Deaf but happy
alaimacerc you are a big eejit! Shoulda come along!
Ultravox was f**king brilliant!!! So much so I am posting on the Eeee PC even though it drives me nuts with the typos. Stoopid teeny tiny keyboards!!!
Wussed out on the fanclub meet-up in the Porterhouse because A: packed and B: shy. Should have gone in. But that and buying the wrong T-shirt are my only regrets. Oh man was this worth the organization, the ghastly drive up on Friday, the abandonment of BB with one Grandparent and DD with the other 2, missing dinner, and the resulting tinnitus, let alone the money,
We were on time. Horribly and uncomfortably on time for the gig. The seats in the Olympia make Ryanair look like business class. We listened to the intro compilation - fun selection - and read the programme which was actually a pretty decent programme. Colour me stunned! Then there was the support guy who was, well, ah bless him! Luckily the age of mobile phones gave me sudoku and Mr Wol access to wikipedia to check out who played what on the intro compilation and various bits of email. Ain't technology grand!
Then the fog machines stared. I have not seen a fog bank roll off a stage like that since Stomp played the Gaiety and choked us all on dust with their sweeping brooms routine. And it just kept on c ming. For 15 minutes plus! Sitting in row 3, 2 metres from the stage and less than from the bass stacks (OW!) we were soon invisible. Then the house lights went down and the fog was lit up an eerie grey (and my ex-techie soul nodded at all the fog - making an even grey light is the very bugger) and three suited figures half emerged to stand behind keyboards and blow us all the fuck away with the first number. The part of Warren Cann might have been phoned in from LA for all we cold see at this stage. The fog gradually cleared so we could see faces and they swept forward, Midge picked up his guitar and we were into Passing Strangers and I sat there with my mouth open in pure, blissful amazement. Just like John Cusack says in the film, you got to start with a hot one, grab their attention, then you got to kick it up a notch, but you don't want to blow your wad all at once so you dial it back a few and slowly build it up again. Textbook maybe but brilliant! And LOUD! Midge wasn't kidding when he said they made a big noise. BIG NOISE!
They were razor sharp and smooth and sounded terrific! And after 23 years off they worked together really smoothly. Warren is one hell of a drummer - sharp and wild and cool. Billie Currie is nuts! and how many rock gigs have kick ass violin solos. Midge is, well, Midge, and he still does the snaky hips, shoulder down, guitar dance that makes me go all weak and Mr Wol mutter about him never getting the completion grant from the Ministry of Silly Walks. Chis Cross though has done a Maurice Gibb and morphed into 'the Hot One!' of the group. Even when he danced with both hands in his pockets to Thin Wall he was HAWT! A bit like a maths teacher at a disco who you look at bopping away all ready to make mock and then double take and realise that 'Sir' is sexy!
Midge got us all up and dancing which was a relief as the middle aged bladders were making themselves felt and I was ready to bite the next git to step on me as they squeezed their way past to the bog. He also got us singing which he may have regretted because we were tuneless! but keen!! By the end of the encore people were screaming, waving, leaping about and the people on the balcony and in the boxes were in serious danger, swinging over the edge of the balustrade. The Olympia is such an odd venue for a good, rowdy gig: like a Victorian lady in her skirts and stays at a Sex Pistols concert. At the end the band were hugging eachother, sweaty and grinning so maybe they will come back one day. We certainly made them feel loved I hope.
I am torn. I want time travel please so I can go back and watch that again, And the Monument tour, and hell a lifetime's worth of other gigs and theatre shows. But if II have time travel, so will some other careless buggers and the whole timeline might get erased. So I must settle for the comforting knowledge that time is not the linear illusion it seems to us and so sometime, somewhen you will always be able to find me, going nuts at my first and probably only Ultravox gig.
Thankyou lads.
Ultravox was f**king brilliant!!! So much so I am posting on the Eeee PC even though it drives me nuts with the typos. Stoopid teeny tiny keyboards!!!
Wussed out on the fanclub meet-up in the Porterhouse because A: packed and B: shy. Should have gone in. But that and buying the wrong T-shirt are my only regrets. Oh man was this worth the organization, the ghastly drive up on Friday, the abandonment of BB with one Grandparent and DD with the other 2, missing dinner, and the resulting tinnitus, let alone the money,
We were on time. Horribly and uncomfortably on time for the gig. The seats in the Olympia make Ryanair look like business class. We listened to the intro compilation - fun selection - and read the programme which was actually a pretty decent programme. Colour me stunned! Then there was the support guy who was, well, ah bless him! Luckily the age of mobile phones gave me sudoku and Mr Wol access to wikipedia to check out who played what on the intro compilation and various bits of email. Ain't technology grand!
Then the fog machines stared. I have not seen a fog bank roll off a stage like that since Stomp played the Gaiety and choked us all on dust with their sweeping brooms routine. And it just kept on c ming. For 15 minutes plus! Sitting in row 3, 2 metres from the stage and less than from the bass stacks (OW!) we were soon invisible. Then the house lights went down and the fog was lit up an eerie grey (and my ex-techie soul nodded at all the fog - making an even grey light is the very bugger) and three suited figures half emerged to stand behind keyboards and blow us all the fuck away with the first number. The part of Warren Cann might have been phoned in from LA for all we cold see at this stage. The fog gradually cleared so we could see faces and they swept forward, Midge picked up his guitar and we were into Passing Strangers and I sat there with my mouth open in pure, blissful amazement. Just like John Cusack says in the film, you got to start with a hot one, grab their attention, then you got to kick it up a notch, but you don't want to blow your wad all at once so you dial it back a few and slowly build it up again. Textbook maybe but brilliant! And LOUD! Midge wasn't kidding when he said they made a big noise. BIG NOISE!
They were razor sharp and smooth and sounded terrific! And after 23 years off they worked together really smoothly. Warren is one hell of a drummer - sharp and wild and cool. Billie Currie is nuts! and how many rock gigs have kick ass violin solos. Midge is, well, Midge, and he still does the snaky hips, shoulder down, guitar dance that makes me go all weak and Mr Wol mutter about him never getting the completion grant from the Ministry of Silly Walks. Chis Cross though has done a Maurice Gibb and morphed into 'the Hot One!' of the group. Even when he danced with both hands in his pockets to Thin Wall he was HAWT! A bit like a maths teacher at a disco who you look at bopping away all ready to make mock and then double take and realise that 'Sir' is sexy!
Midge got us all up and dancing which was a relief as the middle aged bladders were making themselves felt and I was ready to bite the next git to step on me as they squeezed their way past to the bog. He also got us singing which he may have regretted because we were tuneless! but keen!! By the end of the encore people were screaming, waving, leaping about and the people on the balcony and in the boxes were in serious danger, swinging over the edge of the balustrade. The Olympia is such an odd venue for a good, rowdy gig: like a Victorian lady in her skirts and stays at a Sex Pistols concert. At the end the band were hugging eachother, sweaty and grinning so maybe they will come back one day. We certainly made them feel loved I hope.
I am torn. I want time travel please so I can go back and watch that again, And the Monument tour, and hell a lifetime's worth of other gigs and theatre shows. But if II have time travel, so will some other careless buggers and the whole timeline might get erased. So I must settle for the comforting knowledge that time is not the linear illusion it seems to us and so sometime, somewhen you will always be able to find me, going nuts at my first and probably only Ultravox gig.
Thankyou lads.