The Horror Show?

For some reason I always seem to be behind on my posts (I still have another Oot and Aboot one to do....) and here is no exception....I suppose it doesn't matter, as if you post immediately then you might not have time to reflect, but if you don't then you might forget things

About two weeks ago now I went to the NME Rock n Roll Riot tour at the Astoria. Normally on these things you would see three or four upcoming bands with decent reputations, although my main reason for attending was to see the Fratellis. I like the Astoria as it has unreserved seating, which means if we get there early enough we can sit down (which to old people like me is important). We did have some tube issues so ended up walking down Tottenham Court Road from Euston, which did mean walking past Spearmint Rhinos, which was interesting as I didn't know where it was really.

The first band on were quite clearly the most memorable. They've even been on the front of NME which is some feat, they are The Horrors. I'd love to tell you what their music was like, but I can't because it was simply the loudest thing I've ever heard at a concert. It was dark on stage so you couldn't really make out what the band were doing, except the keyboard player who was kind of hunched down, knees bent swaying from side to side. The lead singer (if 'sing' is the right word) stalked the stage, shouting incomprehensible lyrics, and at one point joined the mosh pit (if that is the right word, seemed like a lot of kids swaying to be honest). At the end hey smashed a guitar, which I thought for a reletively young band might prove expensive. The kids seemed to love them, my ears didn't, and Susie complained of hers ringing the next day. I did see the singer milling around the bar later (he had a distinictive white checked waistcoat on, you can see him in it here), and asked him whether they smashed a guitar every day, and even then he was hard to understand. I got the fact that the guitar cost £90, but it was either a 'spare' or a 'spur' and it was the first time they had done that. I heard a song of theirs on XFM the other day, could still only make out some of the words!!!!!

Bands two and three, The Dykeenies and The Maccabees passed me by, can't even remember anything specific about them, although the former are Scottish.

The Fratellis were good I thought, played all their album plus some other songs, and I think they have a fairly strong album. They also ended on a cover of Goldfrapp's Ooh La La, which sounded pretty good too.

Back to the loudness though, do you think this means I'm getting too old to go to young people's concerts, and should maybe start attending, I don't know, James Blunt, or maybe Daniel O'Donnell shows?