Jan 28

Feeder (Renegades) + LightsGoBlue @ O2 Academy 3, Birmingham, UK – 28/01/2010

Feeder (Renegades) Is this really a sign of the times? It's early 2010 and Feeder is headlining Birmingham's O2 Academy 3, a venue with a maximum capacity of 250! Surely it wasn't that long ago when they were playing the main stages at some of the country's most prestigious festivals: Glastonbury, Download, Reading and Leeds as well as headlining their own much larger international tours. Perhaps this is a good indication of the life span of the modern music band? One minute you feature heavily on Radio 1's playlist, riding the crest of a wave, as it were. Then the next, you're scrabbling along trying to get back to those glory days when your brand new Jaguar had a CD player (player, player, player…) and you drank cider from a lemon (lemon, lemon, lemon…).


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Jan 21

The Imagined Village + Chris Wood @ Town Hall, Birmingham, UK – 21/01/2010

The Invisible Village Crossing genres, cultures and generations The Imagined Village really shouldn’t work (the basic idea is to take a bunch of traditional folk tunes and reinterpret them for 21st century Britain). In fact it should come across as some awful mish mash of sounds, like two competing car radios (one playing Radio 4, the other 1 Extra) at a set of traffic lights. The fact that it does work says a great deal about the musical talents at the core of this project and the openness of everyone involved to really mess around with what ‘folk’ music means these days. In truth, although the first Imagined Village album (released in 2007) won ‘folk’ awards, this stuff is closer to ‘world’ music than anything else, given the strong Asian and Middle Eastern flavours running through some of the arrangements. Anyway, that’s the musical analysis over with (there’ll be questions at the end).


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Jan 20

Jamie T @ O2 Academy, Birmingham, UK – 20/01/2010

Jamie T A number of things very quickly become apparent at a Jamie T gig. Firstly, he's got a loyal, passionate urban youth following, all of whom seem to know every word to every song. rust me that's a lot of lyrics. Led by their onstage conductor, they sing along with gay abandon, and shout, whoop and holler at all of the key points. LLOOOONNNDDDOOOONNN!!


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Jan 19

John Mayer @ Wolverhampton Civic Hall, Wolverhampton, UK – 19/01/2010

John Mayer Being a big John Mayer fan for a long time it was a great pleasure to be able to finally get to one of his gigs. The anticipation had set in earlier in the day and I was "up for it". Awesome seats, 3rd row middle balcony gave a great view of the stage. I've never sat down at a gig but I was liking the feeling of a Roman Emperor at the Colosseum (in my strange fantasy world). A great night was to be had.


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Jan 12

Interview with Tim Nordwind from OK Go, Birmingham, UK – 12/01/2010

Interview with Tim Nordwind from OK Go, Birmingham, UK - 12/01/2010 This is the interview that almost didn’t happen. GigJunkies photographer Wayne Fox was having car trouble and only at the death did the garage give it a clean bill of health. I happened to be battling my way through road closures, snow and typical winter traffic on my way down from York. Worst of all though Damian Kulash – Lead Singer and Lead Guitarist was pronounced unexplainably ill upon our fortunately early arrival. Nobody seemed to know quite what was wrong with him (there was even talk he may be pregnant) – Whether Damian would be fit enough to even do the show was uncertain. Fortunately, bands do interviews as a duo. Damian may have been too ill to talk but it didn’t stop Tim Nordwind taking to the stage and battling along solo.


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Jan 12

OK Go + Malpas @ O2 Academy 2, Birmingham, UK – 12/01/2010

OK Go I’ve been really struggling to write what I hope is a decent intro for this review of OK Go. A band that could wrongly be described as an Internet phenomenon based purely on the amount of hits their videos get via YouTube. Whether or not you’ve heard of the band or can picture at least one of their records. I’d stake money on you having seen one of their videos or at least seen blatant rip offs on TV. But before we get to OK Go...


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Dec 17

The Raveonettes + The Northwestern @ The Hare and Hounds, Birmingham, UK – 17/12/2009

The Raveonettes The Raveonettes are Danish, right? It gets pretty damn cold in Denmark, right? Well they should be right at home in Kings Heath tonight then. Yep, it’s cold enough to freeze mercury (and the rest of Queen) out there, but here in the Hairy Hounds a capacity crowd soon help to thaw out my extremities (it was touch and go for a moment though… if anyone finds a finger tip it’s probably mine… pop it in the post, it’ll be fine)...


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Dec 14

Interview with Sweethead, Birmingham, UK – 14/12/2009

Sweethead “Being sober hurts so bad, being drunk is fun. Being hung over can be painful; being sober can be painful too. Crammed in a van with 5 other guys can be painful. Being treated like the Evil Stepmother” As opening introductions go, that statement by Serrina Sims pretty much sums up what it must be like touring with and opening for ‘Them Crooked Vultures’. Moving from one location to another, having to drink and party with the likes of Troy Van Leeuwen, Josh Homme and Dave Grohl on a daily basis must be gruelling work any time of the day or night. Or as Norm would say “Living The Dream, LTD unlimited baby”. Sweethead is the brainchild of Queens of the Stone Age Troy Van Leeuwen on Guitar, alongside members of Mark Lanegan band; Eddi Nappi on Bass and Norm Block on Drums. Rounding them out is Rock and Rolls latest pin up temptress; Serrina Sims.


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Dec 14

Them Crooked Vultures + Sweethead @ O2 Academy, Birmingham, UK – 14/12/2009

Them Crooked Vultures By the time Them Crooked Vultures were about due to take the stage the 02 academy was completely crammed full. Their album “Them Crooked Vultures” has had warm reviews since its release but the anticipation in the crowd suggested that it’s not music fans that have cast the judgement. Normally when bands come out the venue will cut the background music and dim/turn off the lights but in this case Dave Grohl simply walked across the back of the stage and waved to the crowd, for a split second there could have been confusion that he was a roadie, but once the crowd realised who it was the room erupted with cheers. The other member of Them Crooked Vultures soon followed in a similar relaxed and unassuming way. Before their arrival the simple stage set up revealed nothing as to the bands identity, all except a vulture perched atop the drummer’s microphone. When all four band members were on the stage the whole place stood to cheer them. It was like a standing ovation before they had started.


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Dec 13

Marilyn Manson + esOterica @ O2 Academy 1, Birmingham – 13/12/2009

Marilyn Manson Marilyn Manson? Playing a gig on a Sunday? Isn’t there a law against stuff like that? Happily not, although I was kind of expecting a plague of locusts to fill up the Academy at any moment (hmmm I wonder how security would deal with that one eh?) or perhaps the good Lord would just turn us all into pillars of salt or some other such biblical jiggery pokery. Clearly he had other things to do this evening though. Washing his beard perhaps? That must be a bugger to keep clean.


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