Thursday 13 December 2007

St Pancras

Is very nice, always has been. It's cool the insides have been revamped. It has always been one of my favourite buildings, that pompous gothic majesty, those chimneys, like something out of Gormenghast. Shudder to think that McMillan was going to knock it all down and build some concrete shit pit.
Anyway, I digress. I met my brother there yesterday to collect my season ticket before going to the Arsenal. He had just arrived from a business trip to France and was all suited up, pristine in fact, with his flybag (train-bag?). I had been working from home, so I was pure second hand camden market to keep warm. Combats, and military coat, scarf with skulls on it. A wooly hat covered in cat hairs.
I suddenly got paranoid, here we were, seemingly people from different worlds, meeting up at rush hour, him handing me my season ticket, it could have been cash, anything. Commuters were giving us hurried glances as they rushed past.
"What business has this dishevelled oaf got with this slightly portly business man?"
And then it dawned on me, what they were thinking. That he was a Tory MP, and I was his homeless rent boy.
Oh the indignity.

Saturday 8 December 2007

The Horrible Texas Travelling Shit Show

Met up with the Bossman last Friday, mainly to see Queen Adreena play live and to celebrate his birthday with a few JD's.
QA don't usually play the UK, so this was a grand opportunity to catch up with a band I'd always wanted to see.
It was a "themed" evening called The Texas Chainsaw Travelling Horror Picture Show, with the Damned headlining. The theme was a sort of Scooby Doo cheesy horror type of plot with more cartoon violence. Eg - the actors pretending to cut their willies off onstage for instance or dry humping a "severed head" which was in fact the head of a tailors dummy badly painted with red emulsion from B&Q to give it a gory effect.
I didn't really understand the story to be honest, it was clumsily put together, ham fisted and awkward, so much so that some members of the audience became restless, and booed or chucked beer.
The audience themselves were a mix of glam/goth and hardcore punk survivors. oh and there was me and Bossman.
Here is an example of the supposed "horror show". I think the woman in the cage was pretending to be a man eating eagle woman freak, and the two guys, well they just seemed to perve all over her and wave their arms around a lot.

There was one sort of good bit, when the eagle woman did some proper gymnastic stuff and eventually attached a man by his skin to her ring and then lifted him on hooks so he dangled. I didn't get a photo of that though.

Although Bossman wasn't too impressed.

Anyway, Queen Adreena were fantastic. Shame the crowd was restless and the cock of of a compere irritated everyone by continouously introducing them when they were obviously still sound checking. I guess he was trying his best..... to not get a shoeing.
Q.A's set was powerful and emotive. Monstrous guitar, bass and drums with Katie-Jane's wail bringing a shiver down the spine. It was more than music, it was art and poetry, and pain.


And they were glugging champagne on stage.... there was no engagement with the crowd. it was a relentless assault. And I was gutted they didn't play their cover of Jolene...

I find that I also spill Moet and Chandon down my dress when I'm trying to sing. It's so irritating when that happens. I feel like throttling myself with the mike cable too!

I saw Katie-Jane Garside's previous band, Daisy Chainsaw...back in erm... 1992, and I'm sure this is the same dress!! I got a better look when she stood on a chair.

The label says "wash at 40 degrees" if you zoom right in.

During the last song, Katie-J rugby tackled the guitarist Crispin, leaving what looked like a big cut on her head. It was a breathtaking set, full of energy, they threw themselves into it. There were a few Q.A fans there, but maybe not enough feedback from the crowd to justify an encore, shame :-(
After some more antagonisation from the horror show comperes (and someone doing disgusting farts near us), the Damned came on. This was our cue to leave.
Here is an obligatory shot of captain sensible...

As we were leaving, we could see showers of beer and plastic cups flying their way towards the band. The lead singer gave it..."lets have a fucking good time! don't chuck beer! ok?" or something. Bless. We left.

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