i'll blather on about the brilliance of this particular 'gwai show.
feeling a bit shit, i almost fell asleep during ligament - which is
quite an achievement considering they were almost as loud as mogwai,
especially as i was right in front of the bass rig, one from the
barrier. drummer in ligament was shit hot though, so that sustained my
interest from their love of power chords and little else.
the mog came on to superheroes of bmx and promptly started building a
huge wall of blissout sounds... until a powercut five minutes in left
martin alone producing some sonud: a tap tap tap of a drum along to the
(now dead) drum machine. cue sheepish looks and a mass trooping
offstage.
about five minutes later, the lights came back on, and the band
reappeared for a hastily decided-upon ithica 27 - 9, before returning
to what i could make out of the setlist. the pa system at the ritz was
far too quiet for the sheer sonic architecture this band create, and
the noise of ithica was almost disappointing, as was the loudness of
small children in the background (a shame, cos it was excellent
otherwise).
as the set continued, and they played rollerball and may nothing...,
the realisation swept across me that i was in love with this band. the
sound all the members contribute to create such a gorgeous headfuck of
music left me swooning as may nothing... became more aggressive.
cue a switch to helicon 1 - surely the best mog song since they slowed
it down and drew it out... and i was surprised to see barry play guitar
on it too this time, partitioning the stage as stu+john played one
thing, while dom+barry played another, with martin joining them to
create sheer sonic majesty.
christmas steps followed, and the new short ending should have been
pleasingly concise, but left me hankering after more - strange
considering i 've always thought it too long. the non-appearance of
luke sutherland was not surprising (the stage was far too small), but
still contributed... not that it wasn't fantastic or anything (mmm...
dominic's bass...)
this was the first time i'd heard mogwai fear satan live, and it was
absolutely fucking awesome. from stu turning on another amp to bring
the noise out to another level to the feverished drumming at the end...
the only part i missed was the xylophone solo - i don;t know whether it
was left out due to enforced time restrictions or what, but the song
felt too short. maybe because i wanted it to go on forever...
for the encore, you'll never guess it - like herod. now i know poeple
have been complaining about it recently, and i've never been its
biggest fan, but there's still soe visceral thrill to be felt as stuart
plays a small clunking sound on his guitar for at least 30 seconds
before they all turn around and attempt to prematurely deafen everyone
in the room. john even pissed around on his guitar and pedals for five
minutes after all the others had trooped offstage (as had much of the
seated audience... wimps). the stereo panning of barry's keyboards was
inspired, though - the next morning i got out of bed and promptly fell
out of bed because it unbalanced me so.
all in all, despite the powercut, martin's unhappiness about something
and dominics bass amp not being loud enough (has he still got the
orange stack? because he didn't use here) - probably the crap pa's
fault, another magic moment in my life is due to the 'gwai. heaven...
thanks for the review!
wake and work. get out of work at 5.00 and get sorted and off to manchester to the ritz. call simon for directions when i get there and he gives me an address. i have an a to z and i'm in the city centre driving around for a while until i get it sorted. ask a bunch of road mender dudes and show them the map and i'm on the right road, park the car and i have my marshall head with me so that comes in too (john blew his head so he's using mine for the rest of the dates).
i missed ligament and the place is nice and full. head backstage and it's an okay dressing room with a drinks machine in it and stuff and the bouncers seem okay. pretty soon they go on stage and start with superheroes of bmx and the p.a goes off after about 4 minutes, a fuse tripped apparently. wait and see what gives and head back to see how it is.
they're nervous but smiling about it anyway. it gets fixed after a while (which is good) and they come on and do ithica then christmas steps. i like this band. talk to keith afterwards in the dressing room after about music and stuff and we discuss the wedding present as well and simon's successes on top of the pops.
i also meet a guy called chris, introduced by dom. he's from america (wisconsin) and is doing the tour as well. he's a cool seeming guy, easy going and chatty and stuff. colin has driven down from glasgow as well with a bunch of people (who's names i don't know, sorry). anyway, get into a cool conversation w/ keith about music and stuff. k c is an intelligent and articulate guy and this is the first real one on one chat we have, talk about how music can be studied and written about without it just being journalism and do you, keith, think that the music press really can make or destroy a band (they can make a band become more well known faster and make crap bends seem better than they are, he said).
i head back to the car and get some cigarettes and give a few to a homeless dude outside (and some money too). back in and chat and it's soon time to go again, like home. sleep. back for about 3.00am again. tired. and it was dia's birthday today. i called her up during ithica so she could listen to it down the phone.
http://web.archive.org/....mogwai.clara.net/ukdiary2.htm
