“Everyone” is an artist..”

The Observer music monthly recently published the 100 best gigs of all time issue. There was one entry by Amy Winehouse about an Erykah Badu gig I’d been to during the Mama’s Gun tour. It  struck me that there is something special that happens sometimes at a gig that kind of captures a period, a transition in your life. So that  got me thinking, what were my top gigs of all time, and why? I’ve cracked it down to 14 bands, over twelve years. I’ll be posting it in three parts, here is part one…

 

Consider this my love letter to live music…

 

Violent Femmes, Hfstival, DC 1994

It was high school. I hadn’t found the rave scene yet and was in the throes of the grunge era.
Violent Femmes was the soundtrack to my sophomore year. As a band they had well and truly been around the block by that point, but there was this fantastic aggressive adolescence in their sound. More than anything what I remember about that gig was being in the tick of this massive mosh pit with my best friend (We the only two girls in an ocean of tall muscle-y rocker boys) I had on a white vest, some ragged cut off jeans and purple 16 hole steel toe dm’s. It was a blazing hot DC summer, I’m sure there was a fair bit of black eyeliner running down my face. There such sheer adrenaline in smashing into everyone around me, fighting my way to the front to shout along to the lyrics to “Add it Up!" I think I may have caught a smile and a bit of eye contact form lead singer Gordon Gano, but that might have just been wishful thinking.

 

Jamiroquai, Party in the Park, Finsbury Park, London 1996

It was my first British summer music festival. I couldn’t believe the line up. But more than any other act I saw that day I remember Jamiroquai. There was a brilliant light show that matched their space funk sounds and Jay Kay (miniature in stature but with his trademark huge hat) danced like James Brown and sang like Stevie Wonder. The sound of the band was unbelievably rich and layered. The sun was setting and I felt high just listening. I’ve seen them in several festivals since and they just make so much sense live and outdoors and in the summer.

 

Lamb, The forum, Kentish Town, London 1998

 I actually as introduced to lamb in
an opening set for the 96 party in the park gig, but the Forum set really took me into their world. They brought jazz, hip hop, trip hop and drum and bass into this beautiful sultry space where you just wanted to crawl in and stay for ages. The duo performed like brother and sister, like soul mates, like the best of friends, and as moody as the tracks could get, you could feel the heady pleasure they got from performing. I fell in love with the Forum as well. It was the right side of not too big for me and was beautiful besides. I couldn’t listen to another album for weeks after.

 

Z-Star, Quim Magazine Re-launch party, Kings Cross, 1999

I went to the launch part of alternative erotic magazine Quim, as the editor was a friend of my then girlfriend. My girlfriend then was a music promoter and keen to book Z-star for one of her nights. She even teased me when we arrived and said “you’re probably her type, flirt with her and convince her to gig for me” It was a brilliant night. There were some excellent photographs and illustrations on exhibit, spoken word performance and if I remember correctly a photo booth where you could have an erotic portrait taken by one of the staff photographers.

 

It all culminated at the end of the night when Z-star performed. She was without her band that night, just her and her guitar. She sang in a blues rich voice about love and love gone wrong. Her lyrics were poetic and bittersweet at times, tongue in cheek and sassy at others. I was enrapt. And then at the end of the set she decided she wanted to do a little improvisation. She stood up, strumming her guitar first distractedly then insistently, walking her way through the crowd. All she sang was

 

 “I’m looking for a woman”

 

But the refrain built up a momentum with a flirtatious intensity. All eyes followed her around the room until she stopped… in front… …of me. …And as she stared straight into my eyes, she sang huskily

 

“And there she is”

 

For a moment I forgot that my then girlfriend was at the other side of the bar getting me a drink, and had watched the whole thing, and was probably getting anxious or angry right that second. For a moment I was unaware that all of our friends were there, that the whole north London girl scene that we were very much a part of us was witnessing this disruption from a stranger. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and I could barely breathe. And then the song was over. She cut her intense gaze and smiled back at the rest of the crowd. And as I finally exhaled, she tipped her trilby to me and walked off stage

 

Erykah Badu, Brixton Academy, London 2001

Erykah Badu’s albums had taken me through a myriad of relationships and love affairs. I had seen her live twice at festivals (on one occasion she was 45 minutes late to the stage, and yet still managed to win over the agitated crowd within seconds of appearing) But the mama’s gun album dipped her into a sexy side of seventies funk that was a departure from the Nu Jazz of her previous efforts. Erykah Badu is a true diva. She is modern and retro all at once. She carries on the legacy of jazz to a popular crowd many jazz singers would envy. She can hit that R&B crowd without sounding nearly as simplistically pop as much R&B bands (destiny’s child anyone?? J )

 

But the stand out moment of this gig was when she performed “green eyes”. The song starts off on a minimalist scratchy 40s jazz note, before breaking into a lush orchestral soundscape. There was an extended instrumental in the middle where Erykah broke into a wild kind of interpretive dance. It was trance like, it was magical. She was so petite and frail and her fierce movements made me worry she may break. I’m fairly certain she was pretty intoxicated on something or another. It was one of those gigs that when the last encore is played you can’t bring yourself to move because you don’t want to break the spell…

 

Yoko Ono, Nag Nag Nag, 1^st Birthday, The Ghetto, London 2002

And so the “nag” years. I was working as a bartender at the Ghetto Nightclub. Wednesdays were (and indeed still are) the night nag nag nag, and at that time the night was at the height of its hip-ness. Every Wednesday when I would turn up at 9:30, there would be a queue stretching from the door to the main road, despite the fact the club didn’t open until half 10. For the first birthday there was a secret guest, but as is the way with staff secrets, all of us had found out the guest was Yoko Ono by the night before.

 

 I had the night off. I was having such a good time I almost forgot about about the special appearance. Suddenly two massive body guards strode through the crowd; I remember seeing a flash of a ginormous black and white hat. It was kind of a subverted version of the sort of thing a lady would wear to ascot. And then there was this teeny tiny lady, swathed in lipstick and black eyeliner. She had recently done the vocals for a Felix the housecat track that was hot at the time. But calling her a singer is stretching the term slightly. She wailed, she screeched, she screamed. IT was surreal, it was fabulous. It was insane.

 

Scissor Sisters, The Cock live, Crash, London 2002

A close friend of mine in New York is a journalist. He had kept telling me about this queer electro Duo called “The Scissors Sisters” They had played a few gigs in London and I had missed all of them. So when I saw the flier for this gig I knew I had to go. The duo had by that point become a five piece band. Their remix of Comfortably Numb had slid into regular play on the underground club circuit. When I think about the fact that for this gig they were on the same bill as now defunct south London electronic trio “Synthetic Pleasures”, it’s startling to see just how crossover they have become. But not this gig, not yet. This was their last chapter in the underground, specifically, the alternative queer underground. Every song felt like an anthem. It was a gig you danced along to.

 

 I loved the double act dynamic of Jake Shears and Anna-matronic. A bear enthusiast friend formed a massive crush on Babydaddy. Most people there had never heard of the band until that gig. By the end of the night everyone walked out fans. They used to come to the bar where I worked for drinks at that time. Anamatronic, as expected, was a larger than life presence in person. Jake Shears was painfully sweet. I seem to remember he always tipped, and well. (that must have been the New Yorker left in him. It certainly endeared him to the ghetto bar staff.) When the album was finally released on Emi

UK

,I saw my journalist’s friend’s name in the liner notes. He has been credited as writing their first big magazine feature. Funny how a band can suddenly blow up and hit the mainstream…

 

 

 

The Rapture, House of Jealous Lovers Video Shoot, a warehouse in kings cross, London 2002

One night  while I was bartending, a girl said something to me after paying for her drink that I didn’t’ hear. When I asked her to repeat it, I heard her say

“Do you want to be in a music video?”

 

At that time the electro scene was all over the media, and casting agents searching out electro kids were de rigueur. But when I heard the words “80£ cash” I was interested. I had said no to someone the week before, and found out later it was for a Rimmel advert, with Kate Moss. I wasn’t taking my chances again.

 

A week later I found myself in this massive warehouse in kings cross. Part of it had been designed to look like a small gritty gig venue. There was a complicated camera rig. The directing collective, Shynola, were even doing some of their own hand held work. I had never heard of The Rapture. I might have heard the track “House of Jealous Lovers” once or twice before that day. The filming took a lot longer than the three hours suggested (and as a filmmaker I should have known better) The Rapture were incredible. To warm up for the shoot they played a fifteen minute set which won all of us over. They were super friendly and seemed genuinely appreciative of us being there.

 

As we made it through take after take after take, the band played the track over and over. We, the crowd, went mental (which was what we were there for, but the band made it easy). We must have danced for four hours to that song. For one take, completely without warning, we were sprayed with water. What really amazed me is I never got sick of the track, and for every take the band gave it their all. The next day I used part of my fee to buy the album. I still never get tired of hearing that track. Basically I had been paid to see this really excellent gig. IF only it would happen again… Mind you, casting agents don’t wander around animation studios very often, so I’m not holding my breath…

 

Cibelle, Jazz Café, London, 2003

Much more than the oft overplayed Bebel Gilberto, that year Cibelle’s first album was the soundtrack of my east London summer. She also happened to be a very close friend of my girlfriend, so there was no question that when she would play a rare London date away from her current global tour, we would have to go en masse. I knew the album well, and I had heard a lot about her, her previous history as a model, and as an actress, and as acollaborator of the late Brazilian music producer Suba. I went with my girlfriend and her friends, all of them close for years.

 

The jazz café was the perfect venue for her. She made her immense skill as a singer seem effortless. She still had all the traits of an accomplished actress, she engaged the crowd with ease. Between songs she made jokes, told stories and then moved into song. She had arrived that day from New York, and was very happy to be back in London, playing to her second home, playing to her family of friends. She has a way when she performs of making the entire audience feel like her friends. As if you have all come back to hers after a party, and everyone is warmly intoxicated, so why not sing and maybe dance. She is queen of making the public feel private.

 

After the gig I went with my girlfriend and her friends backstage to see her. I remember walking through the door of the green room. She had changed from the glamorous evening dress she had been wearing into a kind of 60s shift (I think it may have been a skirt that had artfully been arranged into a strapless mini-dress). Though my age she carried herself with a certain kind of exotic theatrical worldliness. She took on a strong stance and threw out her arms Auntie Mame style beckoning her friends to join her. Like a gun had shot off at the race track, my girlfriend and her posse flew to her crying out “Ai que Linda!!!” (ooooh (it was) so beautiful) . And I stayed where I stood feeling a little lost and out of place, watching this mob of my girlfriend and her friends in a big massive embrace, around this fantastic singer I had enjoyed,but of course never met. And then something unexpected happened, above the web of hands and faces around her, Cibelle’s head lifted up over one of the shoulders she was resting on. Her eyelids raised, she saw me and smiled. She lifted one or her hands above the throng to gesture to me to come towards her.

“And you too Sara, you are family now!”

I couldn’t not smile, I probably blushed. I walked over to her and joined the big tangled ten person embrace. I have never forgotten how she immediately made me feel included.

 

As finally we all became disentangled, we sat in the green room and Cibelle told us stories of her travels. Having gotten to know her better since this gig, I now understand that she is in her element like this. And maybe there was something more than a little disarming at seeing someone so talented, entertaining and beautiful, be so warm and inviting as well. I would love to see her play more often but her touring schedule is so dizzyingly constant that I think I’d have a better chance of seeing her in Nyc, or even tokyo.

TBC…

a continuation of the gigs that have made the greatest impact on me…

The errorplains, Chris Error’s Birthday, The ten bells, Brick Lane, London 2004

I think I might have met Chris once or twice before going to the joint birthday party of him and my workmate Tony. I may or may not have had some vague inkling he was in band (But then again in Shoreditch, isn’t everyone??). At the end of the night, just as I thought I should maybe go home, I saw make shift screens being hung, and then a projector being rigged. As samplers, laptops, microphones and an electric guitar were plugged in I decided that maybe I ought to stay. I was totally unprepared for the genius quirky audio visual experiment I was about to see.

This was new rave well well before the term was coined. Or perhaps I could also say it was what new rave should sound like. But the band was especially unique, in that the visuals were just as integral as the sound. This was cleverly sourced and manipulated subversive animation, couple with aggressive guitar riffs and the fanatic schizoid energy of lead singer Chris Error.  It was a night that encapsulated everything I loved about the neighbourhood, a place where it was completely normal to go up to the private room of a pub for drinks, and find yourself mesmerised by a spontaneous gig hours later.

A truly genius moment was a track that was performed in perfect sync alongside projections of animated stick figure impression of the band. And did I mention they all looked like they were having great fun doing it? The errors sure know how to perform while they party…

Cocorosie, The Scala, London 2005

I went to the Cocorosie gig with my girlfriend and two of her friends having heard only one of their songs “By your side”… I really loved the song and of f the back of it was curious to see what their rest of their music was like, live. The gig began with a French hip hop group, something the mainly indie audience seemed aggravated by. They brilliantly seguewayed into the Cocorosie gig as the two women stepped forward. All of the images I’d seen of the band, had portrayed them as pretty delicate featured women, somewhere between indie princesses and new folk.

But they walked onto stage that night like B-Girls in low slung jeans and wife beaters.

They didn’t sound anything like that one melancholy beat laden ballad I had heard. This was the return of trip hop. The husk of one’s voice met with the sweetness of the other. The beats were raw. The performance perfectly sensual, sexual, queer. The audience was tense. This is not what it was said on the packet. This was a little too fierce, a little too bass-y, and definitely much dykier than most of the crowd were prepared for. At one point someone called out “Where is Cocorosie?!!” Maybe feeling that they were too different than expected, practically another band.  I loved the set. It felt ritualistic somehow. The strangest thing about the night was seeing them lounging by the t-shirt selling stand after. But they clearly weren’t in risk of being mobbed.

Every last Selfish Cunt gig, various venues, East London, 2006.

Selfish C**t had been on my radar for a year, maybe longer. I remember reading a feature about them in Vice magazine, and mainly coming away with the impression that they were simply a result of Hoxtonite angst. I couldn’t have been more wrong. My interested in them piqued when I saw a documentary about the band in the gay and lesbian film festival that year. The study of the then two members was fascinating but the live footage of the gigs made me extremely keen to see them perform. One of my friends had been dating the guitarist since before the band began, and she had invited me out to go with her to gigs many times previously. I think she was a little surprised when suddenly I was calling her up to ask when they were next playing, as over the year I hadn’t once gone with her. I had bought the album the day after seeing the documentary. IT was the only album my girlfriend I listened to for weeks, we knew the tracks inside out by that point. The first time we went to see them play was incredible. It didn’t matter that it was in hip but gritty pub in Whitechapel, or that the PA was far from professional.

There was something in the energy, the intent, the ethos of the music that had us digging our nails into each others sides. We barely looked at each other during the set, but on a rare glance we could tell we were both experiencing something very intense. After the last song, after they walked off the “stage” we were both speechless. I’ve seen them play many times since and It amazes me just how different the dynamic is from gig to gig. That first gig was an angry one. Lead singer Martin Tomlinson looked like at any point he could tear into a member of the crowd. In theatre there is an expression for when an actor disrupts the illusion of being in a separate world from the audience. it is “breaking the fourth wall” I would say that Martin does this every time he performs.

But saying that, it would be completely missing the point to say that the bands particular kind of post punk frisson, is down to Martin alone. Martin Tomlinson’s vocals need Patrick Constable’s guitar riffs. Add to that Bambi’s furious frenetic drum playing and you’re faced with a force to be reckoned with. The band plays as if their lives depend on it, and its not with the over the top showmanship that metal bands sometimes have, its tense, its measured, its tight as hell. Every single time I see them play I’m a little shaken up. I can’t help feeling that it is their birthright to be headlining massive spaces. They are without a doubt the most exciting rock band I have come across in recent years.

Tetine, 93 feet east, London 2006

Tetine would probably wonder why I list this gig in particular. Maybe if I had a chance to see them at the Wire festival in Chicago last year I would say something different. The night of this gig was not as crowded as places I’ve seen them elsewhere. They have certainly performed in much better glossier venues. But what was unique about the gig was their energy. They had just returned from their American tour and they came back not only recharged, but with an entirely new dynamic. There was a new edge, and an explosive sexuality that had been ramped up considerably since I’d last seen them. They were on fire.

I found myself looking at them in a whole new way. It was particularly startling because I had seen them enough times before to feel like I has a clear sense of what they were like. This was like a new band, and even better than the one I was already a fan of. The sense of witnessing this “change” was profoundly exciting.

Paloma Faith and the Unfaithful, Favela Chic, London 2007

 

The last gig on my list is fairly recent. The second week of January is generally a time when you expect nightlife to go a bit dead, But Paloma’s fan base packed out the venue for her first gig of the year. This woman is astonishing. From the first gig of hers I went to I knew I would have to see her perform again and again.

She is Ella,   Janis and the childlike empress. She is above buzzwords like “burlesque”

it would be truer to say she is theatre.

After going to so many of her gigs that I knew all of her as yet unreleased material by heart, she and her band took a couple months hiatus from gigging to record new material. When I went to Favela Chic I saw that she had edged up the jazz of her sound and was moving into an exhilarating hybrid of rockabilly and trip hop. She is petite but her presence is powerful. The night of the Favela chic gig had an air of the gothic about it. She walked on stage in a black top hat and a showgirl rendition of a tux (that would be without trousers then…) As She precariously stood in her platform heels on a rail she broke into the first song “childhood”  a dark sultry number about losing your innocence.

  I still haven’t figured out how she did it but as she sang “I lost my childhood today” blood ran down her legs, over her heels, onto the white roses she had thrown to the audience before she began. She had the crowd in a near trance until the end of the set. There is something about her live that is intriguing and accessible all at once. It’s criminal that they havn’t been signed

This whole no drinking thing has been a massive learning curve. Both how much easier and how harder dropping my main vice is. Easy because you find the act of drinking can be something you don’t miss quite so much. Hard, because in this city’s social culture, not drinking is the most alien anti-social thing you can do. Even my father was dismayed when i refused a glass of wine when we met for lunch recently. But then again, once you make a point of it, and stick to it, and most importantly still go out, people get over it and you can enjoy or be bored by everyone around you sliding into dissaray, while your sober photographic memory picks up every last detail . People reveal themselves when intoxicated. its not quite a truth serum, but as inhibitions drop, all sorts of pretenses dissolve. Random thoughts can spill out without warning. i had one such conversation a couple weeks ago where a friend said quite clearly to me "and we should have sex" mid flow of conversation without realising he had said it. He was to drunk to know he had said it, and was actually talking about quite mundane work related matters. I decided it was best not to call him on his blunder.

Depending on the tolerances of those around you, you forget everyone is actually getting drunk at all. There are those that really do seem quite together, but they give themselves away in the softening of their physicality, perhaps they might even become more tactile. all of this is obvious yes but there is something about being sober for a little while and observing just what drinking does to those around you that does feel like a mini revelation. but of course i don’t act like that when i’m drunk right?? hmmm there are stories my friends could tell….

During this period I have been asked if I feel healthier, if i’m sleeping better, if my skin is clearer. in all honesty all i have felt is an irritation at all this saying no. and a boredom created by ditching sociallizing for the most part, as i knew i would not be strong enough to refuse all the time. I know three weeks is nothing, but its the longest I’ve been completely sober since i started properly drinking at age 17. three weeks of sobriety in 11 years… frightening no? I am glad I’ve done it.

Its made made me rethink the patterns i’ve set that i don’t give much thought to. on average, at least three times a week i have a day where: I have a large glass of wine at lunch, have one or two more glasses right after work with workmates, dash off to meet friends for 2-3 more drinks elsewhere, and all the while probably smoke close to 15 ciggarettes.

therefore, Its nice to know that i don’t need to take fag breaks during the day, that i can go and have big night out and stay up to the wee hours of the morning without a single drink. that there are advantages to be had in drinking in moderation when out with work colleagues.

But saying all that i finished my detox on friday and was so hyper at getting my favoured vice back i started drinking at 5.30pm and didn’t quit until 12 hours later. making my way back to the flat at 6am (after falling asleep on the night bus) my wallet noticably lighter, my head hurting and my stomach nauseous, with hazy memories of statments in conversations with strangers i probably shouldn’t have had i wondered why i do this to myself anyway. and then i got home and went to bed. i had a hangover for two days. i never even have hangovers usually. maybe this will be the year of moderation…

but more likely, maybe not.