Rammstein

Easily the best concert that I've ever attended and I saw Rammstein in this same venue when they played in 2005.

You would think that there would be more people leaving Manchester during rush hour, but for some reason the roads that are usually are quite clear were grid-locked. Luckily I was still in plenty of time to get to the M.E.N. Arena and have a wander around before heading inside.

Quite why the venue security insist on everyone sitting down I don’t know but I guess it’s a chance to rest your legs in preparation for the next 3 hours. Strange that we all stood up at the same time. There didn’t seem to be a signal we just did it. I was stood about mid-way between the stage and the mixing desk, dead centre.

The stage was already set for Combichrist so there wasn’t the usual roadies running around checking microphones with the compulsory 1-2 1-2. They have to do that as part of their union regulations. You could tell from their setup that they’re a good match as support for Rammstein. Two drummers either side of a keyboard player with a singer prowling the front of the stage. I hadn’t heard any of their stuff previously and may checkout a track or two of theirs on iTunes. As always with support bands there is always one or two people in the crowd who are total fans. Bouncing up and down and shouting along whilst the rest of us just nodded gently.

When Combichrist had said their goodbyes a woman, who was obviously the worse for drink, moved into the spot in front of me. She was already shouting ‘Rammstein’ in that delightful cracked wail that only the completely inebriated can manage. She kept swaying around and putting her hands in the air making these strange gestures like an Indian belly dancer. At least it provided a diversion during the set change.

Because I'd stopped reading Kerrang! magazine a couple of years ago I didn’t know what was in store this evening. I'd bought the new album, Liebe Ist Fur Alle Da, and to be honest I wasn’t that taken with it. I'd even bought the ticket just thinking that I wouldn’t want to miss Rammstein considering that they may only tour the U.K. once every 5 years.

I have certainly never seen a rock concert like it. It was simply amazing. I think not knowing what was going to happen made the whole experience much more enjoyable. So I won’t even try to describe the whole show. But the lights and the stage would usually be enough for most bands but the flames were simply astonishing. Fire shooting up from the stage and down from the lights. How they manage to remember where they have to be at a given moment is remarkable. One step too far and any of them could be toast, literally. Parts of it were just completely mad :– the dolls, the bath, the petrol pump, Till singing at a table next to a floor lamp, Flake ‘walking’ for most of the show, the foam ‘cannon’, the wings, which other band would have the keyboard player ‘sail’ over the crowd in a dingy.

It was just the most amazing spectacle that I've ever seen. I can’t wait to get the live DVD, or Blu-Ray, when it comes out to re-live it all over again.

Related Links
A Gallery of Photos by lodge28 (Warning – Show Spoilers)

Thank god I set out 2 hours early. All I had to do en-route is fill up with petrol, even though the little pointer wasn’t quite into the last sector on the dial. Traffic to the M60 was fine but getting near the Trafford Centre every lane ground to a halt. 40 mile an hour speed limits and cars just crawling along. And this was just an hour before showtime. I did contemplate getting off the motorway but that wouldn’t have been the wisest of moves as I don’t really know the area all that well. There didn’t seem to be any road works, I just saw a few cars on the hard-shoulder with a police car and that was about it.

Unlike The Academy shows that I've been to at least The Lowry has reserved seating, so you don’t have to queue outside for half an hour and then sit waiting for an hour before Henry comes on. I was pleased to see that row B was the front row. The row A seats must have been removed. Even I had to check the row letter twice.

Looking around before the show I noticed two microphones, at stage left and right, on stands pointing out to the audience. This did make me think that Henry could sell the MP3’s of each show on his web-site for a few bucks a pop. Possibly, if the show was being recorded, it would be included on a future CD release. With audio recording equipment being fairly cheep, they already have the microphones/mixing desk, I can’t see why all the shows couldn’t be recorded.

At just past 7:30pm the house lights go down and the stage lights come up and Henry walks out on stage. It’s been nearly 2 years since I last saw him and he hasn’t changed a bit. The same grey trousers, black t-shirt and blue/white Vans shoes. The only difference being that his hair did look a shade lighter, but that may have been the stage lights.

Henry started saying that he'd just found out that Salford wasn’t Manchester… then his mic cut out. He complained a little that his ‘road-crew’ had 2 hours this afternoon to get it working but he just ploughed on. I could hear what he was saying, being at the front, but I guess the folks at the back of the circle had a little difficulty. The sound cut in then out then the roadie yelled to Henry to grab the spare. Once that was switched over everything was fine. Even Henry said, while this was going on, that it can’t be the mic because it a Shure. I think that bending the cable just past the plug to wrap the cable twice around his hand can’t do it much good. I can see why he started doing it. Singing with Black Flag if someone jumped on stage and pulled the cable the microphone would just fly out of his hand.

Once that technical glitch was over Henry just kept talking, barely stopping for a gulp of water :– Obama, working on Sons of Anarchy, making the commencement speech at Sonoma State University, Saudi Arabia in a car with a Prince and later at the palace, his girlfriend (who also has grey hair), the Bhopal disaster, slums in India, China and giving essential hygiene advice to the ladies of Bangkok. There were countless other topics covered during the two and three quarter hours that he was on stage.

Henry is always worth going to see, this was my 5th time, but tonight didn’t seem to be all that funny. Not that you go to a Rollins show to have your sides split, the show is still billed as a Spoken Word and not as an evening of Stand-Up Comedy. Possibly it was because his travels to Bhopal, Saudi Arabia and India were more of an education for the audience instead of entertainment.

One thing that I have noticed is that he never mentions traveling to South America. It always seems to destinations in the northern hemisphere that he visits. Maybe South America is too close to home and not enough of a culture shock.

As always a great evening out seeing Mr. Curve!

Related Links
Dispatches
Fun House by The Stooges

Black Gives Way To Blue

Considering the recent weather, torrential rain and strong winds, I really didn’t fancy queuing outside for long if it was going to be typical Manchester weather. Luckily the rain held off and I was outside The Academy at about 7:00pm. Finding ‘a’ queue wasn’t fun. A huge trench had been dug in the pavement and instead of the usual boards covering the gap they'd just put barricades along the full length of it. It also didn’t help that there was a vast amount of people outside the main student union building for another gig, or two. Long and short of it I'd joined the wrong queue. This was eventually pointed out to us by a man shouting for tickets who seemed either drunk, or high, or both so his first announcement fell on deaf ears. A group of us left the queue, which was the ticket collection queue, and walked past the front doors and around the side of the building to where the buses were parked, to the end of the real queue.

It is kind of saddening that you have to be searched before you enter these places. We’re all there to listen to the music and see the band surely? Possibly some aren’t. They’ll have airport style security next.

The audience certainly seemed about the same age as me, maybe older. I bought Dirt back in early 1993 after Kerrang! magazine voted it album of 1992.

The support act was a woman on guitar and vocals and a bloke on drums. Even now I don’t know who they were. You'd think they'd say “we’re The Support Band, goodnight” at the end of their set.

With only a mic stand and a small drum kit to remove from the stage the change over should have been really quick. At least that’s what I thought. I wonder if someone keeps a list of the amount of times a microphone is checked by a roadie?

Set List

It Ain't Like That

Again

Them Bones

Dam That River

Your Decision

No Excuses

Check My Brain

A Looking In View

Rain When I Die

Heaven Beside You

Got Me Wrong

Black Gives Way To Blue

What The Hell Have I

Acid Bubble

Angry Chair

Man In The Box

Encore

Would?

Rooster

After what seemed like forever the stage lights lit the audience and a cameraman pointed a video camera across the crowd. Then the lights went back to the way they were before, lighting the stage for the roadies to do their job, checking microphones and shining torches on cables. The sight of two members of the road crew with their elbows resting on speaker stacks didn’t bode well at all. The crowd, growing increasingly restless, started booing and slow clapping and for a minute I thought that the show wasn’t going to happen. Then, at about 9:30pm, because I kept checking my watch, after what felt like forever, the band walked on stage.

After Layne died this is something that I never thought I'd see, Alice In Chains playing these incredible songs live. Highlights? Again, Them Bones (during which I almost lost it completely), Check My Brain, all the heavier stuff. Whenever Jerry stood centre stage everyone shouted his name. William sang and played guitar like he was born to do it. The only slow spots were the acoustic, barstool songs. Black Gives Way To Blue was so quiet that I'm sure people talking in the crowd was louder. There was a huge cheer at the end when a really short black and white video clip of Layne was played. It was just the right length and exactly what was needed, fresh faced, long curly haired, smiling and giving the peace sign.

With the technical difficulties, and the curfew, we won’t know if they would have played more songs.

William really did a great job, fitting in like the role was always his. Certainly big boots to fill but I think the crowd, like I was, was just pleased to hear those songs again. Like the man said, “This is just the beginning!”.

Somebody check my brain.

Update
Official blog entry for the Manchester show

Eddie Izzard

Certainly the first time that I've seen a single, solitary, stand-up, performer in such a large venue. Eddie Izzard was ‘playing’ the second night at the M.E.N. on his Stripped tour and apart from seats on the upper tiers the placed seemed sold out. Comedy is the new rock ‘n’ roll and has been for a few years now. I'm amazed that he is playing such vast spaces, I honestly didn’t think that he was that well known. Remember the days when he would only do stand-up and wouldn’t be seen dead gracing our television screens?

It is, more or less, impossible to distill his act into a few ‘jokes’. There won’t be many people at work tomorrow trying to re-enact the show for their work colleagues. In fact I'm amazed that Eddie manages to remember it all, I can only recall a few segments, the rest just passed by in a blur. Maybe that’s the joy of it, laughing at the time, forgetting most of it, then remembering bits in the weeks that follow.

The interesting thing is that when he does two or three characters you can see that they’re there. You know where on stage they are, your mind just fills in the blanks, even if Eddie confuses the voices or positions, which he makes a joke about and becomes another part of his act. When he does an impersonation of a giraffe, or shark, it is just a short, stocky guy in tails, but the voice and the mannerisms are spot on.

For such a big show there were lights, screens, back-lit panels with hieroglyphs on them (I've just remembered another joke) but the major let down was the sound. I've heard people complain about the sound in these ‘sheds’ before but I thought that only applied to concerts. It seemed that the only speakers were the ones up in the lighting rig. At a gig these are usually the ones to fill in the sound for the people on the tiers, because bands will have rows of Marshall cabinets on stage. Tonight Eddies disembodied voice only came from those speakers up high near the ceiling and so was no where near loud enough for those down below. Why didn’t they have speakers on stage, behind the light panels, for the punters on the ‘floor’?

And talking about ‘the floor’, are they supposed to be the more expensive seats because you are looking directly at the stage? All I could see was the back of the bloke on fronts head. I spent at least half the show watching Eddie on the big screen in all his pixelated glory. When I did get a chance to see the real thing it was a pleasant surprise. This is all because ‘the floor’ isn’t slanted, obviously, that'd make Disney On Ice a real treat, so you can never see over the person in fronts head. The tiers, albeit at the sides, must give you a better, uninterrupted view, of the stage.

It looks as if the Eddie Izzard Live Stripped DVD is already available for pre-order, just in time for Christmas. I personally prefer the older discs, Unrepeatable and Definite Article.

Yes, tonight I would have been at the Last Night Of The Poms at the M.E.N. in Manchester but alas it was not to be. Through no fault of my own you understand because the date was cancelled back in July with ‘unforeseen circumstances’ being the reason given.

I had been dying to see Sir Les Patterson and Dame Edna in the flesh and had booked the ticket back in January. In my official capacity as curator of a web-site dedicated to Uncle Les I felt it my duty to attend. Even the ticket price of £53.50 didn’t dissuade me. That is a considerable amount of money in anyones currency for two, possibly three, hours entertainment. It would have been the first appearance by Sir Les on a UK stage in many years.

On a side note: when the cancellation was announced Ticketmaster.co.uk managed to get the ticket out the next day. This was so that they could still charge me the £2 booking fee and leave me with a souvenir ticket that was worthless. £2 for a piece of flimsy card. They did refund the £51.50 but considering that they had my money for six months, that the date was cancelled and that they hadn’t even sent out the ticket, it was robbery.

Last night was the first Last Night Of The Poms so my Google Alerts were firing with multiple links to various reviews. You can read the selected high-lights over at Sir Les Patterson’s web-site. From all accounts, the word isn’t good. The monologues by Sir Les and Dame Edna certainly seem to have been well received but when the band and the huge choir strike up that’s when things take a dive.

From what I've read the musical passages just aren’t that funny, witty or humorous. These musical sections have been performed before and, again from what I've read, most people wanted to forget them.

With the country digging it’s way out of a recession I can’t see that that many people would have paid £50 or more, each, for one night out. And that doesn’t include meals, parking, drinks or a stay in a hotel.

The tour should just have been in theatre sized venues, of which there are at least 4 or 5 around the centre of Manchester, with Laurie Holloway on the piano, a few songs (hence the pianist) and buckets of phlegm and gladdies. Possibly do two nights at each venue, one for Sir Les and the other for Dame Edna (I think I've missed my calling, I should have been a tour manager).

There is a possibility that the tour will return to the UK next year after a stint in Australia during December. Here’s hoping that Sir Les leaves the band behind and plays a show near here.

Dave Gorman

Tonight’s trip to The Lowry was supposed to be an exercise in secret keeping for my niece Zoe. She cannot keep a secret for very long before feeling compelled to blurt it out. We can’t quite decide if this is an positive trait or not. Of course I am the former olympic champion at keeping secrets (yes, I even keep secrets from you gentle reader) and had to be, having bought the tickets back in March.

But after catching up with The Dave Gorman Podcast (on iTunes) last week I was starting to feel that maybe an evening with Mr. Gorman wouldn’t be entirely appropriate for a young woman. Now, this may well be some sort of kinky comedian thing, it could be that he lives in the South or it may well be just a personal fetish but he confessed, on Absolute Radio, that he owns a duvet cover with a zip. Shocking I'm sure you’ll agree. He also has a pierced nipple but I have no doubt that in celebrity circles it’s compulsory.

Of course Zoe wasn’t shocked and surprised when Dave Gorman’s name was read out over the tannoy. It must have been like Mission Impossible. She had already sent a text message to her mother who was sat waiting in front of an iMac with a high-speed internet connection. Knowing our location Dave Gorman’s name could only have been a few Google links away.

Naturally, based on previous experience, we didn’t expect Dave to just do a ‘normal’ tour. He is playing 32 consecutive nights in venues of various sizes across the land without utilising a Bon Jovi size tour bus. With cycling being more than a means of transportation around London he is getting on his bike to travel between gigs. In fact he is touching all four points of our little island, north, south, east and west, but not necessarily in that order. This is why Glenfinnan Railway Station and Inverness The Ironworks are on this tour that has been christened, “Sit Down, Pedal, Pedal, Stop And Stand-Up”. Always advisable to stop before standing up.

I wouldn’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen the show already. You just can’t distill two hours entertainment into a few malformed sentences, so I won’t even try. Just to say that everyone in a packed Lowry left feeling as happy as a horse in trousers.

Zoe had said earlier that she was starting with a cold, so by the trip home she was probably feeling as rough as a pumpkin.

Tomorrow Dave Gorman will be on his bike again heading towards Preston, because that’s how he rolls.

Related Links
Day 15: Stoke to Manchester
Day 16: Manchester to Preston
Dave Gorman’s photography
Dave Gorman’s blog
Dave Gorman’s tweets

Who Killed Amanda Palmer

Even I couldn’t quite figure out exactly where Club Academy was. The ticket didn’t say Academy 2, where The Dresden Dolls performed last time, just Club Academy. A couple of strolls around the building didn’t help all that much. The campus signs, the ones that say “You are here, or here!”, didn’t help at all. After the third circuit I had decided that the queue at the front was THE queue, so joined the tail end of it. Those black and white striped tights are a sure indication of a Dresden Dolls fan.

The inside of the venue has been modernised since my last visit back in May 2006 and Club Academy is exactly as you would expect, underground with a low ceiling. I managed to secure a vantage point about 10 foot from the stage in front of a large pillar. The stage can only have been about 2 foot high, with a 2 foot high riser holding aloft Miss Palmer’s piano and stool.

Jason Webley was first on with just about the loudest accordion that I've ever heard, and I've heard two, and a hat that spent most of it’s time either over his eyes or on the floor. He was really entertaining and funny. I mean how many times have you been instructed to hold your finger in the air and spin around 12 times. Obviously I didn’t… I like to stay in control. He looks like a younger, thinner, Chris Cornell, so it came as no surprise to hear that he hails from Seattle.

Zoë Keating was on next with a new cello. It makes a great, rich, sound which is then repeated and doubled with the aid of a MacBook pro and a bank of foot pedals. I wish I had been closer to the stage to see what pedals Zoë hits as she plays. I was also a little curious as to why she had to click her fingers into the microphone before she started.

Oooo ahhh!! And so to the recently departed Amanda Palmer. Draped in a veil and carried, for obvious reasons, by The Danger Ensemble across the front of the stage and then onto the piano stool. The veil removed Amanda started to play Astronaut from the new album Who Killed Amanda Palmer. The rest of the evening just flew by in a blur. Ampersand and Guitar Hero were other tracks from the new record as well as the one that name checks Google. Coin-Operated Boy, Mrs. O and Half Jack were the Dresden Dolls songs that I remember. A Smiths and a Regina Spektor cover, then Oasis, the rather contradictory Livin' On A Prayer with Jason, Zoë and Lyndon, the violinist, all joining in. Then back to the piano stool for the last song Leeds United.

Considering, by her own admission, Amanda had had a pretty crummy day I think that by the end of it she had cheered up considerably. We certainly made enough noise to turn her mood around.

Amanda Palmer Rest In Peace.

Related Links
Amanda Palmer photos by Man Alive! on flickr
Astronaut on YouTube
Ampersand on YouTube
Let Me Get What I Want on YouTube

Ticket

I must be becoming a serious ‘fan boy’ for Henry Rollins as this is the fourth time that I've seen him, the second time at this venue.

The Academy looks like it’s undergoing serious improvements as the entire hall is wrapped in an eight foot high wooden wall. If I didn’t know better I would have thought that it was closed completely. You even have to walk through the rubble to get inside. Luckily we were let inside early as it was damn cold waiting in line. Unfortunately the hall doesn’t seem to be heated at all which just meant an hour or more wait, but at least we were all sat down.

At 8:30pm prompt Henry ran on stage, grabbed the mic, wrapping the cord around his hand and started to talk.

To try and mention all the topics he covered would be futile… but I’ll try :– he talked about singing with The Ruts, making a film (which could have been goat porn for all he knew), being in Pakistan when Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, seeing The Van Halens and remembering Ted Nugent, meeting David Lee Roth in his art gallery, going to Beirut, searching for stuff on ‘the internets’ and using ‘the googles’, George Bush declaring that Mandela was dead. The list goes on.

One thing that he hasn’t mentioned before is his pet snake. I knew that he kept snakes but, apart from letting it chase Heidi around the office, he hasn’t ever said what type of snake it is, just that it’s female. Possibly he hasn’t even named it, as most of us would.

The other thing to note is his spot on impersonation of Christopher Walken, which I thought was brilliant. He even did a little Jello Biafra for good measure.

Three hours later and the show is over. My arse was completely dead and numb. Next time I'm bringing my own cushion.

Related Links
YouTube – Bush pronounces Mandela dead
Walken 2008 – Campaign Website
BBC – US man saved from alligator jaws
Henry does Manchester – a photoset on Flickr

This won't hurt...

A concert bill that dreams, or nightmares, are made of.

Joan Jett and the Blackhearts started the evening off with ‘Bad Reputation’ and ‘Cherry Bomb’. Joan is really small but rocks/punks really hard. The only lull during their set was when they played more recent material. The new stuff sounded as good, if not better, than the classics but we just didn’t know the words.

Having arrived early, waited outside in the cold for half an hour, then waited for quarter of an hour wearing an orange wrist band I managed to be about two people away from the barrier.

“We are Motörhead and we play rock and roll!”, you can’t argue with that especially when I'm sure they opened with ‘Ace Of Spades’. Their entire set passed in a blur. ‘Overkill’, ‘Motörhead’, ‘Bomber’ and even the acoustic ‘Whorehouse Blues’ from the ‘Inferno’ record. But I was too busy trying to remain upright.

It was during Over The Top that the bodies started to fly overhead. I lost my glasses twice and decided that they would be safer in my coat pocket. One bloke described it all as ‘mint’. Lemmy, like the rock god that he is, didn’t let the fact that his flies were open faze him.

After Motörhead I decided that getting crushed just wasn’t much fun so I retired to the bar and bought a Diet Pepsi.

The lights dimmed for the last time and a silhouette of Alice Cooper appeared on the curtain that had shrouded the stage. Then another Alice showed up and slit the throat of the first Alice and the curtain dropped. So poor Calico Cooper, for it was she, had to spend the first three songs lying motionless on the steps wearing a mask of her fathers face. But that’s showbiz!

All the cruel and unusual classics were played along with a full version of ‘Halo Of Flies’. More of the popular songs, less songs from the last album. They played ‘Cold Ethyl’, the catchiest song about necrophilia ever, so I was happy, but the hangmans noose was punishment… just for a change.

The set seemed shorter than the last time I saw Alice. Possibly because of Sunday night curfew, maybe because of the number of bands on the bill. It just goes to show that old rockers never die.

Related Links
flickr photos
Manchester Evening News – Alice Cooper Interview
Manchester Evening News – Concert Review

Derren Brown

If you've seen Derren Brown’s Channel 4 shows or even watched Something Wicked This Way Comes, which was a recording of his 2006 tour, then you know what to expect. He uses “magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship” to great effect. And because the shows are 90% audience participation no two evenings will be the same. I'm not going to recount exactly what happened, because I know for a fact that you surfed to these pages for that very reason (see I have spooky mind-reading powers too). If you enjoy the TV shows you’ll enjoy the evening at the theatre even more.

One word of caution – if you catch a Frisbee and go on stage to write an object onto a piece of paper, don’t put “rhombus”. Because I fear that Derren will put a spell on you if he encounters two smart arses on the same tour.

My head still hurts from trying to figure out how it’s all done.

I just want to burn him at the stake and watch his witch’s heart bubble.Stephen Fry

The closest our galaxy can boast to a Jedi master.Empire Magazine