A Carly Review of Elbow

Elbow with support from Mew, Britxon Academy, Friday November 25th 2005

Elbow are band I had heard of in New Zealand (many thanks to Nicola!!) but with no radio play anywhere all I had to go on was a couple of reviews in the NZ Herald and a manky bit of paper glued to the counter of ECM..... so to cut a long story short I hadn't actually heard any of their music until arriving in the UK. But with much more airplay over here, the release of their third album- Leaders of the Free World- (with one of the standout singles I have heard thus far this year, Forget Myself) and sneakily being able to rip off all of their three albums Asleep in Black (nominated for the Mercury Prize), Cast of Thousands and the recent Leaders of the Free World courtesy of housemate Richard and his friend from work Mick I decided I rather liked these fellas.

And so it was that found myself on the tube on a Friday night after work heading to the famous Brixton Academy in freezing 2 degree conditions to check them out-( all on a sort of spur-of-the moment as Rich and I had only decided to go on the Wednesday).

The Brixton Academy itself is a very very cool venue- and quite hard to explain really- it reminds me of the St James in Auckland but perhaps on a more lavish scale perhaps? The only down-side was the completely useless bar staff who made me miss the the opening track because they were so slow (I ended up pouring half the drinks).

And so the gig began with (shock! awe!) a decent opening band called Mew who were absolutely brilliant in comparison to the woeful Son of Dave (Supergrass) and some PJ Harvey wannabe (Turin Brakes). And as a bonus some dude was giving out free demo tracks so that was good- free stuff yay!!

Elbow finally arrived and got stuck into the very excellent first track off their latest album Station Approach which I had the unfortunate pleasure of missing (refer to useless bar staff paragraph) but it pretty much set the scene for what would end up being one of the best live gigs I have seen in a very very long time............

I can't single out one factor as to why it was so good- there was lead singer Guy Garveys stunning voice, and excellent rapour with the audience- everything about him was so engaging which made the concert feel somewhat intimate eventhough id say there were at least 4 thousand people attending. Not to mention the fact he is a comic genious which I will elborate on shortly.... whether it was the venue or the 110% effort the band put into performing I don't know I just can't quite explain it- but I pretty much left thinking that perhaps I have just seen once of the best live bands in Britain at present (not that I have seen that many.....) oh well..

So onto Guy Garvey, the lead singer- what a man! Firstly his stage presence his somehow enhanced by the presence of a walking stick in his hand- due to being drunk at their Dublin gig and falling down the stairs (apparently he sat on a chair for the whole gig.) He defintatly worked it anyway- singing to it during Puncture Repair (the opening line is 'I leaned on you today'...) and pointing to the audience during Forgt Myself. This guy is seriously a comic genius and I hadn't seen a lead singer engage and talk to the audience like Garvey in a long long time. He told a funny joke (taking the piss out of a sign he saw in an outdoor clothing shop saying 'this is the winter of your discount tent...), he made rabbit ears behind his head when his head created a shiloutte on the wall, he made everyone sing happy birthday to his brother in the crowd. And he was clearly quite drunk.... rock 'n' roll baby!!!

Stand out tracks of the night included Grace under Pressure, Mexican Stand Off, Leaders of the Free World and the closing track Forget Myself- most off the latest album which I had listened to the most thankfully! Everyone in the seated levels were up on their feet at the end and the audience voices rang out with the words of the chorus for Forget Myself..

No I know I wont forget you.................................

So anyway Elbow are Carly's band of the moment and now I just have a big thirst to see more live bands- jolly good because Franz Ferdinand is this Friday and I'm seriously contemplating going to see the Doves as well.....

Brilliant!

Human Reproduction

Some classic lines have come out of doing human reproduction with the year 10's (aged 14-15) at school:

Un-named student #1: Miss is it true that you have to drink a magic potion to stop from becoming pregnant????

Un-named student #2: I wish we were just flat (in reference to male reproductive organs) hehehehe

Mainly its just a case of- man this is sick!

Very amusing anyway- I guess you have to be there...........................................

Eating my way through the weekend

I must gratefully thank my lovely grandparents and aunty and husband for feeding me rather well this weekend......mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm lots of lovely food and far cry fromt he stir frys and beans on toast I regulary eat!!!

Friday Night
I had lamb chops (first time I had lamb in AGES......................) with spuds and green beans and veges and brussel sprouts

I now realise I like brussel sprouts (parents take note hehehehe)

Saturday Lunch time

Boiled gammon with pease pudding and potatoes in a cheesy sauce mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Saturday Dinner time

I had roast a sussex meal cooked by my auntie and husband which included roast pheasant and some delicious pearl barley dish and roast veges and this yummy desert that had suet pastry and lemons which all seeped into the pudding (called a sussex pond pudding). A big ups for Phil for cooking and Aunty Deb for inviting me around.

Sunday lunch time

Mmmmmm roast chicken and all the trimmings- haven't had that in a while yay thanks to nan and grandad for cooking that for me!

Sunday Dinner time

Beans on toast- what more can I say?!!!!

I think I'm should rename my blog 'The life and food of Carly!"

Oh well at least I enjoy and appreciate my food....

A funny old email

This was from when I was trying to organise a pub crawl on the North Shore of Auckland with some friends- I was clearly bored at work that day!!!


Greeting noble ladies

I thus propose that we emabark on night of drunkardness and debauchery to
the
fair shores of the north, seeking fine drinking establishments and that
ladies
dare speak of, the night before st valentine strides upon us.
We shall go froth to the house of one 'o us and drink ye old goddies such
as a
tankard o cider and embark on our crusade an hour or two after dusk.
Only the noblest will succeed, fear is not our enemy, I will noblably offer
my
mere cart to transport the willing,

We shall go forth!


--
From Carlypoos- ye old procrastinator

Yay for the Beige Brigade

Those chaps at the Beige Brigade HQ posted a comment on my blog yay for them

Heres there link- I thoroughly recommend it! Apparently my photo might be on it at some stage......

Heres the beige brigade website!

Yay for cricket- what a shame we got our arses kicked by SA......

Cardiff!!

Here are some pics from Cardiff from the All Blacks game- I'm so glad we went with a good tour provider who gave us tickets because I heard that there were about 600 fans who missed out- what a fantastic game though- yay today is the Ireland game so im going to head to the pub soon to catch that game.... woohoo!!

A Carly Review of Supergrass

Supergrass- Hammersmith Apollo, Thursday 13th October with support from 'Son of Dave'

It has been well over 4 years since I last saw Supergrass at the good old Powerstation in Auckland for University Orientation, (and has been voted by myself as the best concert EVER) and with 3 albums the band have put out since I was dying to know whether there would be an air of 'nostalgia,' or just a plug for their new album Road to Rouen- which is a very good album, I might add!

It was more of a case of the latter, with the brooding track of their new album 'Tales of Endurance parts 4,5 and 6' opening the gig against all my predictions. Gaz looked stunning in his hat and I was relieved to see that he was still sporting some great facial fuzz! Danny looked forever enthusiastic on the drums, although I though Mick was looking a bit old, but his bass playing is just fantastic.

The concert plodded along and included some great tracks off their 4th effort life on other plants, including Breacon Beacons, Rush Hour soul (one of my favs) and played heaps off their new album including the standout tracsk Road to Rouen and Sad girl. They also played both singles off their best-of album which was quite nice too. 'Caught by the Fuzz' was dedicated to the late BBC radio (??) personality John Peel who some people may have heard of- can't say I really know him but I gather he was a very influencial person in the music industry. Standout tracks of the night included 'sun hits the sky', 'moving', 'sitting up straight' from the first album which absolutely rocked (melanie will understand), and although they played a lot of new material I was stoked that the band picked 'Strange ones' as the departing song from their first album 'I should coco'

The only disappointment of the night was the english mosh- my god are they pathetic- what does it take to get these people going?? And they didn't play mansize rooster or alright- two classic supergrass anthems.

All that said, I think they were worth every pound plus the extra £ I paid to a ticket tout to exchange my seated ticket to a standing one which had all sold out- maybe im just a hardcore fan : )

Unfortunately this time they didn't make it into my top five concerts- but I have been to so many I can't decide which is best

My top five best concerts ever:
#1 Supergrass, Powerstation, 2001
#2 Coldplay, Auckland Showgrounds 2003
#3 Gomez, 1st concert 2002 ish???
#4 BDO 2004 (the stokes and kings of leon and muse were all brilliant)
#5 R.E.M Hyde park 2005 (because it was in london, of course)

I generally haven't been to a bad concert though!