Live in Leeds for Radio 1

12-JUN-2001

On June 7th The Offspring played a special gig in Leeds for Radio 1. It's was in the small Cockpit venue, which only had room for 300 competition winning Radio 1 listeners. The gig was recorded for Lamacq Live and and broadcast on June 18th.

We sent Danny O'Connor along for the gig to talk to the band and film a video report for us, which you can see on this page.

So how was it?
Dexter: "It was really good, really, really fun. Apparently these people came from all over the country, there was only a few hundred of them and they were really excited. It's fun for us too, we don't play a lot of shows that small - so we had a good time."
Noodles: "Being a radio crowd we didn't know how hard core into the band they'd be. We did some early stuff tonight, and it went over great, the fans were totally into it. It was the funest show so far this tour for me."

Did it send you back, was it truly punk rock?
Dexter: "It takes us way back to the old days. We used to do shows like that for years and years, except there wasn't 300 people there, there was 3. It's an environment we are pretty comfortable in, so it's fun to go back an do that stuff."
Noodles: "And we try and do one of these smaller club shows just about every tour. It doesn't always come together, logistically it's a nightmare trying to do these."

The guy who runs this place said to me earlier on it was like NASA arriving, talk to me about squashing what is an arena show into this size of a venue...
Dexter: "The way our tours come together is you never know where you are going to be playing from one day to the next. Today was a very small club, tomorrow is AC/DC at Milton Keynes, we have to be prepared for anything pretty much. We have to take a lot of stuff with us, then we try an fit what makes sense for the club - it might have been stuffed a little bit today."
Noodles: "I think shows like this are a lot harder on our crew than they are on us. We've got a great crew, and they are able to adjust for the size of the venue."

Have you found over the last three or four years seeing the audience is terrifying or invigorating, because you play massive arenas and you don't see those faces?
Noodles: "I think it's kinda cool, we've been doing this for a long time and I'm starting to recognise faces - at least in some of the bigger cities."
Dexter: "It is different, as the shows get bigger the heads get smaller. So it is weird when you see people in a small venue because they are right there in your face, all of a sudden they are people again. You relate to your audiences in different ways on different levels depending on the shows. Tonight we liked to talk to the audience a lot, almost like a conversation between songs."

Of course The Offspring on stage is one big family. You've got percussion, all sorts of stuff and you managed to incorporate that tonight?
Dexter: "It was a little tight having to squeeze by in-between songs. It was fun having Higgins hide behind me. Actually it was a little bit of a bummer because Higgins and I do interact a lot on stage normally (Higgins does backing vocals, percussion and sampling), and he was hidden behind me tonight. But we managed to work it out, I thought it went pretty well tonight."

So tell me about AC/DC tomorrow, are you fans?
Noodles: "This is a very big deal for us, I would never had imagined years ago that we'd be playing with them. We're just really stoked, happy to be asked to play with them. It's going to be really cool. A little nervous, but really excited."

Are the UK audience going to get near you again?
"Nope"

Where are we with new material?
Dexter: "A little bit. We don't have a lot of stuff, we've been really busy touring."
Noodles: "Ron says he's got four or five songs written for us. Between his stuff and Greg's stuff there's one side of an LP."

So what's the story for the rest of the year?
Noodles: "We are doing another US tour, it looks like we are heading down to South America to do some stuff."
Dexter: "That's right, Noodles favourite place is South America..."
Noodles: "…We've done two tours down there and both times I've been violently ill."
Dexter: "He checks into the hotel gets a big glass of water and before you know it..."

You are appearing on a lot of soundtracks, what are the 'politics' of getting your songs on films?
Dexter: "We have a deal with our record company, so they have to let us do a couple... So it's just a matter of us finding movies that we are appropriate for, or we like the movie. [For Example] there is a movie which just came out in the US called 'Animal' with Rob Schneider..."
Noodles: "...He's a funny guy and we're a fan of his movies. In fact the 'You Can Do It' line was kinda stole from him in 'The Waterboy'..."
Dexter: "...They wanted to use 'Original Prankster' for that movie, so that came together."
Noodles: "We started out doing soundtracks to skateboarding, snowboarding and surfing movies and that brought us a lot of exposure worldwide... Our music goes well with that stuff, we all grew up skating. I love surfing and snowboarding."

Have you had any involvement with the Warp tour?
Noodles: "Absolutely, for my money that's the best travelling tour they've had in the US, and closest to the spirit of a festival. Lollapalooza was good when it started."
Dexter: "We go almost every year, and the longer we go the more bands we know."

What The Audience Thought...

Mel from Cookridge:
"Best part of the gig was the fact that The Offspring were in Leeds, it's such a small place and for a big band to play. It kicked off good."

Heather from York:
"I love Dexter, my favourite song was 'One Fine Day'. I threw my bracelet at him in the end and he picked it up and said 'Thanks for the bracelet'"

Nathan from Wensleydale:
Favourite live track - 'I Want You Bad'
"I liked their logo, so I got the tattoo."

John and Nick from Leeds:
Favourite part: "The acoustic section, halfway through the gig - it was a nice change."
"I loved Noodles attitude. You cannot beat a band like The Offspring for playing to the real fans."

By Danny O'Connor, from BBC UK Online - June 12, 2001