but still properly awesome Interlude with Ludes. As brilliant as that is it doesn’t prepare you for the slightly disconcerting Spinning in the Daffodils whose outro takes it’s lyrics from an obscure Mark Lanegan, (another QOTSA collaborator and Screaming Trees frontman), song adding another level of gravitas.

By this point… and with so much awesome being thrown in our general direction, the crowd seems to have forgotten how many songs they can possibly have left to play. Some hoping there’s lots more with their eyes on some QOTSA, Foo Fighters or maybe even Led Zeppelin covers but others have their eyes on the last train from Hammersmith tube station and no matter how much these musicians are loved and revered… some people have started to leave. They miss out though as the penultimate song is Reptiles which although it's not one of my favourites on the record was a perfect way to bring the show back up to its peak energy. As with probably all the shows on this tour, the band ends with Warsaw (or the first breath you take before you give up) and instead of the already long seven minute version of the song… it gets extended to about 16 minutes. But damn it was good. God damn the whole gig was amazing. And as they leave without an encore and only a short goodbye, not one person feels shortchanged and if the frenzy at the merch table was anything to go by, they’ll be back here soon.