GIG NUMBER ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-THREE
Who
Also listening to the albums was an illuminating experience as I was shocked to note that Head First is probably their strongest collection to date, containing some fine tunes beyond Rocket, notably Shiny And Warm and I Wanna Life. This was encouraging as it made me think that this show could be a worthwhile experience after all! Also I was in the strange situation of not having any other gigs lined up, instead seeing non-music shows such as David Baddiel and Frank Skinner (separately!), and also Dame Edna Everage on her (supposed) farewell tour! I also was looking forward to seeing the Monty Python reunion in July! The day itself I was trying to keep my birthday quiet, hoping for a peaceful time and having no urge to disrupt my peace by telling everyone until I was provoked to mention the occasion. This quiet was broken by the afternoon but I stuck with my determination to only bring food in on the Friday - two days later - and left my bag at work after changing my top. By now I was in the habit of walking to and from work - which was quite a hefty 45 minutes each way! - and I stuck with the same plan, catching a train into Birmingham after paying over the odds for my train ticket as the journey was rather complex! I met my brother and we went straight to the Chinese restaurant in Brindley Place where we were served inhumanly fast, following a starter platter and prawn crackers with an acceptable but forgettable main. By this point I'd lost my appetite for Indian food and was happy for a change from pub food so had no complaints, although my impression that this meal was on my brother proved to be incorrect!
There was a bit of rain but it stopped by the time we left the restaurant, with some time on our hands which could have been spent climbing the new library to check out the night views, but I chose instead to grab a Creme Egg McFlurry. Doors had opened at 7pm and we arrived in reasonable time at the Symphony Hall complex, and lots of people were sitting around the bar area both with and without drinks. Apart from some signed and unsigned posters there was very little merchandise on display, and we quickly headed inside. Unusually it was clearly advertised that it was ok to take photos, but that video recordings were prohibited. The ushers pointing us to our seats also made the same point, which was helpful but I nevertheless wasn't going to miss out on taking a few harmless videos! The show hadn't sold out and it was very quiet in there at first, but filled up in time for Goldfrapp. The Symphony Hall looked as impressive as ever, although our seats very far to the left weren't ideal. It was interesting however to note just how many floors of balconies there were, and that they didn't seem to have too many rows as they didn't stick out at all. We were in row C but interestingly there were more than 2 rows in front of us, and we had arrived in good time before support band We Were Evergreen took to the stage at 8pm. They were a three-piece, consisting of two guys with guitars and a girl on keyboards, and interestingly combined acoustic guitars with electronic keyboards. The sound was a bit weird at first because we were so far to the left, but being in a venue famous for good acoustics was definitely the right environment for this band to thrive in! They pointed out that this was the very first night of the tour - a fact I didn't know - and went down quite well, seeming very polite and well-spoken.
For me though their set didn't particularly come to life until the excellent finale, when all three members of the band got behind some drums and banged the hell out of them! This reminded me of Franz Ferdinand doing Outsiders at Reading 2006, and any opportunity to relive that moment was most welcome! They left the stage to strong applause and had certainly made a positive impression on most! My brother then wandered off while I stayed in my seat and read a bit of NME and checked my mobile internet before Goldfrapp took to the stage at 9pm. The stage had a nice but fairly nondescript backdrop and when the lights went down we were greeted by a voice explaining which mood/animal was represented by each of the instruments. I'd been expecting pole dancers again and was about to be let down! I'd hoped for a strong greatest hits set so was sorely disappointed that it appeared that Goldfrapp were in the mood to ram their latest album Tales Of Us down our throats! And, no, I wasn't being closed-minded. In fact I'm quite sure I heard Head First precisely as many times as Tales Of Us, and not one single song had made a favourable impression on me. In the event Goldfrapp played seven out of the 10 tracks on the album, destroying the momentum of the show by opening with six of them in a row. I understand the album is backed with a film and perhaps it would have made a bit more sense if I'd had seen that first. But I was not impressed, and even less so that the crowd seemed to be greeting these songs with rapturous applause rather than holding the band to account for their self-indulgence!
Alison Goldfrapp - and that is actually her name! - was dressed in black and despite leaving the stage a few times there was no real costume change. She said she was nervous as it was the first night of the tour, to which someone heckled that they were doing great. In reality I was struggling to stay awake, and the fact that this was a seated show didn't help the situation at all. I didn't realise at the time that tracks seven and eight in the set were Yellow Halo from the greatest hits album and Little Bird from Seventh Tree as they fitted so snugly alongside the new material. So for me the show only burst into life thanks to You Never Know. It was great and synthy, but shockingly seemed to get less applause than the new songs! I mean, seriously, what the fuck? This was followed by Number 1 and finally the show seemed to be building some momentum, and even Thea from Tales Of Us didn't destroy the mood, but partly because I didn't realise it was a new song as it sounded different/better. Alison encouraged us to get to our feet then fluffed the start to Ride A White Horse, but I was just happy to hear another hit! I shot my first video of the night, which came out with outstanding sound quality, and showcased the red lights on display. By this point the crowd were getting excited and quite a few people popped forwards to take better photos, before being herded back to their seats by security. The main set then ended with Ooh La La, meaning that - apart from the fantastic Lovely 2 C U - all the best bits of Supernature had been covered in full!
This was the point when Goldfrapp really needed to keep it up and "play the hits" as it were. They returned to the stage with Utopia, which is a good song so I couldn't argue too much, but there are better tunes! I was then left scratching my head when they launched into Clowns, thinking what the hell were they playing at when Happiness is the track off Seventh Tree that we all wanted to hear! Goldfrapp frustrated further with more so-so choices. Firstly Lovely Head is an amusing number but there were too many hits to play and I didn't want to hear it, although the weird vocals were high pitched and quite memorable. The crowd then went a bit mental for what I thought to be the introduction of Strict Machine but turned out to be Train from the same album! It's a tune yes, but if it wasn't played it wouldn't have been missed! By this point I was quite annoyed, my frustration being soothed slightly by the finale of Strict Machine, whereupon I shot my second video. It was the highlight of the night for me and the crowd were happy to remain on their feet for the remainder of the show! And strangely enough I had no first hand memory of this tune from the last time I'd seen Goldfrapp, and think I can only remember Ooh La La and Happiness from 2008! But, to be fair, they were kind of overshadowed by The Flaming Lips on that day. The finish time had been advertised as 10:30pm but Goldfrapp had played up until 10:45pm.
I left feeling a bit annoyed, and still none the wiser as to if Will Gregory was actually onstage with them or not. The first half had ruined it for me and left me wishing I'd seen them on their last tour, or had just left Goldfrapp alone and stayed with my good memories of the one viewing at a festival. The omissions were quite shocking for a band who could quite easily play a "definitive" set without any need to leave anything out. The omission of Rocket and Happiness was unforgivable, and also Lovely 2 C U, Shiny And Warm, I Wanna Life and Caravan Girl were sorely missed. We got back to the train station and endured a bit of confusion as our train was diverted via Walsall and was very confusingly replatformed, rubbing it in a bit further as the train itself, station announcements and information board all quoted different destinations! However the journey went relatively smoothly, and I was impressed with myself for waking up early the next day and doing the walk to work as usual, although I was tired. It's a shame that Goldfrapp didn't perform at the top of their game and focused on an album I had zero interest in hearing, so the main benefit of the night for me was the chance to do something a bit different for my birthday and to delve quite a lot deeper into Goldfrapp's catalogue beforehand to discover a good few hidden gems. It's just a shame that this show hadn't featured more of them!
Mark: 7.0/10
Goldfrapp
Support
We Were Evergreen
Where
Birmingham Symphony Hall
When
26th March 2014
Price
£29.50 (FREE for me!)
Who with
Alex
Position
Seated, towards the left
Comments
I never intended to see Goldfrapp again. The first time at the Lovebox festival in 2008 has seemed definitive enough - it was quite a show with pole dancers and confetti - and as far as I was concerned the only decent song they'd released since was Rocket. However the show happened to fall on my birthday and my brother gave me the ultimatum that he was seeing Goldfrapp anyway so I could either go with him or go out for a family meal without him. As he was offering to pay for my ticket as well I guess it was a no brainer! As my birthday had fallen on a Wednesday it was easy enough to just move the family meal to the Tuesday and to cram in additional celebrations the weekend before and after. Also this was the first year I'd embraced the custom of bringing food in for others at work, as my exposure to social media had reached such a point that I just couldn't hide the date! Ever since Christmas my iPod had been playing up, royally pissing me off as it was fine except the sound only played out of one earphone unless I positioned the headphone plug precisely. Eventually I grew comfortable enough doing this to just get used to it so started listening to the Goldfrapp albums, making a decent stab at learning all of their material in advance of the show. I also saw their 2 disc DVD of their early live shows, which is nice enough but it's baffling as to how they were playing such large shows before Supernature came out, and a bit redundant to watch as few of those tracks would likely be played in the show.
Setlist
Jo
Drew
Stranger
Alvar
Annabel
Clay
Yellow Halo
Little Bird
You Never Know
Number 1
Thea
Ride A White Horse
Ooh La La
Utopia
Clowns
Lovely Head
Train
Strict Machine
