Fake Tales Of Ben & Jerry's
The thing I love the most about the Arctic Monkeys is the funk they put into their songs and the conversational tone of the lyrics, which are laden with cynical observations about life and its myriad situations. Ok, fine, there's also the reason that Alex Turner's voice is sex with his British accent and eccentricities, but even so, their music is some of the best that I have heard. And I was looking forward to listening to their music live, hearing the frantic guitars and drums of When The Sun Goes Down or the loaded cynicism of Fake Tales Of San Francisco for the first time in my life in an Arctic Monkeys concert.
Alas, I got my wish. Sort of. When I met up with the A53 peeps (and Jussi) last Friday, we went to Ben & Jerry's for dessert and there was a live band setting up to perform there. Once we got our ice-cream (Merlionster! 6 scoops! Brownies! Hot Fudge! Woo! Apparently you get a free scoop with every Merlionster, so why don't they just sell it as having 7 scoops? Sheesh), the band started with an incredible rendition of an Oasis song. The best I've ever heard! Better than Oasis themselves!
Actually no. They pretty much sucked. They weren't too bad, it's just that they're not very good. I mean, it says something when I can't even remember which Oasis song they played. All I remember was that it was a pretty iconic song but damn if I can't remember anything.
And then it happened. The opening riffs of Fake Tales Of San Francisco. My mind was going "No! Say it isn't so! This cannot be happening!" but it was. An amateur band dared to shatter my dream of listening to that song live for the first time by the Arctic Monkeys themselves. And not only that, they brutally raped it, inserting their virgin musical penis into that song's tender vagina and turning it into a barren wasteland, unfit for anyone's aural pleasure. Thank you, amateur band at Ben & Jerry's, for forcing me to create that mental image and indubitably scarring many tender and innocent minds reading this blog.
Anyway, the meet-up was fun, although noticeably lacking in numbers. Ironic, considering that the dinner was planned way in advance so that people would actually set aside time for it, except that people eventually forgot altogether. Tsk. Baaad ex-classmates. Nonetheless, it's pretty good to meet up with Ave, Jussi, Norman, CherylMelinda (the singular entity as it is written in the book of A53) and Farah. Haven't seen some of them in a year or so. Hope I can meet the rest pretty soon too, although with the local unis starting soon, it seems like an impossibility at this point *sadface*
So here are the pics. See, I made everyone read through all that before you can get the pics. Bwahaha. I am teh evil. Very few pics since I wasn't in a paparazzi mood that day. Only comment about the pics is that I have ugly teeth. Yuck.
PS. Doubly ironic about the crap band is that the song is an observation piece about a pretty shitty band making people wish they weren't at the bar at all. Haha. Wonderful yes?
the band weren't very good and i'm not having a nice time