GIG NUMBER FORTY-SEVEN
Who
Coin-Op finished their thing and the crowd had really filled up as we awaited the Inspirals. I picked my spot towards the back of the moshpit and waited. And what a start! The lights went down and the video screen was filled with animated cows which were rotating and mooing - genius! More cows appeared and were layered on top before the band made their entrance - excellent! Yeah... It was good stuff. This Is How It Feels was fantastic! The crowd reaction was awesome - moshing was perhaps too intense so nobody managed it continuously. My trainers and jeans were decimated by mud and beer but I kept going throughout - good exercise these moshpits! My legs kept it up for once but I was alarmed by lung pains around the middle - eek! Beer was flying around, some bright spark chucked a towel into my face and, worst of all, something that seemed like CIDER got tipped over me - of all the drinks in the world (see V2000)! It might have been another liquid, you never can quite tell, but here's hoping it wasn't cider! And as for the chants... Apart from the expected "Boon Army!" and "Manchester la la la", the whole cow thing suddenly made sense. Whenever a song finished the venue was filled with a chorus of what seemed like boos! At first I thought they were chanting "booon!" but soon realised it was "mooo!" So obvious! Probably something the band have had to put up with at every show they play. But for each pause to be met with loud mooing was hilarious to say the least!
On the band front, their video screen was pretty good, occasionally showing live footage of the guys in action, but mainly being simple animations that were indeed Cool As Fuck. I thought at first that things were a bit slow and they probably were. Many bands seem to speed up their songs but here they were slightly slower. Nobody seemed to notice, and I guess it didn't matter, but it caught me by surprise. I also think the pace might have picked up later, or maybe I stopped noticing. The drummer was completely and utterly mad fer it. Indeed everyone seemed to be happy to be back, even the bald guy who'd humiliated himself so when he played with Replica supporting Shed Seven! Perhaps he was happy to be in a decent band again? There was also a big crowd who seemed to care. "Did you miss us?" they asked, and "yes!" we replied, not that I was there the first time round. The guys were moving around the stage loads, swapping positions regularly and the singer gradually fell down the mic until ending up on the floor at the end of one song! Sackville was introduced as a song about Manchester - the Manchester A to Z! Caravan seemed particularly good to me as well. We also got the comeback single, which was a little slow but featured some particularly impressive keyboards at the start. The band asked whether or not we'd be buying it to a big chorus of NO: and nobody did either!
They also played their first ever single, plus a cover version of Pounding by the Doves, which was abandoned thanks to some guy jumping on the stage and bothering the drummer. The song was cut, the drummer got upset and the bald guy briefly returned to his moody Replica persona. After regaining their composure, they launched into Butterfly, which I'd never heard before but it went down well and apparently hadn't been played for a long time. The main set finished and the first encore began with a series of moos from the screen as the rotating cows returned. The balloons that had been attached around the stage were released and quite quickly popped (not quite as robust as Flaming Lips balloons it appeared). We also got the one truly inspired (and topical) moment from the drummer of all people who came back onstage dressed as Saddam Hussein with a mask, outfit and everything! It was utter genius with all the Saddam look-alike stuff going around the news at the time and the sight of him drumming along competently whilst dressed like that was memorable to say the least. There was actually an NME article about this, saying that the stage-jumping incident was a protest at the Saddam mask. As far as I recall, the drummer was "attacked" before the encore, but I really can't be sure.
Also, I Want You was a highlight, despite not featuring Mark E Smith, but we got Fatboy Slim style looping of the vocals, which was amusing. The drummer took off his (no doubt very sweaty) Saddam outfit to reveal an Iraq football top - not quite sure what they're trying to say about the war but it certainly was memorable! The show was drawn to its close with the second encore and a cooler than fuck costume change - the band reappeared dressed in white wearing shades to finish us off with Saturn 5, which featured a spaceship launch style count-in plus an extended ending and further Mark E Smith/Fatboy Slim style loops! Things were then drawn to a total close as the end credits rolled, telling us who everyone was (right down to the roadies). It was another nice touch to a gig where the show, band and crowd all excelled and I went home very happy indeed.
Mark: 7.5/10
Inspiral Carpets
Support
Coin-Op
Where
Manchester Academy
When
5th April 2003
Price
£17.50
Who with
No-one
Position
In the moshpit
Comments
And so the story continues! The Flaming Lips sent something of a benchmark and gave me an even greater desire to see only the best. I deemed the Inspiral Carpets the only act touring capable of getting the ball rolling again! Before setting off I decided that the moshpit would be the place and hence drinking was necessary but was in a hurry so tried to do two pints in the minutes before going out which threatened to kill me off. I arrived at the gig to find things surprisingly chilled-out for a sell-out event, with no rush for the front at all so I helped myself to a Guinness and hung around. The crowd were the scary hard-looking types so I tried to steer clear. I also resisted the awesome Cool As Fuck T-shirts whilst savouring the fact that I had ticket #3 - making me the third biggest fan there logically! Coin-Op were supporting and were fairly good. They were pretty up for it and were sporting matching Inspiral Carpets t-shirts, which was a particularly nice touch!! Little else I can say. Just a four-piece, guitar-based thing with a bit of keyboards.
Setlist
Joe
Directing Traffic
Generations
Bitches Brew
Two Worlds Collide
This Is How It Feels
Weakness
Move
Caravan
Keep The Circle Around
Sackville
She Comes In The Fall
Find Out Why
Come Back Tomorrow
I Want You
Dragging Me Down
Commercial Reign
Pounding
Butterfly
Saturn 5
