Panic! At The Disco at Brixton Academy - 02 Feb 2012
NO REALLY I PROMISE THIS WILL BE BRIEF!
So the groovers who were in attendance were: me! bebunny jenepel knight_tracer sunsetmog roga katie__pillar and another two awesome gals who are either not on LJ or whose LJ's I didn't manage to draw from them in my failtasticness ETA - and violet_doll and kickingrad - though I did get everyone's twitters! I CAN BE ORGANISED SOMETIMES.
We rendezvous'ed at Nando's (because we are classy like that) and had the fun introductions where you get everyone's names and then the SECOND round of introductions where you learn everyone's LJ names and you're like OH YOU, I KNOW YOU. (I had a moment when jenepel had to call my LJ name across the table to sunsetmog where apparently I turned a bright shade of red. WHAT, THERE IS NO POLITE WAY TO SAY 'I REALLY LIKE YOUR PORN' ACROSS AN AISLE AT A CROWDED NANDO'S. I FAIL AT MEETING PEOPLE.)
Anyway, we traipsed across the road to the show and after fighting our way through the people selling fake merch and the touts we joined the queue, which even after waiting a while inside where it was warm was still AROUND THE BLOCK. We chatted and chattered and tried not to freeze to death while waiting to get inside. They were dividing the line into women and men for searches, the women's line was FULL and the men's line was TOTALLY EMPTY. One guy broke away from his group all "SEE YOU INSIDE! :DDDD" and walked down the TOTALLY EMPTY LINE (of course once we got inside I saw him waiting for his posse, not so smug anymore are we?)
Anyway, we divided - the upstairs people went upstairs, and we downstairs people got ourselves a good posse in the standing section, just to the right of the sound booth (Stage left, AKA Dallon side, AKA Ray side) and while we weren't right up close to the stage we had a great view of EVERYTHING.
The support act - "Me" - were adorable (AND AUSTRALIAN, HEH). The LOOKED like bb!Panic, right down to the vests and stupid hair, and they switched around instruments a lot. The singer played some keyboard, one of the guitarists handed off his guitar to the singer and he played that while the guitarists played drums with the drummer (this was adorable. I have no idea who these guys are but I SHIP THEM ALREADY). They sounded a lot like Muse and two of their song intros sounded VERY MUCH like covers (Metallica's Enter Sandman for one). halfeatenmoon I think you might like these guys.
But yes! Main event! Panic played some kind of intro music and came out to a smoky stage, with a lot of steampunk-eque stage props - pipes like in a church organ and a pulpit - and Spencer's drum kit was up on a riser so unlike the Shepherd's Bush show we had an EXCELLENT VIEW of Spencer the entire show! Whee!
Okay, highlights! These are in no particular order because I am going from memory and I'm up waaaay past my bedtime!
Brendon was VERY talkative, he did quite a few long segue's between songs and he really seems intent on NOT being parent-friendly including:
Introducing Lying like THIS: "This is a song about fucking complete strangers... which is one of Ian Crawford's favourite pastimes!" (or something like that. I have a terrible memory.) Ian DENIED NOTHING.
Going up on the pulpit thing and talking all churchy-sermony at the audience. Saying things like, "I'm not a religious man, but if I knew God was up there, watching me dance like an idiot, I'd tell him to LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE" (again, paraphrasing) and then he went and did backflip off Spencer's drum riser. As you do.
The intro to That Green Gentleman "This is a song about smoking marijuana! No really, this song is about smoking weed!"
Another segue - THERE IS ONLY ONE TRULY GREAT FILM EVER MADE, it's not Citizen Kane! It's the most amazing film ever made and it's so much better than any other hollywood film (again I'm paraphrasing) and it's called........... JENNIFER'S BODY. It has a kickass soundtrack too! When they asked us to do a song for it, I had a vague idea for a song and I'd written one line. I told them "this is a song about ORAL SEX" and they LOVED IT, Hollywood loves that stuff.
"My good friend Dallon Weekes was saying to me (pitches up voice very bigh) "YOU KNOW WHAT BRENDON?" no really (pitches voice normal again) he said "you know what Brendon, you worry too much!" I asked him what about and he said "EVERYTHING! Brendon, you need to relax, you need to stop worrying about things that shorten life and just LIVE LIFE.
"Ian had some advice for me too, he said to me "Brendon..... you're a little BITCH. And then he punched me. In the mouth." I said, "you're right! I am, but why?" He told me, "Brendon, if you want to have THE RAINBOW, you need to learn to deal with THE RAIN"
..... and then they played Hurricane.
The intro to I Write Sins started with him deciding it was time to "get serious" and he talked about how even though he loves tour he misses his family, and he got to see them recently for Xmas. He mentioned his "sexy hip" mother. ("I can call her sexy, because it's not like she'll ever sleep with me") and he said he had a bad moment when her phone rang and he heard her ringtone, because it was an old song they've been playing for SO MANY YEARS and he's SO SICK OF IT and he didn't mean to but he was all "OH GODDAMIT MA, WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME" and then he apologised, so very sincerely for his outburst with something like "I love you and I am so glad to have COME OUT OF YOUR VAGINA."
IN CONCLUSION: Dear Brendon Urie, you are very nice to look at, PLEASE DON'T TALK.
In other news, they did the cover of The Darkness' "I Believe In A Thing Called Love" and look, I know I am late to the party okay, but I've never really had that much of a view on Ian at the other shows (Shepherd's Bush was all DALLON'S CROTCH and Reading was just me going OMG I CAN SEE SPENCER WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE ARE OTHER PEOPLE IN THIS BAND SPENCERSMITHSPENCERSMITH) and something about seeing them do this ridiculous rock metal song really drew my attention to the fact that IAN CRAWFORD CAN FUCKING SHRED.
Yeah I'll just wait a moment for you all to roll your eyes at me.
I KNOW, I AM SLOW, THE BOY IS FUCKING GOOD AT THIS. The solos in IBIATCL were PHENOMENAL. He really knows his shit!
Okay, I found a video. THIS IS NOT A VIDEO FROM LONDON. It's a video from Glasgow but I HAVE TO INCLUDE IT because there is SHIRTLESSNESS. And you will totally get what I'm saying aobut Ian:
Click to view(If you don't have time, then skip right to the solo at 2:52) Right? RIGHT?
And then AND THEN! 2 songs into the encore Brendon goes up to Ian and like pokes his chest saying "I was thinking about your tattoo, and I was thinking we should play some Zep. PLAY ME SOME ZEP."
And Ian JUST DOES. He busts right into The Immigrant Song and Spencer chimes in on drums and Dallon picks up the bass and Brendon just starts fucking WAILING and it was BRILLIANT and obviously completely unplanned and it was ZEPPELIN and I MAYBE CAME IN MY PANTS A LITTLE! They did the first verse and bridge and it kind of came to a natural end, definitely not the full song but and awesome chunk and I think maybe I have a thing for extremely competent guitarists with fro's who can totally shred *coughRayTorocough* NOT THAT I HAVE A TYPE OR ANYTHING.
Also, violet_doll GOT IT ON VIDEO:
Additional slightly-late-to-start video of it from random youtube! This one is much closer to the action:
Okay! Spencer! Was drumming! And I could see him! I could look at him WHENEVER I WANTED and it was GREAT. Also, when they came back onstage for the encore someone GAVE SPENCER A MIC. And he said, "we were maybe thinking we could play you one more song" WE ALL CHEERED "well maybe two more songs" WE CHEERED MORE "maybe even three more songs." CHEER CHEER CHEER YAY HOORAY HOORAY. I didn't quite catch the rest (hello? cheering!), but it was something like "Fuck, I'm not very good at this" and handing the mic off.
HE IS ADORABLE AND I MAYBE SIGHED AUDIBLY AND POSSIBLY CLUTCHED AT MY CHEST AREA. He also drummed like a FIEND all night. It was like DRUMMER PORN. GUH. I especially like when he does those little flourishes at the end where he holds his stick in the air like a CHAMP.
Not as much stagegay tonight as there was at Shepherd's Bush or even Reading, which was a bummer, and the closest anyone came to disrobing was when Ian came back on for the encore without his tie and with a few top buttons undone. MORE NUDITY NEXT TIME, OKAY BOYS? Dallon and Brendon did their usual nose-rubbing groping thing during Lying and there was another point near the end of the set when Brendon came up behind Ian and looped his arm around Ian's neck and Ian LEANED BACK INTO HIM and it was like Brendon was dipping him and Ian was all BLISSED-OUT-EYES-CLOSED and when I glanced at bebunny I could SEE a million new ideas for subverse being born at that moment.
Oh and there were a lot of adorable moments of playing to each other between Ian and Dallon and this lovely moment when Brendon was singing while Ian and Dallon played and SPUN ACROSS THE STAGE IN OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS BEHIND HIM. Like ballet! Rock n' roll ballet! It was beautiful.
So in conclusion: Dallon is a tall drink of water. Spencer is a fucking HOTASS. Brendon is a hotass who gives me EPIC MOTTS and needs to spend less time talking and more time taking his clothes off and IAN IS A FUCKING HOTASS WHO CAN SHRED IN A WAY THAT TOTALLY ENGAGES MY COMPETENCY KINK AND MAKES ME WONDER IF HE CAN CHANNEL RAY TORO.
So yeah, I guess the gig was okay.