GIG NUMBER ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE
Who
It was a very cold day but that didn't stop me getting my almost-regular McFlurry from Birmingham and we arrived at the Academy just before 8pm. The venue was disappointingly quiet, making me question Air's decision to charge a whopping £18.50 (plus fees!) for tickets but that gave us a chance to have a look around. Apart from not going back far enough it almost looked a nice venue, with curtains sealing off the upstairs (like for SFA) and seats around the sides. There was also some pretty stonking gigs coming up, with Aim the next night (an easy job for the people changing the signs!) and shows by CSS, Shed Seven, Queens Of The Stone Age and Klaxons in quick succession. There were even a few random small TV screens showing the stage, if you wanted to turn the other way and see the whole thing on TV! We could have arrived later but the worry of an early start always puts us off, yet in the end would have missed out only on an average support act. It was an almost certainly French girl group called Au Revoir Simone who were lined up in front of keyboards. They were in short skirts and looked like a cross between Carrie and Hanson! Their music was mildly interesting, if a bit of a drone, but the crowd seemed to like it, and they even played a Halloween-themed new instrumental, hoping it wouldn't scare us too much! The three girls switched vocals and harmonised a bit and the time went by OK but this was nothing to write home about. The massive sound system for SFA had been replaced by sleek little speakers which provided the highest quality sound I'd ever heard in this room, and when the background music started up I realised why the venue had actually seemed nice briefly - because there was no smoking anymore which I think keeps the temperature down and there was no deafening noise from some aimless dance act bombarding our ears for once!
It took a bit of time for Air to set up and I was surprised to see only one enormous deck of keyboards being prepared, expecting them to be in the middle together surrounded by them like Röyksopp or Daft Punk would. We had a great central position and the crowd now started to fill up slightly but just to the irritating point where you're jammed in too tightly to move but not tightly enough to lean on everyone else! The lights went down and this crowd of largely twenty-something's and older applauded - I was up for it but there seemed little hope of a proper moshpit! Air opened with Electronic Performers which was nice albeit not involving enough to make you want to jump around or sing along. Strangely, one the guys was free of keyboards and was playing guitar, leaving the other to man the numerous keys and three others to drum and do other stuff. I haven't been able to find the setlist so won't be able to attach much chronology to what followed. People In The City was energetic despite being partly pre-recorded and revealed Air's secret weapon - the prettiest light show I'd ever seen. I used to say a light show was good if it was intense but not irritating, but this redefined the parameters altogether. They had a wall filled with lights, similar to the one on Close Encounters Of The Third Kind but much brighter and better, which went into pretty patterns and colours. People In The City was an intense barrage of sound and pretty hypnotic lights which I doubt an alien abduction could beat. It was therefore greeted with perhaps the first ever round of applause dedicated to the light show when the first barrage finished! I was expecting tons of new songs but there were very few, notably a wonderful Mer Du Japon. The set was packed with classics from Moon Safari such as Talisman and Le Voyage De Penelope and there were even an array of stars on a black background at times, making me feel that this actually was a Moon Safari! The drums sounded good and the lack of guest vocalists posed little annoyance due to the well-paced setlist. I'd expected Air to jam endlessly and perform unrecognisable versions of songs I barely knew but they remained pleasantly faithful to the record, with some extended moments, glorious lights and additional layers of sound striking the perfect balance.
Air have a reputation for being a chill-out band, and I hoped they'd disprove that as resoundingly as Moby had seven years previously. They didn't push the songs to the crazy rock-outs that they could have done but just far enough to help dispel this opinion and show that Moon Safari, if you strip off its two best singles, is no better than what they have done since. The band smiled and said "you are so sexy" and it registered that either this was a cruel tease or they would be playing some Sexy Boy later! So far so great! Air didn't talk much, although their accents did shine through at times, but the music they were making suggested they were enjoying themselves. I was very happy to join in with the enthusiastic crowd, thinking along the lines of "if we cheer enough you may actually play some of the big hits!" and we had good songs in spades. Remember was sung and introduced with the aid of a vocoder and went down well, Cherry Blossom Girl was entirely pleasant, and Don't Be Light was beefed up considerably. Venus and Run then demonstrated that Air have forged a meaningful path beyond Moon Safari. Nevertheless, the moment when I whooped with joy and decided this had been worth it was when an unrecognisable introduction morphed into Kelly Watch The Stars, which was very nice, although I could sense some grumpiness from the band as they played it! The main set came to an end and the noise we made reflected a job done very well so far and also we hoped would coax them to finish properly. I was therefore overwhelmed to hear the introduction of Sexy Boy being SUNG through a vocoder and it was indeed triumphant, lacking only the cool spinning stage I remember from the Top Of The Pops performance. The lights were again turned up to eleven for a glorious finale of La Femme D'Argent, as this pretty but aimless instrumental was somehow transformed into a riotous statement of intent! The show had finished well before the curfew yet Air had delivered as many hits as I'd hoped for.
There was even time for another visit to McDonalds and some Chicken Selects while waiting for the train home, despite the long time it took to get out of the venue. I'd resolved to buy a T-shirt outside if there was anything nice (i.e. the Moon Safari monkey) but there was only the dull Pocket Symphony ones on display so I didn't bother. On the train back home we even invented a new game of Air hangman, involving playing hangman with Air song titles, which was amusing, but is choosing "Radio #1" a bit of a cheat? As I'd expected, there had been plenty of omissions, the most surprising of which were Surfin' On A Rocket and Alpha Beta Gaga. Also there had been no Radio #1, Playground Love, Le Soleil Est Pres De Moi, All I Need or The Vagabond, which I suppose is understandable as Beck wasn't here to do his vocals! But all my hopes had centred on Kelly Watch The Stars and Sexy Boy being dispatched, so I'm not going to complain. In fact their latest album had been under-represented, so maybe the band had entered greatest hits mode, or were concerned that failing to play their biggest tunes was stopping everyone from going to see them! I was happy with their setlist, so the only way they could comfortably get in all these omissions would be to deliver a sprawling two-hour set, which seems unlikely and too much to ask for. As I am writing this, I am enjoying a brand new Air compilation I have made and couldn't bear to cut it down further than 22 tracks, and that's without the new songs as I don't have them. Very good stuff but I may never see them again as I doubt they could be anything except worse!
Mark: 8.5/10
Air
Support
Au Revoir Simone
Where
Birmingham Academy
When
14th November 2007
Price
£18.50
Who with
Alex
Position
Towards the front
Comments
Nine years is a pretty long time to be a fan of a band before seeing them live. Air don't seem to tour much and have a reputation for being awkward (i.e. French!) and not playing their best songs. An Air compilation I recorded circa 2001 for example I am so pleased with that I didn't feel the need to update it with songs from their subsequent albums, so I wasn't sure if I wanted to subject myself to a set presumably jam-packed with endless new tunes and a couple of minor hits grudgingly performed. In the end I guess I thought "why not?" and as my brother wanted to see them again I wouldn't have to go alone. The omens weren't good - apparently at the show my brother saw in Manchester they didn't play Sexy Boy, All I Need, Radio #1 or Playground Love! After purchasing tickets I resolved to get into the newer songs, in the end hearing through their entire catalogue twice. It all sounded impressive and hits such as Mer Du Japon and Surfin' On A Rocket started to sink in. I only managed to hear the newest album Pocket Symphony once as it was on an Ipod and therefore wasn't transferable onto a practical format. Having recently discovered that Ipod files don't work properly, even the "protection free" ones, and that they don't accept WMA files I've lost all interest in obtaining one of my own, so will remain part of the CD player generation for a while longer until Apple sort it out! Hot on the heels of Super Furry Animals and The Pigeon Detectives, and with my third viewing of Arcade Fire just three days afterwards, this certainly was a great time for lome first to get changed, scoffing some chip shop food then getting the train back in. I'd already resolved that I'd miss the train if the show over-ran, anticipating that if Air would only play one super-hit they would save it until the last song!
