what a night!
started off ace... got throught the tunnel ok. found lille and the venue
ok. nearly got mugged. had some beers (halfs only... bloody europeans.
the eu had better not try and enforce that one or there gonna have ww3
on their hands!)
the venue's ok. a bit of a cross between the ulu in london and the penny
theatre in canterbury. other notable acts to play there recently
include atari teenage riot, g-love and the dandy warhols.
support came from lombric (earth worm in french apparently) who were
okay but would have been a damn sight better. language barrier and all
that jazz !! must admit though the dj was a good digeridoo player.
then some shite shite rockerbilly tunes during the change over. what
was going on ???
mogwai... opened with fear satan. blistering once it got going. stuart
started alone, then joined by john and martin once he'd got things under
control. the pace was frantic as ever, and the crowd responded
surprisingly wildly. i didn't think the french could dance...
next came rollerball, ex-cowboy and like herod before stuart announced
to many bemused froggies that celtic were champions in scotland again,
barracked by the audience a swift one fingered salute lead us into
angels vs aliens.
the local press must have had contracts for 'bass players r us' as they
all seemed to be photoing domonic and his carpets, rather than the usual
stuart in mid-riff photo we all know and love.
announced as a newie (still ?) xmas steps followed to raptuse applause
and helicon 2 got the crowd moving further. summer and helicon 1 took
us into the first of two encores, and various treats.
with it being stuarts birthday on the 10th, he recieved a surprise kiss-
o-gram courtisy of the crew, colin (i think-but don't quote me!)
dressed in fetching velvet dress with cake and big snogs all 'round!
in return colin (i think) badgered the band into playing the only outing
of sabbaths sweet leaf were ever likely to hear, after which stuart
threatened to destroy the tapes of the gig...
more comical than the track was the crowd, who were cajolled into
raising the two fingered horned fist so well known at heavy metal gigs,
and none of them saw the irony of it all. you have to be a brit and been
to a gig with europeans who chant 'we love your euro rock' and wave
their fists in this manner in britan to get it...
the end some 98 minutes after the first notes of fear satan, came in the
equipement threating form of stereodee. not only did the speakers,
walls and monitors take a battering the nine peice mogwai (the band plus
crew) set about the most superb version i've witnessed since pheonix
'96. stuart trashed his guitar, majorly and to the disapproval
of a small section of the crowd (huh? why do they care? stuart was
obviously enjoying himself!) and the crew trashed the drum kit, whilst
guitars were scarpped done coureggated walls and basses held aginst amps
for extra feedback and screetch (technical term...).
after a safe voyage home last night i still can't believe how good the
band were. their tight and majestic. the show at lille matches the
pheonix show, and anybody who saw that will tell you how good that was.
both stuart and domonic both agreed last time i spoke to them that
pheonix was their glory, but for me last night topped it. hope they
got over the hangovers!
thanks to colin hardie for making the trip happen. without him i
wouldn't have seen it, or believed it....
some say that was mogwai's best gig ever. i don't hope so, because else
i'll be disappointed each time i'll see them in the future :)
it was an incredible ears-killing party. they began with mogwai fear satan
(personally, it's a song i'd rather play at the middle of a show, as it's
one of mogwai's bests). after 8 minutes, when the song became quieter, the
crowd applauded cuz they thought the song was finished already, and then
mogwai threw a noise shower (those who had the chance to see them live
know
what i'm talking about) to show the bastards mfs is a long, long song :)
then stuart said something like 'new song' (i'm not good at udnerstanding
scottish) and they played that song which turns out to be called
rollerball
(a friend could get the setlist, but you could only read "ball" because it
was ripped). very good song, run for the new ep when it comes out. another
new song, excowboys, better than rollerball. then they played like herod
(no comment ...) and played angels vs aliens just after, without any pause
so the bass line is the same at the end of lh and at the beginning of
avsa.
christmas steps (how good ! how magnificent ! long live fuck the curfew
!), helicon 2 (rest after fight), then summer (mass hysteria !!) and helicon 1
(which lasted 8 minutes, quite long compared to the 10r version). after
that came a place for parks and they said goodbye. of course we shouted,
screamed, some went outside to check if they could still hear, and the
gwai came back. stuart said thx as any good singer has to do after a good
audience calls him back, and they played katrien. then we saw candles
coming on the stage, stuck in a cake carried by a weird guy in a dress. he
said happy birthday and we sang along and it was funny because the guy
kissed stuart on the lips twice ... mmh ... is he actually gay or was it
only because of the birthday ? sister hopes so :) he didn't eat the cake,
which is a pity because it was crushed at the end of the show. they played
the black sabbath cover (sweet leaf ?), far better than the original
version, and after that came stereodee. as stereodee is a storm of pure
noise, the band went berserk, fans climbed on the stage, stuart and the
guitarist (sorry i don't know any name but stuart's) broke their guitars,
the bloody bastards, i don't have one myself, and the weirdo guy crashed
the drums. it ended with 4 minutes of loud loud larsened guitar riffs.
never seen such a doomed stage.
