Posted on March 4, 2018
I like Birds of Hell. Quite a bit. I can shout along to a few choruses. I like them but I didn’t mean to buy six tickets. I was trying to buy three for my brother, his friend, and myself but messed up. Luckily I had my friend coming and we sold the other two in the queue((Thank brother’s friend for his lack of social awareness and ability to approach strangers)).
I try not to hype myself up too much… but this was seeing two of my favorite local bands with my best mate and bringing my baby brother to maybe his first gig?
Odd Box
Georgie Cox knows how to put on a gig. Stalk them on twitter and go see these bands. She also puts playlists of the bands on her soundcloud.
Ellie Bleach (band)
I sent the boys through and waited for my friend. Even as a being of pure anxiety I’ll never resent Sky for being late. She put up with my lateness for a decade. I took time with the newly unveiled Visable Girls: Revisited exhibition while hearing Ellie Bleach through the walls. It was nice, lo-fi, dreamy. The photos were interesting enough, seeing how you grow out and through subculture.
My friend arrives and we see the last song and a half. Ms Bleach herself looked cool as hell in a vintage red suit and matching lipstick. I’ve put her on my see again list.
Happy Coloured Marbles
I hate them because they only have two songs on soundcloud and no EP so I can’t hear them all the time. It had only been two weeks since we had last seen HCM and I need it.
There is something comforting about the syrup-y reverb heavy sound they layer together. I’ve forgotten what they sounded like with a drummer (we saw them maybe 15 months ago) but Sky maintains they worked better as a three. By the last track they sounded a tad horse and were sweating under the purple lights.
Only complaint was… I didn’t know where to look. You can forget bands have people in them until there is only two metres between you, the bar stage is just a little raised platform. Oh but the mood! Unavoidable. Or… Ineluctable((I’m clever because it’s a song name)) if you will. They satisfy my bass fetish. I want more than I can even handle!((Again I am clever with use of lyrics))
I bounce up to my brother and ask what he thinks.
“Why is the better singer on backing vocals? And his big nose kept hitting the microphone,”
I don’t know. I think they are both good and the nose thing was cute.
twitter ((not sure what is the best link for these people but they retweeted me and i died lived a little inside))
Creepy Neighbor
A tough google but some great branding. White hats in the audience stuck out from the crowd.I wish I liked them more so I could get in on that #look.
They were pop-y, chearful, with neat synths and they knew how to perform as a group. It was all polished. Their vocalist’s voice was high to the point of androgyny and a little spooky in places((I found a video of him, Max Taylor, performing with Mika in 2012)). They had some technical difficulties near the end, with the bassist trying to fix something.
Seems Phillip Schofeild memes are the hot thing at the moment so selling a shirt with him holding your merch seems like a smart move. Would see again.
SCHOFEILD RULES!! pic.twitter.com/Q0p7TWcjom
— Creepy Neighbour (@CREEPYNEXTDOOR) April 14, 2016
GladBoy
They were playing an acoustic set in a bar full of people. I heard one muffled song while buying a drink so can’t comment. Might be seeing them soon, as they are headlining an OddBox night of their own.
Birds of Hell (full band)
Ok, so we left the bar early to get to the front of the stage. Ended up one row back with a great view. Sometimes Birds of Hell is just Pete Murdock and other times he performs with a band. Tonight it was three gentlemen, one without shoes((I’d spotted him earlier and guessed he would be a musician)) .
He starts off upbeat with a recent track: Don’t Do Poppers if You’ve Got a Mustache. It was his ending song at the last gig of his I saw but this time it has the backing of live drums, guitars and synths. Next were two I hadn’t heard live: two brothers and [song name unknown but it’s about meeting his other-half at a company training day in Kings Lynn]. Very different moods.
In my head, I recorded out conversations, for training purposes, so I’ll deliver best practice. Can I turn you on?
Another new one Supernaked, about metaphorically taking off ones skin. Really resonated with me as someone who regularly gets the impulse to tear off my own flesh. Oh to be “Supernaked and free”
The predictable call comes from the crowd “Get naked!” He doesn’t.
Then they play Spidermans Let Himself Go and I’m hypnotised. Someone is making a ‘car driving by noise’ I assume the synth or something. It was so good to hear it with a whole band. I like the little acoustic version but this layers together so well.
Couple more tracks and a nod to the late Robert Powell((constant on the Norwich music scene and admin of the Secret Norwich facebook page)).
Then I Love Saturday Night comes on and I realise I’m drunk. It’s a soft distorted love song to excess with heavy robotic fray on the vocals. Arms around each other I sway with my friend. My brother rolls his eyes but he’s smiling. I do love Saturday night.
Saturday night is when you settle the score. When you’ve had to much and you still want more((This sentiment is stuck in my head)). We’ll give you plenty of space on the dance floor. On the toilet wall, above the sink, messages in black ink. Informing me of where to find a piece of arse.
The last song was Do I Get to Ride on a Unicorn, which features “affectionate” toying with “a certain kind of spirituality”and his mum((He likes putting in clips of his family)). She gets a chear when he says she’s in the audience. It’s a good closer as a loud, bouncy, fun, and easy to clap or dance along to.
Encore
They come back to play Astronomy Programmes and then announce they need to get alcohol.
My friend and i pleasantly drunk, singing their praises. He writes about REAL things like meeting a partner at a company training coarse and parental anxiety. Ugh, he’s so authentic.
Sober, I know it’s not the mundane that draws me to the songs. It’s the combination of the normal and the fantastical. Magical realism in lyrical form. I didn’t get Los Yaremouth until Murdock explained it at a previous gig. It’s set in a future where Great Yaremouth flooded and remained a tourist attraction. “Let’s go spearfishing in the amusement arcades” marries the weird and very familiar, to locals.
And when we got home there were chicken nuggets in the fridge((brother’s friend has bought me nuggits before hand as payment for tickets. I’d eaten fiften of the twenty box before the gig meaning there were eight left over((A 20 box is not a 20 box)))) so even the end of my night was perfect.
This was less a review and more a story
We have established that this is what I want to do? I’m so happy and I’m reviewing the night as a whole((I know so little about music. I can’t describe much more than a mood as I don’t know the sub-genres or comparisons)) so it starts and ends with mugnuggits.