Clyro Cycle completed

Jun 30, 2014 17:56






Biffy were back in town last week.  A mere six-and-a-half years since last time at the Savoy, Where It All Began for me.Though too long for local idiot DJ, who as well as asking Si in a phone interview if it was there first time playing Cork, also had to be put right on the number of people in their live act.  Don't they have the internet at 96FM, or are they just too lazy to do any googling?  Had some motivational issues with the support, having firstly, heard nothing about who they were for months, and even after the Dublin gig's supports were long announced, secondly, having never heard of them, when they were, and thirdly, being pretty unimpressed with what I heard of them when I did investigate.  Especially with the main support, "Wounds" -- not the first metal band of that name, and I'm certain, not the last -- whose mission statement might well be "combining the most painful clichés of hard rock and emo".  Plus I felt horribly tired, and a little sneezy, to boot.  So I procrastinated around until moving became pretty much necessitated.  Minor disaster en route -- back tyre blowout.  Not a huge surprise, I must admit, as I'd been looking at it warily for a while, and putting off actually doing anything about it.  The mercy is that it went on Washington Street, and not at some unearthly hour out in Aherla, Macroom, or points in between.  Still, left me with some hoofing to do to get to the gig -- rather why I decided to cycle, rather than take the bus, as they don't really deign to go in that direction at all.





Missed the first two songs!  Well, missed seeing them, at least.  I could hear them pretty well as I huffed and puffed down Centre Park Road.  Annoying.  They were launching into "The Captain" (ahoy!) as I shuffled into the big ol' tent.  Made my way down the house left side, getting all the way to the barrier just a little beyond the actual frontage of the stage area before I encountered significantly countervailing density.  Right in front of a bass speaker, mind you, which might "help" with that.  (In deference to middle-aged eardrums, I'd earplugs in.)  This meant that I was on the Simon(+Gambler, these days) side, as opposed to my more usual Jimbo(+Mike) house right.  The keyboardist backlights well, at least for fleeting moments, though photographing that is another matter entirely.  Set highlight would have to be "Hero Management", first "oldie" of the evening, and not one I was expecting.  (Dublin got the much more standard-issue "Justboy", which only as of that evening dropped out of my "tracks most heard living" tie-for-first-place, according to setlist.fm.)  I welled up a little.  (Due to playing Iron Man in the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game?  No idea.  I may have the occasional emotion, but I'm still working on getting them replying to my polite enquiries.)  They also played Questions and Answers, which I didn't realize until much later I'd never heard them play live before.  The final, and sadly third, pre-Puzzle track was "Glitter and Trauma" (which still is in said tie-for-first-place).  Not that many from Puzzle itself, either, only another three, and all of them singles (not that most of that album didn't end up as a single of some sort).  Aside from being a somewhat short "pseudo-festival" type set, they really are focusing on the "last two albums" type stuff these days.  First time I'd heard them play "Whorses", though!  Greatly enjoyed that.  Oh, and first time for "Accident Without Emergency", too -- think that one was so early on I was still a little generally bemused.  (I mean to say, marginally moreso than usual.)



 

Curiously "festival set" vibe to the whole thing.  Relatively short setlist, the two supports in a fairly brisk evening schedule, and the much reduced staging from the "arena tour proper" (e.g. the O2 last year), with just a painted backdrop rather than the ego ramps, curious mezzanines, and Power Towers.  I guess it's the season for it, and they're someplace between the Isle of Wight and T in the Park, and they're not ones for changing what they're playing any huge amount from gig to gig.  I guess the Kilmainham gig, being outdoors, most clearly fits the pattern, and the Marquee is likely something of an "add-on".  Or itself is a month-long quasi-fest, perhaps, or the tented "third stage" of one, in its own conceptualisation of itself.  Was slightly amused to see another gig-goer unlocking a bike from a nearby lamppost -- good to see I wasn't the only person mad enough to think of cycling there.  (Just the only one failing at it, very likely.)  Two interesting developments on my trudge home.  First, pre-bike-retrieval, passed a woman in a Biffy "cat" t-shirt.  Two great things that were surely meant to go together!  Sadly, only available in "ladies".  I'd like to take my inspiration from El Si's wearing of Top Shop slacks (not to mention a certain IT Crowd ep) and help de-gender clothing, but even I could manage to "pull off" a "gentle bat-wing sleeve", I don't fancy my chances of squeezing my flabby middle into a "slimfit L".  And reunited with bike, wheeling it along Western Road, passed (and felt the need to congratulate) a guy signing off a mobile call asking someone how sure they were, "On a scale of 'one' to 'Wittgenstein'."  That was an unexpected note of Positivism into my evening.

Feet in bits after walking home, and legs feeling it, too.  Perhaps cycling, rather than actually improving my general fitness, is merely cramming myself into an ever-smaller niche of physical capability.  Or maybe I need to take up Rob Brydon's "gentleman's long sock" theory, or indeed buy some new shoes.  As for the bike tyre, have "quick"-fixed for now.  It survived a trip to Dunnes for milk -- fridge needs defrosted, so living hand-to-mouth on 1l cartons, to avoid it going filmjölkish (again) -- but it looks horrendous, and feels detectably bumpy.  In two minds about whether to hold out for my mail-order "folding" tyres, or to nip to Kilgrews and buy some trad roundy ones.

wittgenstein, bike repair, cats, marquee, cork, gigs, biffy clyro

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