Dark thoughts: why some gigs linger longer
Why are some gigs especially memorable? Er, that's simple, right? Because the performer (band, singer, DJ whatever) belted out fantastic music and you were bowled over by it and never forgot how good the show was, whether it was last week or about 40 years ago. This is obvious, isn't it? Er, no, I don't think so. Over the years anyone going to a steady number of gigs clocks up hundreds and hundreds, even thousands. Presupposing a lot of them are good (true in my case anyway), that's an impossibly large number to remember. Unless you're some kind of Hitchcockian Mr Memory, they're all a bit blurry (at best). No, the ones that linger longer in my shattered and increasingly-frayed memory tend to be those that had something a bit ... extra. To illustrate the point, take this list of 20 excellent gigs I cobbled together a few years back in a best gigs of the 2010s blog. They were all good (very good) musically, but they mostly had a stand-out feature. These were the 20 picks:
-The Rent Boys: Stag's Head, London, 29 January 2010
So for example, with Diaphram Failure it was because the slightly crazed singer did a thing where he intoned "What ya doing with my fucking shopping?" over and over again (about 30 times). He also, if I recall correctly, rummaged around in various shopping bags and pulled out things like sparklers which he promptly lit and waved around on stage. It was these elements of Captain Beefheartian weirdness that stood out. The band's powerful drone-rock stuff was also good, but the "What ya doing with my fucking shopping?" stuff made it. Anyway, a few of the others: Hamer/Sleep Terminal - excellent because of the sheer intensity of the noise-rock sound but also because Hamish from Hamer seemed to be on tip-top deranged rock-dude form, which was fairly mesmerising to watch; the Rent Boys - great Stooges-type stuff but long remembered because of their brilliantly camp on-stage remark, "Tell you what, come back round here in six months' time and they'll be serving warm pickled onions ... straight from the oven" (take that Shoreditch); the Sundae Kups - because this chaotic surf-rock band kept manically crashing into each other, rolling around on the floor while continuing to play and the chaos only came to an end (an abrupt one) when the manager of the venue switched off the power after about 15 crazed minutes; Black Mekon - their Batman and Robin masks; Black Tambourines - guitarist Sam Stacpoole's hip-shimmies and hair-shakes; Self Deconstruction - their fantastic grindcore-geisha outfits and savage delivery (ditto a couple of others with the savage delivery thing). And so on. You get the picture (maybe). Another thing to mention is that many - though not all - of these acts were being seen for the first time, which I think often adds to the impact, seeming to stamp something extra in the memory. Anyway, probably this is all blindingly obvious. Or is it? People drone on about the great gigs they've attended but I think it's actually quite hard to conjure up much from what's by definition a fleeting experience. You had to be there - and in a deeper sense that also applies to those you saw yourself (ie you have to still be there). In my case it helps that I've got some recordings of gigs from the last 20 or so years and these can really take you back, right down to all the evocative noises off - the audience chat, the clinking glasses of the glass collector, the creaky doors. But still, it's often a few peculiarities that lodge in the memory and create a mini-aura around the thing being remembered (yes, mini-aura: Marcel Proust, eat your heart out, I think I've now moved up a gear from all your tired stuff about the times that Maman tucked you in at night). Anyway, speaking of memory, the reason I even started thinking about any of this today was that - very randomly - Dark Thoughts' Ramones-tastic With You came up on an old compilation CD I was playing. It's this song I always associate with their October 2018 show at Delicious Clam in Sheffield (in the list above). Why? Because - for fuck's sake - I'd been strongly motivated to go to this gig because I especially wanted to hear them play With You live after listening to it for weeks beforehand on Bandcamp. Of course, on the night ... no sign of it. So it's the fact that I travelled hundreds of miles to hear a song that wasn't played that makes this gig stand out. Yeah man, what a gig that was. One of the best ...
-The Sundae Kups: Camden Head, London, 28 March 2010
-Fat White Family: The Social, London, 20 March 2012
-Shopping: Power Lunches, London, 8 August 2013
-Diaphram Failure: Stag's Head, London, 31 October 2013
-Good Throb: Power Lunches, London, 26 May 2014
-Irshad Ali Qawwali Party: Tin Music And Arts, Coventry, 9 October 2014
-Self Deconstruction: Pit Bar, Tokyo, 31 July 2015
-Black Tambourines: Old Blue Last, London, 23 October 2015
-Han-earl Park, Dominic Lash, Mark Sanders and Caroline Pugh: Lamp Tavern, Birmingham, 1 December 2015
-Fickle Twin/No Form: Studio With No Name, Nottingham, 5 February 2016
-Radical Boy: Sebright Arms, London, 25 February 2016
-Pale Kids: JT Soar, Nottingham, 30 January 2017
-Black Mekon: Shacklewell Arms, London, 22 April 2017
-Anna McLellan: Silent Barn, New York, 7 May 2017
-The Rebel: Windmill, London, 7, 14, 21 and 28 June 2017 (plus similar month-long Windmill residencies in 2018 and 2019)
-Hamer/Sleep Terminal: Audacious Art Experiment, Sheffield, 15 September 2017
-Dark Thoughts: Delicious Clam, Sheffield, 13 October 2018
-Leather.head: Windmill, London, 5 July 2019
-Bad Idea/Leggy: Chunk, Leeds, 8 September 2019
-Fat White Family: The Social, London, 20 March 2012
-Shopping: Power Lunches, London, 8 August 2013
-Diaphram Failure: Stag's Head, London, 31 October 2013
-Good Throb: Power Lunches, London, 26 May 2014
-Irshad Ali Qawwali Party: Tin Music And Arts, Coventry, 9 October 2014
-Self Deconstruction: Pit Bar, Tokyo, 31 July 2015
-Black Tambourines: Old Blue Last, London, 23 October 2015
-Han-earl Park, Dominic Lash, Mark Sanders and Caroline Pugh: Lamp Tavern, Birmingham, 1 December 2015
-Fickle Twin/No Form: Studio With No Name, Nottingham, 5 February 2016
-Radical Boy: Sebright Arms, London, 25 February 2016
-Pale Kids: JT Soar, Nottingham, 30 January 2017
-Black Mekon: Shacklewell Arms, London, 22 April 2017
-Anna McLellan: Silent Barn, New York, 7 May 2017
-The Rebel: Windmill, London, 7, 14, 21 and 28 June 2017 (plus similar month-long Windmill residencies in 2018 and 2019)
-Hamer/Sleep Terminal: Audacious Art Experiment, Sheffield, 15 September 2017
-Dark Thoughts: Delicious Clam, Sheffield, 13 October 2018
-Leather.head: Windmill, London, 5 July 2019
-Bad Idea/Leggy: Chunk, Leeds, 8 September 2019
So for example, with Diaphram Failure it was because the slightly crazed singer did a thing where he intoned "What ya doing with my fucking shopping?" over and over again (about 30 times). He also, if I recall correctly, rummaged around in various shopping bags and pulled out things like sparklers which he promptly lit and waved around on stage. It was these elements of Captain Beefheartian weirdness that stood out. The band's powerful drone-rock stuff was also good, but the "What ya doing with my fucking shopping?" stuff made it. Anyway, a few of the others: Hamer/Sleep Terminal - excellent because of the sheer intensity of the noise-rock sound but also because Hamish from Hamer seemed to be on tip-top deranged rock-dude form, which was fairly mesmerising to watch; the Rent Boys - great Stooges-type stuff but long remembered because of their brilliantly camp on-stage remark, "Tell you what, come back round here in six months' time and they'll be serving warm pickled onions ... straight from the oven" (take that Shoreditch); the Sundae Kups - because this chaotic surf-rock band kept manically crashing into each other, rolling around on the floor while continuing to play and the chaos only came to an end (an abrupt one) when the manager of the venue switched off the power after about 15 crazed minutes; Black Mekon - their Batman and Robin masks; Black Tambourines - guitarist Sam Stacpoole's hip-shimmies and hair-shakes; Self Deconstruction - their fantastic grindcore-geisha outfits and savage delivery (ditto a couple of others with the savage delivery thing). And so on. You get the picture (maybe). Another thing to mention is that many - though not all - of these acts were being seen for the first time, which I think often adds to the impact, seeming to stamp something extra in the memory. Anyway, probably this is all blindingly obvious. Or is it? People drone on about the great gigs they've attended but I think it's actually quite hard to conjure up much from what's by definition a fleeting experience. You had to be there - and in a deeper sense that also applies to those you saw yourself (ie you have to still be there). In my case it helps that I've got some recordings of gigs from the last 20 or so years and these can really take you back, right down to all the evocative noises off - the audience chat, the clinking glasses of the glass collector, the creaky doors. But still, it's often a few peculiarities that lodge in the memory and create a mini-aura around the thing being remembered (yes, mini-aura: Marcel Proust, eat your heart out, I think I've now moved up a gear from all your tired stuff about the times that Maman tucked you in at night). Anyway, speaking of memory, the reason I even started thinking about any of this today was that - very randomly - Dark Thoughts' Ramones-tastic With You came up on an old compilation CD I was playing. It's this song I always associate with their October 2018 show at Delicious Clam in Sheffield (in the list above). Why? Because - for fuck's sake - I'd been strongly motivated to go to this gig because I especially wanted to hear them play With You live after listening to it for weeks beforehand on Bandcamp. Of course, on the night ... no sign of it. So it's the fact that I travelled hundreds of miles to hear a song that wasn't played that makes this gig stand out. Yeah man, what a gig that was. One of the best ...
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