Gigs, they say, should start with a bang. Literal pyrotechnics, epic walk-on music, a high-speed hit song, even a straightforward city-based greeting are all designed to grab an audience’s attention right away.
Someone forgot to tell IDLES. Or the band just didn’t listen. Either way, they’ve come up with something even more effective.
Serge Pizzorno was never “just” the guitarist in Kasabian. He wrote most of the songs. He single-handedly produced their last two albums. He increasingly provided lead or co-lead vocals. And, on stage, he was always as dazzling a hype man as a musician. So, when frontman Tom Meighan was convicted of domestic abuse and abruptly left in July 2020, Pizzorno stepped up.
Sea Girls’ social feeds are awash with groups of young people either beaming with their homemade banners, dancing energetically without a care in the world, or raising their hands in unison as they cheer.
They’re all clearly having such a good time that their photos could be used as marketing materials for a youth culture brand promising to make dreams come true. And yet, 30 seconds into Sea Girls’ sold-out Brixton Academy gig, it’s clear that the pictures completely undersell the experience.
Album anniversary tours are now as common as Liam Gallagher’s name at the top of festival bills. In just the past few weeks, everyone from Alanis Morrisette and Goldfrapp to David Gray and Jill Scott have announced treks honouring their landmark albums.
Even a band as obsessed with staying relevant as U2 are in Japan right now playing The Joshua Tree from start to finish, a full two years after first taking the LP around the rest of the world.
Peter Garrett has a lot to say. When RockShot spoke to him earlier this year, the Midnight Oil frontman shared carefully considered opinions on everything from climate crisis and the politics of greed to mobile phones at gigs and legacy acts who play the same songs, in the same order, in city after city.
In London tonight, he’s on even better form. Unfortunately that’s partly thanks to Boris Johnson. The singer, a former government minister himself, is clearly riled by the bumbling buffoon (or, to use Garrett’s parlance, “dickhead”), comparing the PM-in-waiting to King Canute, King Lear, Basil Fawlty and the comedy of Ricky Gervais. And that’s even before he gets to branding him a consistent liar with no regard for minorities.
Nils van der Linden