Before that however I celebrated by seeing the Dandy's live for the first time in my life. This fact is quite silly as they have had many tours and I have had many chances to see them, who I have always had a great love for. Better late than never. And being my first time, my expectations were pretty high along with my excitement level. It was also my first valley gig since moving there and I was keen to take advantage (actually being able to walk home in less than 10 minutes, what!).
What followed was a gig that totally exceeded my expectations beyond belief, which is a hard feat. My group and I got caught up with food and drink and hence missed the support act, Los Huevos, which I was a little looking forward to checking out, but being a Brisbane band I'm sure I'll have the chance to see them again. Before long, the main act arrived; Courtney Taylor-Taylor, still very doable even with his hair in a bun, Zia McCabe, similarly doable enhanced by her rock chick long hair, epicly teased-haired Brent de Boer on a low to the ground drum kit, and shy on the sidelines guitarist Peter Holmström. They began with a long wall of sound which then became "Be-In". from 'Come Down'. Having 'Be-In' as an opener was literally the best thing they could have done (to me imo) and I was thrilled. It is such a perfect opening for that album and one of my favourites of theirs. I expected the crowd to be just as thrilled but I felt a little dorky jigging around and fist pumping while the rest around me just stood and watched. It's not a big
thing but it is really awkward getting into a song when no one else is... it's so much more fun when others are (safely and not rudely!) going mad for it with you. GUYS, AREN'T YOU AS EXCITED AS ME! IT'S THE DANDY'S! Oh that's right you've all probably seen them three times already. Sigh.
On the topic of going mad for it I cannot avoid talking about the middle aged lady who was in front of me the whole gig. First she introduced her weird thing by thinking that my (well it was oversized, I had come straight from work), handbag was a dog. Ummmmm. Then for the rest of the gig anyone that came within any sort of proximity to her was moved aside, by her. When the crowd DID get into it, and others' space were being invaded (NOT hers), she made it her business to butt in and have her say, to the point of harshly pushing someone right through the crowd, which was more damage than he was doing at the time (and again, NOT TO HER).
It was pretty brutal and distracting and further reinforces my view (which I am often reminded of while accompanying my parents to gigs) that if you have big issues with having yours or others' space invaded at shows/festivals, then there are probably better places for you to stand. And the Tivoli has a perfectly good balcony where she would have enjoyed herself more. There aren't so much 'rules' at gigs as expectations, and while people pushing through is annoying, of course, to most people, there is really nothing you can do about it, as in a General Admission gig, no piece of space is rightfully anyones. All personal space boundary rules are totally broken in mosh pits, and they always will be. And there is always that annoying drunk idiot who dances around completely unaware of other people in their wake. It happens, we get annoyed (as do I), but it's to be expected, and if it's not for you, there are better places to view the show.
Speaking of the show, back to it. The set was absolutely epic. They played a huge stack from 'Come Down' and '13 Tales from Urban Bohemia' and won the crowd with their hits from 'Welcome to the Monkey House' (namely "You Were the Last High" and "We Used to be Friends"). The earlier two albums I completely adore so I was ecstatic to hear so much from them. It's fantastic when a band picks a setlist that seems to echo completely your personal favourites, and it sounds wanky, but it was as if the band went into my brain and picked out the songs I had really been enjoying and decided there was a good selection there and went with it. And with that, played the songs extremely well, with full passion, power and harmony.
There were a few new songs there which sounded really good and appeared to hark back to their rawer earlier sound, moreso than the synth driven songs of their later offerings. Courtney decided to break up the momentum a little by leading the audience into a softer, slower acoustic version of "Everyday Should Be A Holiday", which worked really well even though it would have been just as fun to rock out to with the full band. Where horns were present in songs such as "Godless", the band sang 'ba-ba-ba's' to make up for it, and with the audience going along as well, it didn't feel like anything was missing.
The last of the set was a real highlight, with "Pete International Airport" blissing me out until it lead into "Boys Better" which was a super crowd pleaser and topped off the musical euphoria. As a 'final' song they went with "Country Leaver", which was an odd but cute choice that in the end I was glad for, as it is the type of song to put a cheeky smile on your face and leave me with a sweet memory to take home with.
Courtney's cheeky smile
It had been such a long set, at least over an hour and 45 minutes, so I wasn't expecting an encore. But soon after exiting, the band returned for "the only encore of the Australian tour", although I may need confirmation from other concert goers... If it was true, we were the lucky ones treated to a cover of "Hell's Bells" by AC/DC. I am by no means a fan of AC/DC but they did an excellent take of it, and I enjoyed a final helping of their sound before heading home.
I couldn't really speak about it afterwards as it was so much to take in. A culmination of years of Dandy fandom all in an epic 2 hour explosion of music, left me a bit speechless. God knows what I'm going to be like if I ever see something like Radiohead. I'll probably have an aneurysm.
Nine unzipped bananas out of ten, and a serious contender for gig of the year.... but we'll see about that, there's Pulp and Elbow to yet see.........
.... and i also got tickets to Steely Dan. Bet you can't wait for that post.
No comments:
Post a Comment