Despite being severely tired from the weekend’s activity and the week just gone, I still managed to attend yet another gig last night to see Fatboy Slim do what he does best at the Brixton Academy. This has been the third time I’ve been to the Academy, and not having bought the tickets, was surprised to be at the gallery level which is the unreserved seating section. Although this was one of the gigs where most people would not be seated for the majority of the gig, I was in away pleased to be away from the heaving body to body mass that was the entire ground level because I knew I just didn’t have the energy reserves for the entire night to make the most of it. There are other downsides to being upstairs (i.e. smoke heads towards the ceiling) but it did not damper any ability to enjoy the show of brilliantly mixed songs and the spectacular screen shows.

Fatboy Slim came on just after half past twelve and played a set that lasted until just after 3am. His decks were elevated to float in the middle of the stage, and were surrounded by panels on all sides including behind him. It was an extremely effective way for him to be a central focal point for the night even whilst giant smiley-faced yellow balloons bounced around the crowd and a small chorus of showgirls pranced around on stage for a while. It was yet another great evening out with a great bunch of people to watch yet another great artist.

I just got back home after heading out tonight to witness Coldplay deliver another warmly received performance at Earl’s Court tonight and just had to write up my review. Earl’s Court is an interesting place to hold any concert, with the massive exhibition hall being turned into an area with standing and seating room, by our estimate, to hold about ten or fifteen thousand people. Our seat was up there but not quite in the nosebleed section and although we had to sit at an angle, still had a decent view of the band and screens.

Coldplay’s support act was Richard Ashcroft, from The Verve, and who I had just seen as a guest performer at Monday’s gig. I remember the band The Verve only by two songs, The Drugs Don’t Work, and Bitter Sweet Symphony, both of which were played in addition to a number of his own ones. His fifty minute act was pretty good, but was definitely shadowed by the stunning performance of Coldplay.

It only took about a half hour for them to reset the stage, which Coldplay quickly stormed with a string of their biggest songs including Square One (the opener from their new album), Yellow, Politik and the Speed of Sound. Each song had obviously been well choreographed with amazing visuals that complemented the mood for each song, with pulsating coloured squares, giant yellow balls bouncing around the crowd, and the lights that projected what looked like a star system around the hall into the entire crowd.

The set was a great mix of a lot of their new songs, a lot of their old songs and a number of tribute songs all of which the crowd evidently enjoyed as they sang along. The entire set, including encore was a decent length with a total of almost two hours of solid quality music.

By the end of the show, everyone was standing up in their seats demanding more. Though starting off on a slight mistake, Coldplay soon satiated this hunger by playing three mores songs including Shiver, In My Place and the hauntingly skin-crawling lyrics and melodies of Fix You from their latest album. It is a concert that will be memorable for some time to come and I can now thoroughly recommend you see Coldplay if you ever get the chance.

Last night I attended the XFM Winter Wonderland concert at Brixton Academy, a charity gig for the Shelter organisation. I had bought the tickets off eBay a while back and hadn’t realised that it was the same day that I arrived back from Vienna, and despite being exhausted I still went to enjoy the awesome performances of The Go! Team, Athlete, Richard Ashcroft (from The Verve) and Supergrass. The event was actually spread over two days, with Sunday’s headliners including The Kaiser Chiefs, The Editors, Hard-Fi, and Maximo Park. All of the bands I saw were quite impressive, but still couldn’t quite top the one-hour set from Supergrass making the two tickets completely worth the £35 I paid for them. XFM writes up a better and more in-depth review here.

Last night I went along with Ben to see Porcupine Tree a band that Gerrod had put me on to a while back. It was my first concert at Shepherd’s Bush Empire, yet another Carling sponsored music venue in London. The venue itself is the smallest I’ve been to so far, but with a just a bit more capacity than The Arena back home. This venue has three floors with pretty much every seat or position having an easy view of the main stage.

I’m terrible at trying to describe bands, so I won’t try, but I think that if you like any of Porcupine Tree’s albums, I definitely can recommend you to see them live. Somehow their songs are delivered with much more vibrancy than what a recording seems to give them, allowing them to drive home their songs, if not sometimes perhaps a little bit too loudly. The front man last night held a much better conversation with the audience, all who seemed to be fairly big fans and predominantly older (think late thirties, almost early forties). It’s also one of the first times, I’ve ever seen someone perform in their bare feet.

After watching them last night, I realised that I liked a lot more of their songs from the In Absentia album over those from Deadwing, perhaps because I think the former tends to be more melodic with less of the heavier rock undertones I tend not to favour in the latter. It was a great night for a Wednesday and a big thanks to Ben for getting those tickets ages back.

I’ve had tickets to see Franz Ferdinand since early September and last night’s show at Alexandra Palace reminded me of why I wanted to see them so desperately. The Palace is yet another one of London’s heritage buildings, easily fitting the most people in relation to any of the other venue’s I’ve been to so far. However having said that its capacity is impressive, its flat floor also means that it is much more suited to the exhibitions and conventions it is normally the home of, and not so great for seeing someone as great as Franz.

The support acts for the night included The Rakes and The Editors, two excellent indie rock bands who I can now thoroughly recommend but whose performances were far surpassed by the main act. The only other time that I’ve seen Franz was when I went to my first Splendour in the Grass two years ago, and even then it was difficult to make it inside the tent. When I saw them that time, it was just as they were getting big with their first hit, Take Me Out, and their progress reminded me heavily of the success that the Australian band, Jet, went through.

I like to think that there are so many other reasons that make them such great performers other than their catchy pop rock tunes which no other band seems to be able to reproduce. I am always impressed by bands that acknowledge the quality of their support acts, and Franz thanked both of their support acts probably with the understanding that it is difficult to make it in that industry, while at the same time, demonstrating their humbleness. Another great reason to see them live is that they have a fantastic stage presence. Last night for example, the largish stage was quite bare, yet for every moment of the concert, it seemed to be constantly filled with all their energy and solidly performed music.

The set was extremely well planned, taking plenty of their new album songs and mixing it up with a lot of the hits from their previous album. It was also probably most ideal for an audience that has probably had the widest age range I’ve seen some time, with enough mellow songs to chill out on, interspersed through their harder rock songs that resulted in a fair amount of moshing in most of the audience. Surprisingly Take Me Out was played during their main act while they finished off their night with an encore consisting of Jacqueline (1st album), Evil And A Heathen (2nd album), Outsiders (2nd album), and This Fire (1st album).

The Kua Rating: 8 out of 10

The End is a club located right next door to AKA (which I went to for my birthday). I’ve heard great things about this club and I definitely wasn’t disappointed by the experience I had last night. I was heading there with a few friends and was stunned when I heard that Derrick Carter, a famous Chicago House DJ was playing. I wasn’t really expecting to know any of the DJ’s playing and was just thrilled to find out he would be playing the closing set from 3:30am in their main room. Cover is not exactly cheap, coming in at just over £15 but compared to most other clubs and with the prospect of finally seeing Derrick Carter live, was happy to pay the amount.

The End is not as big a club as I thought it would be but thankfully last night was not as busy as it apparently sometimes gets. There certainly seems like a lot more room than what AKA offers next door, with two main rooms and several bars serving the various areas. There are several areas to chill out with some comfy couches in the corners in one room, but with most people just cooling off in the little space between the two rooms.

On some nights (like last night), access is granted for some to move between The End and AKA (also known as ‘As One’). We briefly stepped into AKA but like the last time, found it was overly packed and the music was not as good as what was below in The End. After speaking with a few people at random last night, it seemed that some had come specifically listen to Derrick Carter, whilst many others were just happy to dance to the awesome music he played all night (morning?) long. The crowd was quite friendly and we had an awesome night.

Earlier this week I found out I won tickets to The Musos, a awards ceremony for musicians entirely voted for by other musicians. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect with a number of smaller acts named to perform, and a realistic expectation that even if bands like Coldplay, Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party, Gorillaz were nominated, I’m sure they had better places to be. I had a pretty good night all around but I will admit that if I had to pay the £20 then I think I would have felt seriously cheated.

Everything about the night seriously screamed B-class although I suspected this going in. If anything, I hoped I would at least come away learning about some new band with the worst case being just another tube ride around London. The event was held at Koko, which in itself, was worth visiting. The club is located just around the corner from the Mornington Crescent tube (on the Northern line) and still looks like the Victorian theatre it used to be in the 1800s with three separate floors and numerous private booths along the side. The wall behind the bar on the bottom floor is backed by red lighting, casting an alluring shadow to all the bottles lined up on the glass shelves.

The awards went out pretty quickly and most of them, with no surprise, went to a few lesser known acts. Several went to some better known acts such as Gaz from Supergrass winning Best Vocal for 2005 and the Kaiser Chiefs for Best Live Act, but to no surprise, were not there to collect it. There were several bands that performed that night, most of them not really that memorable. I really enjoyed the act by the href=”http://www.indielondon.co.uk/music/mu_dogs_biog.html”>Dogs (and some other act I didn’t know their name) who were the most professional and probably better rock acts. I was stunned by the last band whose passionate, almost psychotic, lead singer seemed to strangely negate the lack of energy the rest of the band members exhibited. His jumping around, falling into the group of photographers and general strange behaviour won no credit from me. They also coupled with a visibly drunk Shane McGowan (from The Pogues) to perform an awful rendition of She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain. I was quite happy at that point to ease my way back through the crowd to make my exit.

Details: The Musos
Highlights: Free tickets to see some new rock bands. Dogs (and some other band who I thought were the Artic Monkeys) were pretty awesome acts as well.
Room for improvement: Organisation was terrible, it was extremely cold inside and Shane McGowan, one of the “bigger” acts was completely trashed.
The Kua Rating: 5 out of 10