Wilco @ the roundhouse
Another gig where I wasn't on my own! This time I went along with an ex-edinburgh gig goer, who now lives in London. I wasn't supposed to be drinking after a fairly epic leaving party the night before (I will never know how I survived that one) but wound up have a 11% Belgian beer with some food beforehand.
The roundhouse is a pretty good venue and we were able to catch the support act, Jonathan Wilson.These guys were serious Pink Floyd fans to the point where it occasionally sounded like tribute rather than inspiration. There are far worse bands to sound like though and I couldn't fault their sound although the length of the songs were a bit inaccessible if you'd never heard them before.
Before Wilco came on, I made the mistake of going to the toilet. It was like stepping into a mirror universe. There was a 10 man strong queue formed by the entrance to the men's, while there was no queue at all for the women. I've never seen this before and the crowd didn't suggest the gig was a sausage-fest. The problem was the idiotic design of the bathroom which had only two urinals and zero manoeuvering room.
The upshot of this was that by the time I returned to the standing area it had become completely jam-packed and it was impossible to locate, let alone get to my friend. I retreated back to a safe distance, let her know where i was, and watched the show. I have to admit to not really being familiar with the Wilco discography so I was more than impressed by the fact that enjoyed the entire set with songs I'm pretty sure I've never heard before. They also sounded a lot livlier than when I've listened to them (the main benefit of live gigs) and the band is definitely cool.I'm sure serious fans would have had an amazing time, unless they hate all of their recent stuff.
Once finished, I discovered another flaw with the venue design. There only appears to be one exit and that is immediately followed by a flight of stairs. This resulted in a mad stampede where the cattle all panicked upon discovery of the stairs and it took me a good 10 minutes to escape.In future I will make sure to aim towards the exit once encores start.
On the way home I managed to rest my eyes around Balham for a minute. The next thing I knew I was in Morden (end of northern line). Usually this isn't a problem as it's only a stop away from where I usually get off but I happened to time it so that the last train had already left Morden. I confusedly head outside the station only to find what appeared to be a dead man or overdosed character surrounded by police. I then made a bad attempt at finding the correct night bus and was very lucky in that I had some money on my oyster card as there were no charge points and I had no change on me,
The roundhouse is a pretty good venue and we were able to catch the support act, Jonathan Wilson.These guys were serious Pink Floyd fans to the point where it occasionally sounded like tribute rather than inspiration. There are far worse bands to sound like though and I couldn't fault their sound although the length of the songs were a bit inaccessible if you'd never heard them before.
Before Wilco came on, I made the mistake of going to the toilet. It was like stepping into a mirror universe. There was a 10 man strong queue formed by the entrance to the men's, while there was no queue at all for the women. I've never seen this before and the crowd didn't suggest the gig was a sausage-fest. The problem was the idiotic design of the bathroom which had only two urinals and zero manoeuvering room.
The upshot of this was that by the time I returned to the standing area it had become completely jam-packed and it was impossible to locate, let alone get to my friend. I retreated back to a safe distance, let her know where i was, and watched the show. I have to admit to not really being familiar with the Wilco discography so I was more than impressed by the fact that enjoyed the entire set with songs I'm pretty sure I've never heard before. They also sounded a lot livlier than when I've listened to them (the main benefit of live gigs) and the band is definitely cool.I'm sure serious fans would have had an amazing time, unless they hate all of their recent stuff.
Once finished, I discovered another flaw with the venue design. There only appears to be one exit and that is immediately followed by a flight of stairs. This resulted in a mad stampede where the cattle all panicked upon discovery of the stairs and it took me a good 10 minutes to escape.In future I will make sure to aim towards the exit once encores start.
On the way home I managed to rest my eyes around Balham for a minute. The next thing I knew I was in Morden (end of northern line). Usually this isn't a problem as it's only a stop away from where I usually get off but I happened to time it so that the last train had already left Morden. I confusedly head outside the station only to find what appeared to be a dead man or overdosed character surrounded by police. I then made a bad attempt at finding the correct night bus and was very lucky in that I had some money on my oyster card as there were no charge points and I had no change on me,