Friday, June 25, 2004
They're good time boys, make me feel good, let the good times play-ayy-ay-ay!
Wednesday saw me head down the M4 to the Land of my Fathers, the land of the perfect fry-up (courtesy of my Gran), the perfect cuppa (courtesy of my Grandad), and one huge, mummy-hugging stadium on the banks of the river Taff in Cardiff. After a quick warm-up pint in Cardiff, we rucked and mauled our way thorugh the crowds to our seats in the upper tier (oxygen masks provided under seat) for the night's entertainments. The roof was closed cos the weather was a bit ropey, but the squillions and billions of people who had thronged into the venue threatened to take it off on more than on occasion with their cheers of rapture, and their screams of delight (not to mention their howls of outrage at the quality of some of the food on sale.
The first band on were called "Chicks on Speed", and they'd be better off playing in small, dark and dingy clubs where their annoying Playschool-meets-happy-hardcore-with-whiny-voices-and-crap-instruments beats could - on a good night - take a few more steps towards "entertaining". Classic moment of the night was one of the singers waffling on about how bad capitalism is; not a great idea in front of 70,000 people who had each paid £35 for the privilege. Boo's and whistles were duly administered throughout the rest of their set, which was painful and drawn-out. An amusing female Meat Loaf impersonator joined them on stage for a while, which was quite funny I suppose. I boo-ed and repeatedly asked them to keep the noise down (in between songs, so that they could hear me) but to no avail. They even used the old "You're the best crowd we've had so far!" chestnut, which - due to them avoiding things that were being launched at them from the crowd - had a certain deadpan comedy value to it, but not enough to rescue what was basically a crap show with crap music.
Had a hot dog - the worst hot dog in the world. Cut-me-own-throat Dibbler would have been proud of it. It was made up of the bits that aren’t good enough to join the eyes, lips and foreskins in the real hotdogs, and I'm surprised I managed to keep what little I was foolish enough to swallow down. Bleeuurch! (In Welsh; "Ach y fy!").
Next band on stage, some aging American guy called James Brown. Not bad, couple of good tunes in his set; his band were tight and reminded me of the band in the Blues Brothers for some reason. I realised that the big screens at the side of the stage were OK, but the camera men were inept, and failed to film any of the interesting things going on, and focussed instead on whoever was solo-ing at the time. Mr Brown, it seems, has quite an eye for dancers, and his stage-show centres on some luverly laydeez wearing next to nothing, all getting their grooves on (none of which was caught that well by the camera-monkeys). Watch out for Mr. Brown, he could have a big future - and he did inspire me to wheel out almost the entire dialogue from Rocky IV with my esteemed companion for the evening when he played a song called "Living in America". I also cheated and used "You next, Joe!", which is actually from Rocky, but is a great quote, and should be used whenever possible. Great show, great band, great vocals from Mr. Brown, and after the opening band, it was nice to have some "Ooomph!" injected into the crowd, who loved it from start to finish.
But the band I had come to see could not hit the stage soon enough, and when they did finally wander on, I thought the place erupted. I say I thought the place erupted, because the audience certainly made a lot of noise, but not as much noise as they did when Mr. Frusciante opened up with the chords to "Can't Stop". Wow. They absolutely rocked from start to finish, give or take the odd crap joke from Flea ("Why can't ants run in marathons? Because their legs are too short.") and some weird punk covers that weren't familiar enough to be enjoyable. It was hard to dance from where we were, as we were in the stands, and had only enough room to sit down, let alone stand up and move about, but it was awesome to see the whole show - and the whole stadium enjoying it.
For a while now, I've been lamenting John Frusciante's reluctance to play distorted guitar, and I was wondering what I'd make of his sound, but I was a fool to ever doubt the man who wrote "Mother's Milk" when he was 18 and "BloodSugarSexMagic" when he was 21. Every song rocked; he played a Brown Telecaster, and the white Gretsch which appears on a few of his videos, and they all rocked. He is a genius, and has a very pure falsetto voice to boot - he did a cover of Donna Summer's "I feel love" which worked beautifully, and on more than one occasion his backing vocals proved much more reliable and polished than Anthony's singing. I got the feeling that Ant (as he lets me call him) is a very nervous performer, unconfident in his own abilities. Of course, he might just have been wasted and not in the mood, but he was still a great frontman.
The RHCP's played mostly material from "By the Way", and "Californication", the audience knew every word and sang along as one, screaming appreciation for all the band as they took solo's, and deservedly so as Flea and John displayed some mesmeric musical skills (Flea's trumpet solo interlude was a jazz masterclass, he's better on the trumpet than he is on bass - a legend I had heard some years ago, but can now verify - my jaw still hurts from when it hit the floor).
An encore saw them wheel out "Under the Bridge" and "Give it Away" - the crowd out did themselves again when "Give it away" started up, the Millenium stadium was a sell-out, and every single person in the stadium just went into funk-spasms and rock-ileptic fits whilst screaming "YEEEEEEEEEEEEESSS!!!!!" as loudly as they could muster. A sight I shall not forget. These were the only tracks they played from "BSSM", and although I held out right to the end in the hope that they would bless us/me with something - anything! - from "Mother's Milk", my hope was dashed when they started throwing the drum kit into the crowd, but I can forgive them. "Higher Ground" would have been fun; "Taste the Pain" would have made my night; "Nobody Weird Like Me" would probably have driven me insane with delight, but looking back, I don’t really care. I finally saw RHCP live, and can dispel the rumours that they "aren’t a great live band", or that they are anything less than super-heroes in my eyes. John Frusciante, I tip my hat to you, sir.
The first band on were called "Chicks on Speed", and they'd be better off playing in small, dark and dingy clubs where their annoying Playschool-meets-happy-hardcore-with-whiny-voices-and-crap-instruments beats could - on a good night - take a few more steps towards "entertaining". Classic moment of the night was one of the singers waffling on about how bad capitalism is; not a great idea in front of 70,000 people who had each paid £35 for the privilege. Boo's and whistles were duly administered throughout the rest of their set, which was painful and drawn-out. An amusing female Meat Loaf impersonator joined them on stage for a while, which was quite funny I suppose. I boo-ed and repeatedly asked them to keep the noise down (in between songs, so that they could hear me) but to no avail. They even used the old "You're the best crowd we've had so far!" chestnut, which - due to them avoiding things that were being launched at them from the crowd - had a certain deadpan comedy value to it, but not enough to rescue what was basically a crap show with crap music.
Had a hot dog - the worst hot dog in the world. Cut-me-own-throat Dibbler would have been proud of it. It was made up of the bits that aren’t good enough to join the eyes, lips and foreskins in the real hotdogs, and I'm surprised I managed to keep what little I was foolish enough to swallow down. Bleeuurch! (In Welsh; "Ach y fy!").
Next band on stage, some aging American guy called James Brown. Not bad, couple of good tunes in his set; his band were tight and reminded me of the band in the Blues Brothers for some reason. I realised that the big screens at the side of the stage were OK, but the camera men were inept, and failed to film any of the interesting things going on, and focussed instead on whoever was solo-ing at the time. Mr Brown, it seems, has quite an eye for dancers, and his stage-show centres on some luverly laydeez wearing next to nothing, all getting their grooves on (none of which was caught that well by the camera-monkeys). Watch out for Mr. Brown, he could have a big future - and he did inspire me to wheel out almost the entire dialogue from Rocky IV with my esteemed companion for the evening when he played a song called "Living in America". I also cheated and used "You next, Joe!", which is actually from Rocky, but is a great quote, and should be used whenever possible. Great show, great band, great vocals from Mr. Brown, and after the opening band, it was nice to have some "Ooomph!" injected into the crowd, who loved it from start to finish.
But the band I had come to see could not hit the stage soon enough, and when they did finally wander on, I thought the place erupted. I say I thought the place erupted, because the audience certainly made a lot of noise, but not as much noise as they did when Mr. Frusciante opened up with the chords to "Can't Stop". Wow. They absolutely rocked from start to finish, give or take the odd crap joke from Flea ("Why can't ants run in marathons? Because their legs are too short.") and some weird punk covers that weren't familiar enough to be enjoyable. It was hard to dance from where we were, as we were in the stands, and had only enough room to sit down, let alone stand up and move about, but it was awesome to see the whole show - and the whole stadium enjoying it.
For a while now, I've been lamenting John Frusciante's reluctance to play distorted guitar, and I was wondering what I'd make of his sound, but I was a fool to ever doubt the man who wrote "Mother's Milk" when he was 18 and "BloodSugarSexMagic" when he was 21. Every song rocked; he played a Brown Telecaster, and the white Gretsch which appears on a few of his videos, and they all rocked. He is a genius, and has a very pure falsetto voice to boot - he did a cover of Donna Summer's "I feel love" which worked beautifully, and on more than one occasion his backing vocals proved much more reliable and polished than Anthony's singing. I got the feeling that Ant (as he lets me call him) is a very nervous performer, unconfident in his own abilities. Of course, he might just have been wasted and not in the mood, but he was still a great frontman.
The RHCP's played mostly material from "By the Way", and "Californication", the audience knew every word and sang along as one, screaming appreciation for all the band as they took solo's, and deservedly so as Flea and John displayed some mesmeric musical skills (Flea's trumpet solo interlude was a jazz masterclass, he's better on the trumpet than he is on bass - a legend I had heard some years ago, but can now verify - my jaw still hurts from when it hit the floor).
An encore saw them wheel out "Under the Bridge" and "Give it Away" - the crowd out did themselves again when "Give it away" started up, the Millenium stadium was a sell-out, and every single person in the stadium just went into funk-spasms and rock-ileptic fits whilst screaming "YEEEEEEEEEEEEESSS!!!!!" as loudly as they could muster. A sight I shall not forget. These were the only tracks they played from "BSSM", and although I held out right to the end in the hope that they would bless us/me with something - anything! - from "Mother's Milk", my hope was dashed when they started throwing the drum kit into the crowd, but I can forgive them. "Higher Ground" would have been fun; "Taste the Pain" would have made my night; "Nobody Weird Like Me" would probably have driven me insane with delight, but looking back, I don’t really care. I finally saw RHCP live, and can dispel the rumours that they "aren’t a great live band", or that they are anything less than super-heroes in my eyes. John Frusciante, I tip my hat to you, sir.
# posted by AK @ 13:27 
