Recent gigs ramble

Hello lovely people!

I've just come to the end of the assessment period of my second term of the MA, which is a huuuuge relief. We only had one exam, but there was also an investigative and a multimedia portfolio to hand in this week, so I'm glad it's all over and done with.

That said, I still have my final project to do, but the pressure is off (at least until the panic of getting everything handed in in September happens).

Ramble!

Anyway, I went to a couple of gigs recently to break the monotony of revision and coursework. First was Hit the Deck fest - I totally managed to fail here, I bought the ticket, realised it was the same day as a hen do, panicked, went "Ah **** it, it's Brand New" and decided I'd skip most of the festival and just see Saves the Day and Brand New in the evening to maximise my time at the hen party. I've seen both before but...it's Brand New! In my defence, I tried to get tickets to the London show but that sold out so fast (do I need to say it again? probably not, but, BRAND NEW).

Unlike many critics, I did enjoy the two newer Saves the Day albums, even though they're just not as good (in my mind) as Sound the Alarm, which is the record that got me into the band. They do lack that vibrancy that the older stuff has, so it's great to see the band play newer tracks live - I feel like if they'd recorded them with that much passion, people probably wouldn't have whined so much about the albums. Speaking of whining, I don't know what it is, but Chris Conley's voice gets higher and higher every year, I swear. So, Saves the Day were ok, but unfortunately not as fun as when I saw them a couple of years ago. 3/5, if you want me to give them a score.

Then Brand New came on and played a song I honestly didn't recognise, but setlist.fm tells me it's a NIN cover. Fair enough. I would have preferred something like Sowing Season to kick off the set, but that's not really much of a complaint. They played a pretty good mix of songs from all four albums and it was basically just as good as the last time I saw them (which was bloody fantastic) but better in that I stood halfway up the stairs in the O2 Academy so I could actually see things.  It does boggle my mind a bit that their last record came out in 2009, but nobody seems to care too much about the band bringing out new material because their back catalogue is just that good. My rating: Brand New out of Brand New. (Make of that what you will.)

Ahem. Enough of the fangirling and on to the next gig!

This was pretty special - Funeral for a Friend doing a tour in which they play the Hours album in full. They were supported by some shouty fun men, More than Life (3/5), who I probably would have enjoyed way more if my ears hadn't gone all old lady on me and begged to be let outside into the quiet. Then Boysetsfire (4.5/5) played - I actually only know one of their songs but my goodness, this is a band that knows how to rock a stage. I don't think I've ever enjoyed a band I didn't really know live this much, so stacks of hats off to Boysetsfire!

Now, Hours is a pretty special album for me. It came out in 2005, back when my music collection was tiny, so I listened to it a lot while I was working on my Art & Design GCSE and dealing with a lot of bad (like, actually bad, not just teen angst bad). As singer Matt Davies-Kreye said, tracks from Hours are fairly neglected in FFAF setlists, so them playing it in full was just lovely. They finished up the set with a few classics and a new song that wouldn't have sounded out of place of Hours, in my opinion. I'm going to go with a solid 5/5 here. I'm biased. This is just a ramble, I am allowed to be biased.

Right, I've probably got my gig quota sorted for the year now, so I think next on the agenda is some comedy...(telepathic note to Russell Howard, please play in Bristol soon, thanks).

Publicity Stunt

It's been a while since my last photo post, mostly because I haven't uploaded anything to Flickr for some time. So here, have a massive update!

Some friends of mine are in a ska band, Publicity Stunt. They played their first couple of shows at The Hill recently and I was there taking photos.













I took more on both nights. Publicity Stunt will be playing more gigs in the near future, so I'll keep you updated on that.

Coming up in the next week or so, photos from Ragfest!

Albums of 2010

Album of the year review is up on Intuition! (Vampire Weekend's Contra)

I did intend to do a proper write up of 2010, but I think I should probably just leave you with my top 10 artists of last year, as told by last.fm:

1 Brand New - Didn't release anything new last year...stunning band though.

2 Funeral for a Friend - The Young and Defenceless EP was out in September. Their new album should be released this side of 2011, go and pledge for it!

3 Lostprophets - Fourth album The Betrayed was released in 2010 and wasn't bad at all. My personal Lostprophets highlight of the year had to be seeing them live - something I had been waiting for since first hearing Shinobi vs Dragon Ninja back in 2002.

4 Reuben - They broke up ages ago, but I purchased the rarities collection, We Should Have Gone To University, since Banquet Records were out of Glassjaw albums.

5 Saves the Day - No new material released in 2010, but the new album is set for a 2011 release. Very much looking forward to this.

6 Alexisonfire - The Dog's Blood EP was a cracking return to the scene for Alexisonfire, pushing the boundaries of their previous material.

7 Britney Spears - Another Britney Greatest Hits compilation was produced, with a brand new track, 3, released as a single. That was a strange one, not quite up to the standard of Circus. The reason for her appearing high on my list is probably nothing to do with 3, and more to do with repeated listening of this playlist.

8 Senses Fail - Their new album was out towards the end of 2010 and I still haven't heard it. Nevertheless, I had their old material on a lot last year.

9 Thrice - Amazing band, nothing new released in 2010 but I had Deadbolt on repeat. That little piano outro just offsets the chaos wonderfully.

10 Gallows - Nobody knows if there will be any new Gallows material in the near future, but we can keep our fingers crossed. I managed to miss out on seeing this lot at The Peel once again, as poor Steph was unwell and the show had to be postponed...and of course I was back in Bristol by that time!

Clearly my 2010 was a little stuck in the past...

Gallows cover

I arranged Abandon Ship by Gallows for piano a while ago, finally made a decent recording of it. Check it out.

New (rather whiny) Dashboard Confessional cover...

I learned this song at the start of uni, it's pretty fun to sing but I'm suffering from an unknown illness (which is refusing to be cured by antibiotics) so the vocals are kinda whiny. Oh well. Have a listen here.