encore:

thanks to matt and ben.

support from isis.

photos

click on the images for larger versions.

photos by nick.

reviews/comments

from matt:

a good solid show, better than the one i saw this summer. barry and stuart were once again sporting beards. it was nice to see 'helicon 1' & 'helicon 2' show up in the setlist, but it would've been nice to hear 'stop coming to my house', or '2 rights make 1 wrong' and 'ithica' (which they'd been playing at tour stops previous to this show) instead of 'christmas steps' and other such obligatory old favorites. as the band were setting up (as at the summer show i went to) they started having some problems with the laptop, but luckily they figured it out and were able to play 'i know you are but what am i?', which was a definite highlight of the evening. other standouts were 'kids will be skeletons' (excellent), 'helicon 1' (which had stuart and dominic switching instruments as usual), and ratts of the capital (with barry moving over to bass at the end, as usual.) stuart was spot on, and in fact, was doing some improvising during several songs, which was fantastic.

once again, the entire band was impressive. i was standing very close to dominic for their set, and he's an excellent bassist, i was very impressed by him. speaking of dominic, he also came out and played guitar on isis' second to last song, which was actually pretty cool.

from ben pablo:

god what a f***ing amazing show. practically a "greatest hits" set. the only songs that were missing that would have made it a perfect set were 'summer', 'yes! i am a long way from home', and 'stanley kubrick'. the only annoying things were the people who persisted to talk throughout the quiet bits.

i got to the show just in time to hear isis midway through their set. dominic was playing guesting on guitar on the song that i walked in on. isis was pretty good actually. i wish i had the money to buy some of their music.

mogwai opened the show with the classic 'mogwai fear satan'. tonight's version was significantly shorter than times i had heard it live before. but the soft bit just before the big middle explosion was awesome. they were able to bring the volume down so low it was almost uncomfortable. as usual, the show had its highlights. it was interesting to hear helicon 1 early in the set. they're always had the tendency to put it during the latter portion of the set each time i've seen them. the surprises were the performances of 'xmas steps', 'ex-cowboy' and 'helicon 2'. my only disappointment was (once again) the lack of 'yes! i am a long way from home'. does the band have something against playing this song on the west coast? another funny highlight was during 'xmas steps' when an annoyed audience member yelled out "please stop talking!" to some people who wouldn't shut up. but then immediately after someone else took the piss and yelled out "cuz i like music!" even though i was annoyed by the people talking, even i couldn't deny the humour of that verbal exchange.

when the band came back for the encore of 'mfmk', someone yelled out "i wanna hear star wars!" so barry proceeded to play a portion of the star wars (the movie) theme. ha ha ha. 'mfmk' was pretty short. i don't think the guys (or perhaps just stuart in particular) were in a very good mood. almost immediately after the song was done, stuart, barry, and dom put their guitars down. martin stayed for a short while but john was the only one to stay behind for the usual ear piercing feedback and even that wasn't for very long.

overall, it was a decent set. hopefully the band will be able to top it with tomorrow night's show.