GIG NUMBER EIGHTY-NINE

Who
Embrace
Support
Delays
Where
Birmingham Academy
When
18th October 2006
Price
£20.00
Who with
Nick, Claire
Position
Towards the back
Comments
By my estimation I hadn't visited Birmingham Academy since seeing Super Furry Animals there in 2001. Now five years later I returned to see Embrace playing live. Normally I'd never dream of seeing them, finding them over-priced and mediocre. However, at that time I was trying to set a good example of going to gigs rather than being anti-social and refusing to go. I also remembered how against all expectations I'd enjoyed seeing them at V2001 (at the depths of their popularity) and had since developed a strong fondness for Come Back To What You Know. Taking their second wave of success into account plus my guess that this would be an indoor show in front of an enthusiastic crowd I ended up looking forward to it. Claire had got tickets for us months in advance and I'd done some preparation, listening to their best songs for the entire week before. Plus I was STILL on a high from the Reading festival (now nearly two months previous) so most of the signs were good. I still would never had agreed though if I'd known that a wave of superior bands would announce tours soon after, but oh well. The problems started on the day as I was quite literally the most ill I'd been in at least ten years, yet had somehow struggled through work. I insisted upon my new routine of going home first, getting changed and having a takeaway: Now I was feeling better. We met on the train at Wolves station and rather than talking about the gig I was trying to sort out my shoelaces, which had become impenetrably knotted. With the doors opening at 7pm Nick had wanted to set out earlier but quite simply I don't ever want to go to a gig with my backpack on ever again. It was a warm night and the conversation was about architecture: Birmingham New Street is a train station so ugly that they want a billion quid to make it look pretty, and the Rotunda was finally being refurbished after being left abandoned for just about my entire lifetime.

We arrived sometime around 8pm and Nick had warned us about gay bouncers causing a fuss on the door, but as we had nothing remotely controversial on us we got in OK. It was a snazzy feature that the tickets were bar-coded but with all that technology they still didn't provide a sign telling us which was the queue and which was the "people standing there for no reason" line. First stop despite my ill health was the bar upstairs, which was in fact the Academy 2 room I'd seen The Supernaturals play, but had now been opened out as part of the venue. I had Guinness in a pint of plastic so tough I nearly thought it was glass. We then sat upstairs on the balcony, which annoyingly you couldn't see the music from unless you were leaning over the rails. Shockingly for Birmingham there was a bustling and enthusiastic crowd, and I started to wonder whether this place was bigger than Wolverhampton Civic. After finishing my pint we ventured downstairs where there was another bar set up, which actually seemed capable of serving the large numbers of people! We raised and resolved the question of how they could get away with such disgusting prices, with the answer being that most don't go to gigs to get drunk, so ask for a pint, reel in horror at the price, but don't refuse to pay. If it was a club doing it you'd just walk out and go somewhere else, but it's not as if Embrace were playing another place in town so that wouldn't work at a gig! The atmosphere was stiflingly hot so my excellent recovery was quickly undermined, and I was starting to feel worse. We'd missed all of the first support band Four Day Hombre but had arrived just in time to see Delays take to the stage.

They had four members, one of whom looked like Reni. Things started off OK but then the singer opened his mouth and sheer physical pain for me came out of it: He was utterly fucking shit and ruined the set. Basically they had some barely acceptable tunes but the honking going on over the top of it made me wince in agony. Just to express how bad they were, I was going to say "they're the worst band I've seen since..." However, I've just spent ten minutes backtracking my old reviews and am struggling to find somebody even worse. So I'll just say they're the worst I've seen in a long time, possibly even since Toploader!! What was going on around me though was equally distressing: The crowd were ENJOYING it, and even the band seemed surprised by it! Considering how they had ignored The Supernaturals and even been mediocre for the mighty SFA this show went a long way to confirm the Brummie as the lowest form of life on Earth. It's no wonder I now try so hard not to see bands in Birmingham unless essential, preferring even to travel to Manchester rather than put up with these "people"! However Delays finally finished and we exchanged insults about them: No amount of alcohol or good vibes could have made me enjoy them. We then endured a long wait before Embrace to come on. I found myself singing Rock 'N Roll Queen by The Subways and we edged forwards a bit, finding ourselves just in front of the people on the balcony. The low roof and claustrophobic atmosphere were still putting us off, and I just wished Embrace had played the Civic instead.

As you can see from the photo above, courtesy of Nick, the stage was set up with lots of lights and looked like a town carnival. As you'd expect, they'd be flashing on and off later for Embrace. There was also an entrance at the back of the stage which reminded me of Stars In Their Eyes. Embrace eventually emerged with their hands in the air, waving at everyone, especially those on the balcony. As I'd expected they decided to open with an anonymous b-side before going into All You Good Good People. Thanks to the poor feng shui of the Academy however I found myself feeling iller and iller, and the whole thing was totally uninvolving. By the time they burst into Come Back To What You Know I'd made my mind up: Although reasonably competent they were totally lacking in drive and energy and I just couldn't get into it. I did my best to sing along but it just wasn't any fun. Things weren't helped by a bitty setlist, with any momentum from a hit being taken away by yet another unknown b-side. In front of us everyone seemed to be getting into it and were seemingly blind to the ultimate mediocrity of it all, but the bottom line is that there was barely a moshpit going on in front as it just wasn't exciting enough. One nice moment was when Danny joked about Birmingham, and upon asking us where the best place for a night out after the show would be, the response shouted back was Manchester! They introduced Nature's Law as their biggest hit and I could only scratch my head, wondering how such a mediocre ballad could out-sell their early hits. Ashes and Gravity are quite simply just OK, and not up to the heights of their debut album, which in my eyes they will never top. Of course, their debut isn't even that great, which says it all about their ultimate averageness!

They played a new song, telling us that they were not going to split up (the thought hadn't crossed my mind), and said we can try to dance to it but it'll probably be too fast. I can't remember it though now so it can't have been much cop. They then played Gravity, which yet again was only mildly engaging, plus a single I have no knowledge of, short of Nick being on the photos on its inside sleeve! I'm finding it difficult to think of positives. I was feeling worse all the time and we were simply too far away from the stage and in a shit city, but even without these factors I don't think I'd had liked it that much. I was suffering from a sore throat too but still made some attempts to sing along, and a song sung by Danny's brother was one of the few animated parts of the set. In other random facts, Danny was wearing a red t-shirt with "Embrace" written on the front and "no use crying" on the back. And I believe that the band still have all their original members intact, which is quite rare for a five-piece. Danny was either trying to feign enthusiasm or was reacting to the clueless Embrace "fanatics" (if there can be such a thing) down the front, saying that all he could see was a sea of smiling people. He also asked the tall people to "go low" but, after seeing The Soundtrack Of Our Lives and The Streets, any "go low" by Embrace seems desperately uninspired. That was one positive though: There was no absurdly tall person in front of me for any part of the show! It goes to show how many good gigs the others here have been to as they seemed to think asking people to bend down a bit was cutting edge and exciting, and started to mosh with excitement. The main set then finished with the mildly engaging Save Me, but the only thing that could save this would be a barrage of remaining hits played with much more energy.

Now to sum up what was wrong: A lot of it was because we were too far away and I was (by my standards) seriously ill and therefore not with it. The band were also flat and played a poor setlist with plenty of unforgivable omissions, plus the venue is shit and was much too hot with the most annoying strobe lighting I can ever recall. Embrace were in fact right in the middle of a very long tour so I guess there was a good reason for them to be dull, but I felt ashamed to be with this crowd who seemed to think they were at a "great" gig, and with the mob mentality on display tonight Embrace could have played any old shit and got away with it. Quite simply they were not as interesting as at V2001 and after the wonders of the Reading festival they're simply not good enough any more to excite me. The big shock though was to come as Nick was determined to leave to get back to the train station with a good fifteen minutes to spare. I was baffled that he'd want to give up so easily, when a few well-placed hits sung with much more enthusiasm than we'd seen so far could have swung the set. But I'd lost interest myself so I didn't bother arguing. I could hardly bear to look online and see what I'd missed, but ultimately found out it was literally nothing! I'd had taken The Good Will Out for granted so was shocked and disgusted to see it had been dropped in favour of Ashes! And they didn't play One Big Family, Fireworks or My Weakness Is None Of Your Business, and I'd half-expected World At Your Feet: So that's my second and third favourite songs just ignored in favour of endless b-sides. If we had stayed and had seen this fuck-awful ending, and possibly even missed the train, I'd had been utterly furious! I was even further distracted by my brother trying to call me and then turning off his phone, as I figured he'd only disturb me for an absolute emergency!

In reflection I should never have gone to this show, and perhaps it's a sign that I should only go to see bands I'm excited about seeing, rather than agreeing to see somebody mildly interesting. There are hundreds of vaguely intriguing bands playing the Midlands every year I don't see, and although I'm sure some of them could blow me away I don't want to spend all my life and money seeing them (then all my spare time afterwards having to review them!) Perhaps seeing them play Cannock Chase would had been better, but alarm bells are ringing as some fans on the Embrace forum were saying that this show was better! The most depressing thing I read online was someone claiming this was the best gig he'd ever been to: I just can't get my head around a poor person having led such an ignorant life that they could rate this show so highly! I can only scratch my head at how Embrace have got a second wind of popularity. At V2001 they were underdogs and played an inspired set. For some reason everyone ignored this and it wasn't until they did the same thing a few years later at V that they started their comeback. I have a feeling that in a couple of years time they'll have faded back into nothing again and may even pull off the V2001 trick again and impress me but no-one else. Put simply Embrace are well below the high standards I am prepared to accept, and incidentally I had the next day off work to recover, both from working through illness the day before and for putting up with such mediocrity, and this was my first sick leave in ten years!

Mark: 6.5/10