An ankle injury scuppered any hopes of a wild and crazy end to 2003, but 2004 started with a fresh and promising collection of gigs to look forward to. One short-lived but welcome venture was the ‘Pity For Monsters’ nights run by the Devlish Presley duo and a number of allied friends. Despite co-operation from members London’s deathrock revival scene, the bands they put on were varied in style and fanbase and it was one particular hidden gem that provided my first truly memorable gigging moment of the year. Continue reading
Yearly archives: 2017
42 posts
The focus of the last part was my discovery of the wonders of European festivals. It may therefore come as a surprise that my one overseas trip of 2003 came as very much a last-minute thing. There were many other things to distract me closer to home, and the move to a London-based job meant that I was never far away from some kind of gigging action whenever I felt like it. And I felt like it a lot. Rather too often, in fact, as my first major gig of the year would reveal. Continue reading
At the end of 2001, my stagnant life finally turned around and come January 2002, I entered a continuous period of employment that leads right up to this day. This of course meant more money for gigs, CD and (for the first time) full-blown music festivals.
What the year didn’t provide was any one performance that really stood out….it was a year where the event as the whole was more that the sum of it’s parts. It was also the first year I saw more that 100 bands over the course of the year. Though the tendency for the same bands to crop up time and time again made bagging the last few quite hard! Continue reading
The first part of this feature saw how I began to dip my toe into the world of live music. But with the exception of Gotham, these gigs were all about ‘going for one band’. Come 2001, and I began to push the boundaries at bit further. But not much further. Outside of scene events, 2001 was a dead year for me. The only work I could get was mind-numbing temporary admin work (including that bloke that could make all of Australia sound boring), which left me turning up to several events in no state of mind to enjoy myself.
Despite that, there were a few stories to emerge from the years gigging adventures, concluding with a show that I still maintain is the best I would ever see. Continue reading
I was a late starter to live music. My first ever gig ticket was an 18th birthday present. It would be another few years before I caught the gigging bug. But even those early shows gave me stories to tell. Continue reading
Every live gig I’ve ever been to has given me some kind of story to tell. You could ask me about any of them and I could come up with at least one occurrence that captured the spirit of the night. But not every live show has been truly ‘special’. I’ve seen excellent performances by bands with crowds numbering in their thousands that were simply ‘very good nights out’. No more, no less. Continue reading
To celebrate 20 years of gigging, I have written an account of the best, worst and otherwise most memorable moments of my live music experiences. It’s not a complete story, but there’s plenty to dig into here, enjoy!
If you’d rather read the story in blog form, start here.
The Renaissance festival returned in 2017 in it’s new home of The Lounge (aka Nightclub Kolis) in Archway. The festival is a celebration of all forms of alternative culture, with art exhibitions, comic books, video clips and life drawing all featuring on this occasion, though the musical elements still occupy much of the day. There was a double-ended stage setup indoors (RAM and TWIN stages) and a small performance area outdoors (ARCHERS stage), and no less than 8 DJs filling in the gaps between the various performances. Here’s my contribution.
Archers Stage Set
New ground always being broken, this was my first ever DJ set outdoors. This accounts for the quite subtle nature of what I played.
Vernian Process – Sarabande
VNV Nation – Solitary (Orchestral Version)
Spiritual Front – My Kingdom For A Horse
Current 93 – Oh Coal Black Smith
Gae Bolg – Hymne
Faun – Punagra
Cinderella Effect – Timekiller
Deine Lakaien – Love Me To The End
Diary Of Dreams – AmoK (Acoustic Version feat. Torben Wendt)
Ego Likeness – I Live On What’s Left 2008
Silke Bischoff – On The Other Side ’93
RAM Stage Set 1
Kat5can – (Screaming Like A) Crack Baby
Battery – Meat Market
Krystal System – 26 Days
NIN – Heresy
Pitchshifter – Please Sir
KMFDM – Never Say Never
RAM Stage Set 2
Concrete Lung – Recovery Position
Fear Factory – Self-Immolation
Sepultura – Arise
Testament – Into The Pit
Scott and myself decided to run a one-off version of our Open Request List event on Easter Sunday 2017. Most of the tracks listed here are requests, though I did try to make some of the ‘link-up tracks’ biblical-themed (even if it was done with a degree of irony).
Set 1 (Warm Up)
Nazareth – Hair Of The Dog
Scorpions – Rock You Like A Hurricane
Journey – Chain Reaction
Rainbow – Man On The Silver Mountain
Set 2
Iggy Pop – The Passenger
Dio – Rainbow In The Dark
Twisted Sister – I Wanna Rock
L.A.Guns – Ballad of Jayne
Y&T – Summertime Girls
Marilyn Manson – Deep Six
Type O Negative – Christian Woman
Prong – Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck
System Of A Down – Cigaro
Rage Against The Machine – Bullet In The Head
Faith No More – Easy
Set 3
She Wants Revenge – Take The World
Wumpscut – Jesus Antichristus
Schwarzblut – Judas
MaxDmyz – Muthablud
Tool – Sober
NIN – The Line Begins To Blur
Rob Zombie – Living Dead Girl
Marilyn Manson – The Dope Show
Guns & Roses – Welcome To The Jungle
Van Halen – Ain’t Talking ‘Bout Love
Set 4
Hawkwind – Silver Machine
Jefferson Airplane -White Rabbit
The Killers – Mr Brightside
Beatles – Helter Skelter
New York Dolls – Trash
Motörhead – Overkill
Metallica – Master Of Puppets
Final Tag-Team
Slayer – Raining Blood
Killing Joke – Death And Resurrection Show
Talking Heads – Psycho Killer
The Velvet Underground – All Tomorrow’s Parties
Blondie – Sunday Girl
David Bowie – Starman
Iggy Pop – Nightclubbing
Silver Apples – Misty Mountain
Pink Floyd- Astronomy Donine
Mike Oldfield – Five Miles Out
Leonard Cohen – The Future
Outro: Vangelis – Love Theme from Bladerunner
Encore?: T-Rex – 20th Century Boy
After the Alt Bring’n’Buy, Scott and myself went across the road and continued the music at Aces and Eights. As ever, this was run on an ‘Open Request List’ basis, though the earlier-than-usual start gave us a chance for a warm-up before the diverse collection of requests came in.
Set 1 (Warm-Up)
Wishbone Ash – Blowin’ Free
Creedence Clearwater Revival – Bad Moon Rising
Bruce Springsteen – Atlantic City
Kenny Rogers – Coward of the County
Leonard Cohen – Hallelujah
Set 2
HIM – Wicked Game
Type O Negative – My Girlfriend’s Girlfriend
Marilyn Manson – The Dope Show
Green Day – Basket Case
Faith No More – Easy
Placebo – Taste In Men
The Prodigy – Breathe
Project Pitchfork – Conjure
Light Asylum – Dark Allies
Linea Aspera – Eviction
Depeche Mode – Stripped
Set 3
Led Zeppelin – Immigrant Song
ZZ Top – Sharp Dressed Man
Bon Jovi – Wanted Dead or Alive
Dire Straits – Sultans of Swing
Black Sabbath – Paranoid
Iron Maiden – The Number of the Beast
Megadeth – Hangar 18
System of a Down – Cigaro
Alice In Chains – Man In The Box
Set 4
Spizzenergi – Where’s Captain Kirk
Public Image Ltd – Rise
Untoten – Alexanderplatz
DAF – Der Mussolini
David Bowie – I’m Deranged
Hawkwind – Silver Machine
Supertramp – The Logical Song
Styx – Renegade
Final Jonny vs Scott Tag Team
David Bowie – Space Oddity
Jefferson Airplane – White Rabbit
Fairport Convention – Breakfast In Mayfair
The Beatles – Revolution 1
The Doors – People Are Strange
The Velvet Underground – All Tommorrows Parties
Joy Division – Atmosphere
Depeche Mode – A Question of Lust
The Stone Roses – I Wanna Be Adored
Primal Scream – Higher Than The Sun
Outro: Angelo Badalamenti – Laura Palmer’s Theme