A bad London gig experience redeemed by an excellent headline set and an amusing journey home

Posted by jill on February 29, 2008

Halfway through the gig tonight, I began to question whether I should give up on gigs of a certain size. Tiny gigs are fun, because generally the audience is full of people who are there to hear and enjoy music. The shows I tend to go to are usually full of people who would stop talking during a band’s set, so they can listen to the show. Large capacity shows too are great, because of the mass experience, when you’re in a crowd of thousands either all dancing or singing along. The annoying people disappear in among the crowd, so you don’t notice them too much. I’ve noticed that in the last year or so, I always have problems with gigs for 2000-3000 people. Last year, it was at Beirut at the Roundhouse and Super Furry Animals at the Zodiac. One that could have nearly joined those two was tonight’s Final Fantasy gig.

Just a warning, I may begin to rant like an old person from this point.
There are two common problems at these gigs. Firstly, people who talk all the way through the show. I admit that I used to do this too, but possibly not to the extent that annoys me nowadays. One particular puzzle is why people pay £15-£20 for a ticket, only to spend the evening ignoring the music and shouting at each other? If they do want to talk to each other, surely it’s easier to chat if they head to the back of the venue, instead of talking right in front of the stage. For example tonight, during Dirty Projector’s set, I heard more about their Black Flag cover album from someone standing behind me, than the music they were performing in front of us.

The other problem, is just who goes to these shows? I notice that when gigs get to this size, there are people in the audience who might be more comfortable at an Arctic Monkeys gig or something similar. Again, at tonight’s show there were people who tried to clap along to the beat during the quietest moments of Final Fantasy’s set, and my particular favourite, overhearing people nearby saying ‘This is a bit gay. Let’s just go to the pub’.

rant over

However, for all my moaning, Final Fantasy’s set tonight was wonderful. Although the sound was disappointing for the first three bands, Frog Eyes, Six Organs of Admittance and Dirty Projectors, from Alexander Tucker and Stephen O’Malley’s set onwards the sound improved. Again, the FF audience weren’t probably prepared for the Tucker and O’Malley set, but focusing through the chatter, it reminded me how patterns emerge from droney sounds.

It’s remarkable how Final Fantasy could top this diverse line up, play to such a large audience and only do it with his laptop, violin, keyboard and pedals. On top of all that, play around four new songs. It was so nice to hear that the new songs continue in the progress between the last two albums, however the highlights were the older songs, including The Dream of Win and Regine. I just wish the next time, he could play somewhere smaller, where people would stop and listen to the music.

My mood for the evening began to improve from around 10pm onwards. And the journey home might possibly be a highlight after FF for tonight. Getting the bus back to Liverpool St, we were joined after Angel by a gang of 30 or so quite drunk people. It turned out this gang contained at least 3/4 of the Mystery Jets (who had been playing elsewhere in London tonight) and one We Are Scientist. One Mystery Jet was even polite enough to apologise for the noise they made when he got off the bus. So there are some nice people in London after all.