14 gigs
13 days
25 bands
12 venues
6 towns/cities
£185+ on tickets
1300+ miles
£135+ on travel
£??? on food and drink

That's the tale of my Easter Holidays, some amazing gigs, ace people, and far too many miles/hours/money spent on them.

The Best
Muse w/ The Futureheads @ Royal Albert Hall
12th April 2008
Anyone who I've mentioned this to will already know that this show was one of the best I've ever been to, with only Arcade Fire in Dublin besting it. The Futureheads were good support, but Muse showed me why they actually deserve their reputation as one of the best active live bands. The sound in the RAH was as expected stunning and having decent seats meant that we could actually watch the band perform rather than concentrating on keeping our feet - of course that was a negative when the likes of New Born kicked but on the whole made it a more enjoyable experience. Being in the seating area also meant that when Muse came on we were actually full of energy and although I'm sure I looked like a complete tit going mental to some of the stuff I didn't care. The ending of Bliss where Matt popped a balloon with the final note was perfect timing, and finishing with Knights of Cydonia was brilliant. I also have to say that the video they showed promoting the work of the Teenage Cancer Trust also added to the sense of occasion as it's the only charity video I've seen that's actually managed to make me properly think (and I say this having been to Live 8).
Best Song: Megalomania (on the Albert Hall organ!!!)


The Great:
Los Campesinos! w/ Lovvers and Sky Larkin @ Brixton Windmill
14th April 2008
The third time that I saw Los Camp in 4 days but definitely the best of the lot - and that's all that Im allowed to say thanks to Gareth's blog/post/scrobble ban.
Best Song: Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks

65daysofstatic w/ Errors and Gay For Johnny Depp @ Concorde II
13th April 2008
65 have always been good live, but at Brighton they managed to put in what I consider to be one of the best times I've seen them. Playing a lot of the lesser heard stuff from The Fall of Math was a welcome surprise, even if they did omit I Swallowed Hard... from the setlist. The reworked version of Dance Parties sounded amazing, and although Radio Protector wasn't as astounding as at Electric Ballroom it still sounded like the soundtrack to a more intense future. The two support bands were also decent, in their own way. GFJD were entertaining, but not something I'd go out of my way to see, and Errors were listenable though I'd struggle to praise them much more than that.
Best Song: Dance Parties (Mechanised)

Holy Fuck w/ Free Blood @ 100 Club
8th April 2008
First time I'd seen Holy Fuck and for a gig that I'd gone to on the basis of one listen through the album and their reputation I was very impressed. Free Blood were the best support act I saw of the entire holiday and would have blown many headline acts off the stage with their endless energy and movement around the venue. Reminding a lot of a stripped down !!! (unsurprisingly seeing as one of them is in !!!) their electro vocal performance was the perfect way to warm up for the main act. Holy Fuck then didn't disappoint playing a tight set of about 50 minutes including the encore which was long enough to get into things but didn't go so long as to feel boring.
Best Song: Lovely Allen


The Surreal:
Alaska in Winter w/ Mitch & Murray and Marianne Dissard @ 93 Feet East
10th April 2008
This gets a whole section to itself as while it was very good it had an overwhelming feeling of surrealness to it. The two supports weren't horrendous, Marianne Dissard showing off her vocal ability, and Mitch & Murray, well, showing that they were much better at stage banter than at poor mournful indie. Alaska In Winter was a completely different proposition. Rather than hiring in musicians to play alongside him, Brandon Bethancourt had recorded himself playing each of the individual instrument parts beforehand and put them together to play on a projection screen behind him. While it led to it seeming more like a karaoke session at times which Bethancourt just doing the vocals over the top of the pre-recorded video it generally came together seamlessly, so much so that by the end we wanted more. Which led to a problem as it was pre-recorded. The solution - as suggested by a crowd member - do the first song over again. So he finished his set the same way it had started, playing dance party in the balkans, though the earlier synchronisation with the clothing was completely messed up.
Best Song: The Homeless and the Hummingbirds


The Good:
The Automatic w/ Viva Machine @ Sugarmill, Stoke
6th April 2008
The Automatic w/ Viva Machine and Canterbury @ Soundhaus, Northampton
5th April 2008
I'm putting these two together as they were very similar gigs. The Stoke gig had much better sound and if I hadn't managed to miss out on the end due to a crowdsurfer, bruised ribs and an ambulance would probably have made it into the great section. Northampton served as a good introduction to the new stuff but the sound was a bit off and it never really managed to get going. Stoke was much better as some of the new stuff had become familiar and although some of the older songs have lost a bit of what made them special (no synth intro on By My Side coming to mind particularly) they still have much of the same punch. Viva Machine had also improved since earlier shows, definitely becoming a much tighter band.
Best Song: Recover (in Stoke)

Los Campesinos! w/ Lovvers and Lonely Ghosts @ The Forum, Tunbridge Wells
11th April 2008
My first experience of Los Campesinos! as a headline act and they managed to live up to my expectations. There was a sense of fun-ness in the crowd, with widespread approval for Gareth telling a member of the crowd who's spent most of the early part of the set jumping into people to "calm down or fuck off". While not as good as the Brixton show they showed me then that they had the ability to bring it together and make such a joy-brining sound that seeing them again would definitely be a brilliant use of time. The supports were also pretty entertaining - Lonely Ghosts being better musically, and I found Lovvers entertaining, though there was nothing really in the music that stood out.
Best Song: You! Me! Dancing!

The Hives @ Rock City, Nottingham
16th April 2008
One of a couple of gigs where my bruised ribs really dampened my enthusiasm for the performance. The Hives are one of those bands where you're unlikely to get a bad show as Pelle is just too good of a frontman to let that happen and he was on form in Nottingham playing up his arrogant side - at one point telling us to applaud ourselves and then stopping us saying that that was it and that all our applause from now on was to be directed to them on stage. Unfortunately it was hard to fully enjoy them when I either had to make the choice to jump around or sing/shout along as doing both put just abit too much pressure on my chest. Was a decent setlist, with ...Armaggeddon being ace with their trademark statues pose in the middle. The lack of A.K.A I-D-I-O-T and Untututored Youth was a bit disappointing but overall it was a decent performance.
Best Song: Hate to Say I Told You So


The Not Bad:
Los Campesinos! @ After Skool Klub at LSE
12th April 2008
Coming directly after Muse this was unlikely to be amazing, but as I was in such a happy mood I still loved it. Standing someway back Lucy and I were barely able to see, and with it being a club night the sound was unsurprisingly cluttered. Having someone behind us who was screaming in my ear during You! Me! Dancing! also wasn't a positive but overall it was an enjoyable set and the perfect thing to keep my post-Muse high going.
Best Song: This Is How You Spell "Hahaha, We Destroyed The Hopes And Dreams Of A Generation Of Faux-Romantics"

Viva Machine @ Bodega Social, Nottingham
17th April 2008
As we arrived at the venue - at 10.50 - we saw the stage times sheet saying that Viva were on at 10.30, and heard their sound floating down the staircase. We got inside, and one of the first people we saw was Martin who said that we'd only missed a couple of songs. They definitely seem to be getting tighter with every performance, and the bulk of their set was the same old same old, with Supernova standing out as one of the highlights. Nottingham however was all about Mental State, a song which played live for the first time in Nottingham and showed a more grown-up, louder, better version of Viva and one which I actually got excited about like I never have before about them.
Best Song: Mental State

The Subways w/ Johnny Foreigner @ Concorde II
7th April 2008
The other gig where my bruised ribs got in the way of full enjoyment. Coming the day after Stoke I was still tired and made the choice to stand directly in front of the sound desk, away from the main bulk of the crowd. It took away from the gig but did mean that I actually got to hear the songs with what should be the best sound in the venue. The new stuff sounded reasonably good, though much less raw than their first album - and Billy definitely seems to have arenas in his eyes with the songs sounding like they were designed to be played in places much bigger than Concorde II. The best bit of the night however was driving back home after, listening to the Johnny Foreigner EP (which I'd bought despite not thinking they were *that* good) and realising that it's seriously decent. Definitely planning on seeing them again as soon as possible in the future.
Best Song: I Want to Hear What You Have Got to Say

Dan Le Sac VS Scroobius Pip w/ Producers with Computers and Gideon Conn @ Concorde II
15th April 2008
Le Sac VS Pip showed me again that when they nail a song it sounds utterly amazing. Their second track, which I believe was called The Magician's Assistant was an amazing track in the vein of Angles with the bass rhythm drowning in distortion so the only thing that could be clearly made out were Pip’s vocals. Unfortunately that was the only new one that stood out though I’ll probably still be purchasing the album as it’ll have Angles, Thou Shalt Always Kill, Letter From God To Man, and Fixed on it. The rest of the night was decidedly less than average. Producers With Computers came off as wanting to be the white Dizzee Rascal but ended up sounding more like the offshoot of Blazin Squad, and Gideon Conn tried to be amusing (and probably was for the teenagers in the crowd who appreciated his dick and fart jokes) but having seen Beans on Toast it just didn’t compare as far as amusing singer-songwriters go.
Best Song: Magician’s Assistant


The Average:
Blood Red Shoes w/ These New Puritans @ KCLSU
9th April 2008
I wasn’t that fussed about seeing Blood Red Shoes again, and when These New Puritans were below par I knew that the gig probably wasn’t going to turn out that great given that they’d been the main impetus behind getting a ticket. Blood Red Shoes then weren’t bad; they just seemed to get very bogged down in the middle of the set with each song seemingly merging in to the next. The night however was saved by the encore which saw them finish with ADHD, in itself not an amazing occurrence. That they got Conic up on stage to play the cowbell then had a stage invasion of about 20 - 25 people with conic still managing to keep time brought it up from its previous indistinctness.
Best Song: ADHD

So nearly two weeks with some amazing gigs and some amazing people along the way. I can’t think of a better way to have spent my Easter holidays, so thanks to everyone that let me stay at there’s, helped out with transport costs, or just came to any of the gigs with me. T’is now back to the working grind – got to have some way to pay for all of this excess.