20
A belated 2007 round up
Posted by jill on January 20, 2008In the rush of the last few weeks of 2007 I didn’t have time to explain my choices for my favourite albums and gigs of the year. The last week of 2007 was spent in Beijing, and then the first week of 2008 recovering from the jet lag from the Far East. January 08, now almost over, it’s probably time to justify how I got those top 10s.
The most memorable gigs are a pretty fair representation of my 2007, which was split into three parts: Oxford, The World, London. The first five months of the year were mainly spent in Oxford, with a few trips into London. In Oxford, I made the most of my free time by going to almost far too many local gigs which almost merge into one. The few that stood out were Stu TTNG’s birthday house party, with Youthmovies, TTNG, Jonquil and Meet Me in St Louis playing in his front room, finally being about to watch a Seb Rochford band, with his amazing performance with Acoustic Ladyland and the stunning Silver Mount Zion show at the Zodiac. On the day of my first round job interview for my current job, I travelled to London to see The Shins perform at the tiny Bush Hall. Although their new album didn’t quite capture the same feel as the last two, the gig reminded me how much fun they were to watch. The Scala just might be my favourite venue in London, and it was the perfect place to watch Grizzly Bear completely reinterpret some of their songs live.
From the moment I planned my summer trip, there was only going to be one show for the best gig of the year. I spent the months leading up to Seattle looking forward to seeing Daft Punk. My trip up the west coast of the USA was timed so I could fit in the show, and I even extended my stay in Seattle so I could have a day to recover before travelling on to Canada. Just like everyone said, the Daft Punk live show was spectacular. It really showed how large shows, with their giant budgets, are sometimes just miles better than a 4-piece band performing on a stage. The collective experience, with the thousands of other people I didn’t know, was a truly special moment. The aftershow at Chop Suey was pretty fun too. Seattle was the musical highlight of my 10 week trip. Two days before the Daft Punk show, I spent a day in two blocks of the Capitol Hill area, at the Capitol Hill Block Party. For $15 I saw a great range of touring US acts and local Seattle acts, Girl Talk and Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head were the highlight of the day. Why can’t cities in England do a similar thing (and for a similar price?)?
Watching Girl Talk in Seattle, at the end of a long day of music and crazy drunk Americans, was great fun. I wasn’t sure if it would be the same in a room full of English people. Luckily, when Girl Talk performed in London, the show was just as fun (without being as packed). Matt and Kim, similarly, were as much fun in the UK as when they performed in the US. Moving to London has meant that week after week, there are plenty of shows to see, and sometimes it is quite hard to decide when to stop. I have never lived so close to so many venues (in Oxford, it usually involved at least one bus ride into town) with Rough Trade East just 10 minutes from my flat. So watching Beirut perform there, sitting right at the front was a truly great moment. I’ve travelled further into London for some other shows, like into Tufnell Park to see Dan Deacon. If it wasn’t for the Daft Punk show, Dan Deacon would have been the craziest live show of the year, performing in the middle of the audience, and encouraging everyone to run wildly around the room. !!!, Holy Fuck and Electrelane provided some other great live shows. It was sad that after five years of trying to catch Electrelane live again (since they performed at Audioscope), I managed to do so on their second last show.
Although this year was spent in so many different places around the world, oddly one band has been a part of my experiences in a few of these places. Last the last few years, I managed to catch a ¡Forward, Russia! show in Oxford back in February. But surprisingly, I caught up with them in Seattle, where they recorded their album over the summer. Just before the end of the year, I managed to see them again, performing in London, this time performing songs from their new album. That album is something to look forward to, for 2008.