Faith in a future, they shot and missed. Our ways of expression: A heart not a fist.
Hello all!
Yep, last night was positively immense as expected, and even though it wasn’t as special as last time (that was the first time I’d seen the guys live, and their set lest was marginally better), last night was still mind-numbingly fantastic. This is, as like most of my posts, extremely long, so if you have a short attention span and can’t be arsed with it all, that’s your fault; not mine. If you do want to read it all, then good stuff, I love you. Read on.
Ok, met up with Isla and Marianne at around 1.30 outside Ticket Scotland, and was rather puzzled at how tiny Marianne was. She appeared to be massively tall at Isla’s 18th, but yesterday she seemed to have shrunk by about three inches. Turns out it was because she was wearing heels last time. Oh well!
After popping into Boots to see Louise hard at work, we made our way to the Barrowland. This was about 2.00, and there was just 20 people or so already there - the majority of them Blood Pact, no doubt - so it wasn’t that bad at all. But then cops started to wander up the queue searching people, and seeing as Ms Isla had a small brewery stashed in her bag, we had to depart until it was disposed of - and by disposed of, I of course mean drunk by the girls until not one drop remained. I didn’t have anything because I knew how long we would be waiting outside, and when I drink, I have to pee. A lot. My bladder is rubbish. So I didn’t exactly fancy having to go take a piss twenty times while waiting 5 hours to see my favourite band.
We ended up in this AMAZING graveyard five minutes down from the venue, and really, this place was beautiful. It’s this huge, almost film noir-like cemetery that spirals up and round all the way to the top. Some of the monuments, statues and graves were stunning, and I HAVE to go there again soon. It was so huge. And as much of a cliché as it is (oh, alternative boy likes to hang in a graveyard - GAWTH!!!!), I don’t care. I’ve always loved graveyards, and this was without question the best one I’ve ever seen. I actually miss it right now…
But yeah, we hung around there for an hour or so and took lots of dorky pictures, and found great amusement in Marianne’s ghost noises. Haha, wow, trust me, if you’re ever haunted by Marianne, you WILL be disturbed.
After saying goodbye to the heavenly graveyard (wow, odd adjective to describe a cemetery there), we returned to the queue. Weird thing was though, in the hour that we were gone, no one new had arrived, and we were back at exactly the same spot we were before, behind the same people *twilight zone music* Eeeep.
The wait to get in was TORTURE. Even more so when Heather Hann and Mike Park came out right past me while Isla and Marianne went for chips, and I was too much of a pussy to say anything to them - even though last time the Trio were here I waved like a goon to Heather at the merch stand and she smiled back. Gutted.
Actually, speaking of merch, when we finally got in, I was mortified at some of the prices: £15 for an Alkaline Trio scarf, £10 for gloves, and £5 for a FOUR-PACK of badges. See that? Five quid for four badges??? What in the name of Lucifer is going on there??? Meh, still didn’t stop me from buying them though - along with the snazzy wee gloves and a hoodie. Yep, I will spend disgracefully unreasonable amounts of money for Alkaline Trio goods. That’s dedication there.
First support band were Sunshine. And I was heavily disappointed to find out that it wasn’t THE Sunshine - Sunshine Andriano, Danny’s wife. Nope, it was just a band called Sunshine. A rather lame band as well - but then again, if a band is going to actually name themselves fucking Sunshine, they can’t not be crap. Sure, the dudes played well and were mighty good at what they do, but what they do happens to more tedious than watching every James Bond movie front to back. They were dull as fuck. I can’t even bring myself to give them something resembling a proper review, that’s how little I was impressed.
Thankfully, Mike Park was up next. Yep, the Asian Man Records owner and all round ska-punk legend himself. I felt privileged to be in the mere presence of this man, never mind watch him play. Shamefully, not everyone felt the same as yours truly: fucking retard behind me kept taking the piss about the bowler hat Mike was wearing when he came out, and constantly shouted for him to put it back on and other such nuggets of comedic wisdom. The dude was an utter imbecile, and the fact he was nigh-on pissing himself at his own ‘jokes’, made it all the much more pathetic. Cock.
Thankfully, I blocked it out, and highly enjoyed Mike’s set of socially aware and pro-unity, anti-racist acoustic songs. It was impossible not to get caught up in the camaraderie and admirable pride of his music and inspirational speeches between songs. Aside from the douche behind me, the whole crowd welcomed him with open arms, and we rallied him on with an enthusiasm I’ve never seen for any support act ever. It was such a touching thing to have been a part of, and hopefully we all made up for the disgustingly ignorant bastards who gave him a Hitler salute as he was walking around town earlier that day.
I was so chuffed that Isla was positively affected by him and asked me where she could get his stuff. I’ve been trying to get his albums for aeons, but I, along with Ms Isla, will have to resort to Amazon or something I think, such is the small-time obscurity of most Asian Man Records releases.
The wait for Alkaline Trio was next, and even before they came out, things in the crowd were getting a bit out of hand. I cannot express in words how close together every one was. You had to experience it to believe it. The three of us were about two rows from the front and right in the middle, facing the centre of the stage. It was nigh on impossible to move, trust me.
The band’s badass intro tape hit, and out came our boys. They looked fucking awesome. Matt had thankfully put on some much-needed weight, and wasn’t as shockingly stick thin as he was last time, and Derek and Dan, holy shit, that was a shock haha. Derek had this awesome, new floppy mohawk and was cooler than a snowman’s scrotum, and Danny looked the shizzle - he has a beard now that surprisingly suits him damn well, and all-round, he looks better than I’ve ever seen him.
The surprises kept coming, because they opened with Back To Hell. Almost every showed they’ve played since Crimson came out, they have opened with Time To Waste, so them opening with this was highly unexpected - but the song fucking shreds, so it’s all good. That mother of a chorus was chanted back to the guys as if all our lives depended on it, and you could tell from their faces that they knew they had the best crowd in the world in front of them, and this was going to be a blinder of a show. And fuck aye, it was.
But third song in, Maybe I’ll Catch Fire (one of my all-time favourites, as you all know), UTTER CHAOS ERUPTED. The part of the crowd we were in, front-centre, was claustrophobically cramped enough already, but when that song hit everyone surged from behind or from the sides to the centre - which was where we were. Isla seemed to have got out, but Marianne, myself and about 10 others where all rammed to the right at once, and we all collapsed onto to one another on the floor due to not being able to move. We literally couldn’t move any more, that’s how cramped it was, so the only place we could go was down. We all were forced to the ground in one big heap of humanity, as everyone else grabbed on to whoever was next to them to not fall down too. I saw the boy next to me on the ground have his back literally stood on. It was something I’ve never experienced at a gig in my life - nor want to again. I lost Marianne in all the carnage, and as security guys rushed into the pit to check, I dragged my ass up best I could and tried to help up the kid next to me, but I then got dragged away as the crowd collectively surged again, this time to the left. People were still on the floor at the time, and it was something you would expect to see at a Hatebreed gig or some shit, not Alkaline Trio. By the time I was relatively free of broken bones, Maybe I’ll Catch Fire was only on the second chorus. All of the above happened in the space of one song. It was extraordinary.
Now somewhat comfortable in the crowd (I could actually move a couple of inches!), I could now enjoy the gig as it was intended. Here’s the set list, not in order though - obviously:
Time To Waste
The Poison
Burn
Mercy Me
Deathbed
Settle For Satin
Sadie
I Was A Prayer
Back To Hell
This Could Be Love
We’ve Had Enough
Fatally Yours
Private Eye
Armageddon
Maybe I’ll Catch Fire
She Took Him To The Lake
Radio
Clavicle
I Lied My Face Off
As a whole, I’ve never seen the guys more intense. It was an incredibly aggressive, forceful performance. I loved that about the whole show. Before, they would always looks somewhat timid at times, and even in a hurry to get through their songs, but last night it was nothing but confidence, and there was almost a brashness to them, as if they were saying, Motorhead-style, “We are Alkaline Trio, and we are going to kick your ass!” They were also flawlessly tight musically, and that’s quite possibly been the band’s only weakness in the past. But I’ll be damned, last night they were tighter than a gnat’s chuff - wow, I want to have sex with whoever gave me that phrase, I can’t remember who is it right now, but really, it fucking rules haha. But yeah, damn solid last night, and both Danny and Matt’s voices sounded note-perfect.
As great as it is, you all know Crimson is my least favourite of everything the guys have released, so it was a welcome surprise last night that a lot of what they played from it actually out-classed the older gems we all adore. Burn was an absolute tour de force, and the break in the middle where Matt stepped away from the mic, and with his fist in the air, gave us the refrain of “Like Hell, we are anxiously waiting/Like Hell, burning silently strong…”, that was fucking exceptional, and such a great moment. The Poison’s chorus sounded huge, and with all of us shouting along and jumping like mentalists, the guys couldn’t help but look on in amazement, chuffed to hell. Mercy Me and I Was A Prayer were joyous sing-alongs, and the latter might just be the most perfect pop song Danny has ever written, and wow, Sadie… Sadie was every bit as stunning as one would have hoped - Matt singing that “woahhh” climax like he truly meant it, raw emotion escaping from every orifice in his body. Amazing.
But of course, we all went ape-shit for the classics.
THEY PLAYED CLAVICLE AND SHE TOOK HIM TO THE LAKE!!!!
Man, that has made my year. You all know how much I love the former, as it sums up early Alkaline Trio perfectly: glorious melodic punk about girls and being piss-drunk. I couldn’t fucking believe it when Matt rattled out that intro - ‘No WAYYYYYYY! Oh fuck, IT IS!’, I screamed in my head. And then later, She Took Him To The Lake. Man, that was something. Dan has always found that song difficult to perform live, and if you listen to his voice while singing it and those heartbreakingly sad lyrics, you’ll easily understand why. It’s an important song to me, and it was a powerful two and a half minutes watching him get through a song he doesn’t like to sing live, but he’ll do it anyway, because he knows how much we all love it, and how it also means as much to some people there as it does to him. This is a band that love their fans, and don’t any of you ever forget that.
Other highlights included the last chorus of Armageddon which Matt gave to us, and the fact that we, the crowd alone, all overpowered the music was fucking astounding, and Matt’s reaction was absolutely priceless - I think his eyes rolled back up into his head with almost orgasmic-joy at his own fans haha. Private Eye never, EVER gets old, and even more so when the girl next to me grabbed me and we sang along to the chorus haha. That was brilliant, and it’s reasons like that why a great gig can be the best thing in the world: I mean where else in the world would a cute girl you don’t even know wrap her arms around you and start singing with you?! NO WHERE, THAT’S WHERE. I shouldn’t have let her disappear, she was pretty hot. The set ended with This Could Be Love, and I’ve always loved that song, but I’ll be damned, the boys have turned it into an absolute behemoth of a show-stopper, whereas before they just played it as it was lifted straight from the album. But last night it was immense. When they broke down the bridge to give the crowd “LOVE FOR FIRE!!”, it was spectacular, and when the song finally climaxed with that last “ONE BY ONE!”, my throat was fucked, and every hair on my neck and arms was upright. Spine-tingling greatness, mother fuckers.
Encore was Time To Waste and Radio, and the former’s intro was again, more spine-tingling greatness. Danny’s off the cuff motion to get the crowd chanting “Hey! Hey! Hey!” with our fists in the air during the bridge was genius, and something I’d bet any money the band wouldn’t have even thought of doing a few years ago. They have grown as all-round live performers so much, and the whole gig was a lesson in showmanship from that encore intro, to the double dropping of the curtains and banners mid-set. Utter class. Radio sent us home like last time, and of course, nothing beats a room full of 2000 people shouting at full volume, “I’ve got a big fat fucking bone to pick with you, my darling.”
Hooked back up with Isla and Marianne after wandering around for five minutes in a dehydrated daze. Even beat up and drenched in seat, the gals still looked lovely, whereas I looked like a heroin addict who had just been sodomized for an hour. Me + Sweat + Limping leg = Not pretty. But maaaaaaan, it was worth it. Such a great gig, and when I finally got home, I had the most exhilarating and much-needed shower in my life.
So all in all, a damn good - and constantly surprising - Sunday was had by yours truly. Farewell to all! x
Yep, last night was positively immense as expected, and even though it wasn’t as special as last time (that was the first time I’d seen the guys live, and their set lest was marginally better), last night was still mind-numbingly fantastic. This is, as like most of my posts, extremely long, so if you have a short attention span and can’t be arsed with it all, that’s your fault; not mine. If you do want to read it all, then good stuff, I love you. Read on.
Ok, met up with Isla and Marianne at around 1.30 outside Ticket Scotland, and was rather puzzled at how tiny Marianne was. She appeared to be massively tall at Isla’s 18th, but yesterday she seemed to have shrunk by about three inches. Turns out it was because she was wearing heels last time. Oh well!
After popping into Boots to see Louise hard at work, we made our way to the Barrowland. This was about 2.00, and there was just 20 people or so already there - the majority of them Blood Pact, no doubt - so it wasn’t that bad at all. But then cops started to wander up the queue searching people, and seeing as Ms Isla had a small brewery stashed in her bag, we had to depart until it was disposed of - and by disposed of, I of course mean drunk by the girls until not one drop remained. I didn’t have anything because I knew how long we would be waiting outside, and when I drink, I have to pee. A lot. My bladder is rubbish. So I didn’t exactly fancy having to go take a piss twenty times while waiting 5 hours to see my favourite band.
We ended up in this AMAZING graveyard five minutes down from the venue, and really, this place was beautiful. It’s this huge, almost film noir-like cemetery that spirals up and round all the way to the top. Some of the monuments, statues and graves were stunning, and I HAVE to go there again soon. It was so huge. And as much of a cliché as it is (oh, alternative boy likes to hang in a graveyard - GAWTH!!!!), I don’t care. I’ve always loved graveyards, and this was without question the best one I’ve ever seen. I actually miss it right now…
But yeah, we hung around there for an hour or so and took lots of dorky pictures, and found great amusement in Marianne’s ghost noises. Haha, wow, trust me, if you’re ever haunted by Marianne, you WILL be disturbed.
After saying goodbye to the heavenly graveyard (wow, odd adjective to describe a cemetery there), we returned to the queue. Weird thing was though, in the hour that we were gone, no one new had arrived, and we were back at exactly the same spot we were before, behind the same people *twilight zone music* Eeeep.
The wait to get in was TORTURE. Even more so when Heather Hann and Mike Park came out right past me while Isla and Marianne went for chips, and I was too much of a pussy to say anything to them - even though last time the Trio were here I waved like a goon to Heather at the merch stand and she smiled back. Gutted.
Actually, speaking of merch, when we finally got in, I was mortified at some of the prices: £15 for an Alkaline Trio scarf, £10 for gloves, and £5 for a FOUR-PACK of badges. See that? Five quid for four badges??? What in the name of Lucifer is going on there??? Meh, still didn’t stop me from buying them though - along with the snazzy wee gloves and a hoodie. Yep, I will spend disgracefully unreasonable amounts of money for Alkaline Trio goods. That’s dedication there.
First support band were Sunshine. And I was heavily disappointed to find out that it wasn’t THE Sunshine - Sunshine Andriano, Danny’s wife. Nope, it was just a band called Sunshine. A rather lame band as well - but then again, if a band is going to actually name themselves fucking Sunshine, they can’t not be crap. Sure, the dudes played well and were mighty good at what they do, but what they do happens to more tedious than watching every James Bond movie front to back. They were dull as fuck. I can’t even bring myself to give them something resembling a proper review, that’s how little I was impressed.
Thankfully, Mike Park was up next. Yep, the Asian Man Records owner and all round ska-punk legend himself. I felt privileged to be in the mere presence of this man, never mind watch him play. Shamefully, not everyone felt the same as yours truly: fucking retard behind me kept taking the piss about the bowler hat Mike was wearing when he came out, and constantly shouted for him to put it back on and other such nuggets of comedic wisdom. The dude was an utter imbecile, and the fact he was nigh-on pissing himself at his own ‘jokes’, made it all the much more pathetic. Cock.
Thankfully, I blocked it out, and highly enjoyed Mike’s set of socially aware and pro-unity, anti-racist acoustic songs. It was impossible not to get caught up in the camaraderie and admirable pride of his music and inspirational speeches between songs. Aside from the douche behind me, the whole crowd welcomed him with open arms, and we rallied him on with an enthusiasm I’ve never seen for any support act ever. It was such a touching thing to have been a part of, and hopefully we all made up for the disgustingly ignorant bastards who gave him a Hitler salute as he was walking around town earlier that day.
I was so chuffed that Isla was positively affected by him and asked me where she could get his stuff. I’ve been trying to get his albums for aeons, but I, along with Ms Isla, will have to resort to Amazon or something I think, such is the small-time obscurity of most Asian Man Records releases.
The wait for Alkaline Trio was next, and even before they came out, things in the crowd were getting a bit out of hand. I cannot express in words how close together every one was. You had to experience it to believe it. The three of us were about two rows from the front and right in the middle, facing the centre of the stage. It was nigh on impossible to move, trust me.
The band’s badass intro tape hit, and out came our boys. They looked fucking awesome. Matt had thankfully put on some much-needed weight, and wasn’t as shockingly stick thin as he was last time, and Derek and Dan, holy shit, that was a shock haha. Derek had this awesome, new floppy mohawk and was cooler than a snowman’s scrotum, and Danny looked the shizzle - he has a beard now that surprisingly suits him damn well, and all-round, he looks better than I’ve ever seen him.
The surprises kept coming, because they opened with Back To Hell. Almost every showed they’ve played since Crimson came out, they have opened with Time To Waste, so them opening with this was highly unexpected - but the song fucking shreds, so it’s all good. That mother of a chorus was chanted back to the guys as if all our lives depended on it, and you could tell from their faces that they knew they had the best crowd in the world in front of them, and this was going to be a blinder of a show. And fuck aye, it was.
But third song in, Maybe I’ll Catch Fire (one of my all-time favourites, as you all know), UTTER CHAOS ERUPTED. The part of the crowd we were in, front-centre, was claustrophobically cramped enough already, but when that song hit everyone surged from behind or from the sides to the centre - which was where we were. Isla seemed to have got out, but Marianne, myself and about 10 others where all rammed to the right at once, and we all collapsed onto to one another on the floor due to not being able to move. We literally couldn’t move any more, that’s how cramped it was, so the only place we could go was down. We all were forced to the ground in one big heap of humanity, as everyone else grabbed on to whoever was next to them to not fall down too. I saw the boy next to me on the ground have his back literally stood on. It was something I’ve never experienced at a gig in my life - nor want to again. I lost Marianne in all the carnage, and as security guys rushed into the pit to check, I dragged my ass up best I could and tried to help up the kid next to me, but I then got dragged away as the crowd collectively surged again, this time to the left. People were still on the floor at the time, and it was something you would expect to see at a Hatebreed gig or some shit, not Alkaline Trio. By the time I was relatively free of broken bones, Maybe I’ll Catch Fire was only on the second chorus. All of the above happened in the space of one song. It was extraordinary.
Now somewhat comfortable in the crowd (I could actually move a couple of inches!), I could now enjoy the gig as it was intended. Here’s the set list, not in order though - obviously:
Time To Waste
The Poison
Burn
Mercy Me
Deathbed
Settle For Satin
Sadie
I Was A Prayer
Back To Hell
This Could Be Love
We’ve Had Enough
Fatally Yours
Private Eye
Armageddon
Maybe I’ll Catch Fire
She Took Him To The Lake
Radio
Clavicle
I Lied My Face Off
As a whole, I’ve never seen the guys more intense. It was an incredibly aggressive, forceful performance. I loved that about the whole show. Before, they would always looks somewhat timid at times, and even in a hurry to get through their songs, but last night it was nothing but confidence, and there was almost a brashness to them, as if they were saying, Motorhead-style, “We are Alkaline Trio, and we are going to kick your ass!” They were also flawlessly tight musically, and that’s quite possibly been the band’s only weakness in the past. But I’ll be damned, last night they were tighter than a gnat’s chuff - wow, I want to have sex with whoever gave me that phrase, I can’t remember who is it right now, but really, it fucking rules haha. But yeah, damn solid last night, and both Danny and Matt’s voices sounded note-perfect.
As great as it is, you all know Crimson is my least favourite of everything the guys have released, so it was a welcome surprise last night that a lot of what they played from it actually out-classed the older gems we all adore. Burn was an absolute tour de force, and the break in the middle where Matt stepped away from the mic, and with his fist in the air, gave us the refrain of “Like Hell, we are anxiously waiting/Like Hell, burning silently strong…”, that was fucking exceptional, and such a great moment. The Poison’s chorus sounded huge, and with all of us shouting along and jumping like mentalists, the guys couldn’t help but look on in amazement, chuffed to hell. Mercy Me and I Was A Prayer were joyous sing-alongs, and the latter might just be the most perfect pop song Danny has ever written, and wow, Sadie… Sadie was every bit as stunning as one would have hoped - Matt singing that “woahhh” climax like he truly meant it, raw emotion escaping from every orifice in his body. Amazing.
But of course, we all went ape-shit for the classics.
THEY PLAYED CLAVICLE AND SHE TOOK HIM TO THE LAKE!!!!
Man, that has made my year. You all know how much I love the former, as it sums up early Alkaline Trio perfectly: glorious melodic punk about girls and being piss-drunk. I couldn’t fucking believe it when Matt rattled out that intro - ‘No WAYYYYYYY! Oh fuck, IT IS!’, I screamed in my head. And then later, She Took Him To The Lake. Man, that was something. Dan has always found that song difficult to perform live, and if you listen to his voice while singing it and those heartbreakingly sad lyrics, you’ll easily understand why. It’s an important song to me, and it was a powerful two and a half minutes watching him get through a song he doesn’t like to sing live, but he’ll do it anyway, because he knows how much we all love it, and how it also means as much to some people there as it does to him. This is a band that love their fans, and don’t any of you ever forget that.
Other highlights included the last chorus of Armageddon which Matt gave to us, and the fact that we, the crowd alone, all overpowered the music was fucking astounding, and Matt’s reaction was absolutely priceless - I think his eyes rolled back up into his head with almost orgasmic-joy at his own fans haha. Private Eye never, EVER gets old, and even more so when the girl next to me grabbed me and we sang along to the chorus haha. That was brilliant, and it’s reasons like that why a great gig can be the best thing in the world: I mean where else in the world would a cute girl you don’t even know wrap her arms around you and start singing with you?! NO WHERE, THAT’S WHERE. I shouldn’t have let her disappear, she was pretty hot. The set ended with This Could Be Love, and I’ve always loved that song, but I’ll be damned, the boys have turned it into an absolute behemoth of a show-stopper, whereas before they just played it as it was lifted straight from the album. But last night it was immense. When they broke down the bridge to give the crowd “LOVE FOR FIRE!!”, it was spectacular, and when the song finally climaxed with that last “ONE BY ONE!”, my throat was fucked, and every hair on my neck and arms was upright. Spine-tingling greatness, mother fuckers.
Encore was Time To Waste and Radio, and the former’s intro was again, more spine-tingling greatness. Danny’s off the cuff motion to get the crowd chanting “Hey! Hey! Hey!” with our fists in the air during the bridge was genius, and something I’d bet any money the band wouldn’t have even thought of doing a few years ago. They have grown as all-round live performers so much, and the whole gig was a lesson in showmanship from that encore intro, to the double dropping of the curtains and banners mid-set. Utter class. Radio sent us home like last time, and of course, nothing beats a room full of 2000 people shouting at full volume, “I’ve got a big fat fucking bone to pick with you, my darling.”
Hooked back up with Isla and Marianne after wandering around for five minutes in a dehydrated daze. Even beat up and drenched in seat, the gals still looked lovely, whereas I looked like a heroin addict who had just been sodomized for an hour. Me + Sweat + Limping leg = Not pretty. But maaaaaaan, it was worth it. Such a great gig, and when I finally got home, I had the most exhilarating and much-needed shower in my life.
So all in all, a damn good - and constantly surprising - Sunday was had by yours truly. Farewell to all! x