GIG NUMBER SIXTY-TWO
Who
Although I'd arrived late it didn't prove too hard to get straight in towards the front where I had a nice surprise: my quite excellent mate from school Tom was there who I hadn't seen for a full two years since a Flaming Lips gig! Extra special bit of luck because he was the guy who, along with many other bands, had made me a Soulwax fan!! He'd come along specially all the way from York (no doubt tempted by a free ticket and backstage pass) all alone so that worked out very nicely for both of us. Soulwax had set up a zebra-style black and white striped backdrop providing a nice bit of eye candy. This was also the first time at the Academy 2 that I'd ever seen a mosh barrier and bouncer present! It wasn't long before Clor got onstage and opened the show in pretty solid fashion. The band themselves were a fascinating mish-max of dress styles: from Austin Powers in the corner, to a guy looking very unfashionable in a cardigan to the lead singer in his leather jacket! They played some good stuff with some nice starting and stopping bits in a generally compelling 30 minutes or so of listening. They perhaps performed far too loud for their own good but were quite promising on this evidence.
A maniac tipped some beer over me (a fairly common occurrence really) just as the lights went down and Soulwax took to the stage in powerful fashion with E Talking. Tom had his camera out far too much of the time here leaving me to enjoy and sing along, although sadly no jumping around got going for a bit! The lights were projected so the shadows of the band lit up the backdrop and this pleasing start continued with recent single Any Minute Now moving things up a notch or two! Things really took off though with a radically reworked version of Conversation Intercom. I was first in there with the clapping long before the "clap your hands and you know what to do" order! I ignored everyone else and started to mosh a little, and was by now really starting to have a good night! The balance of the show was a bit off though with absolutely tons of new songs. Compute was great and Please... Don't Be Yourself made us want to dance as much as the band instructed us to! KracK proved a loud and scary number whereas NY Excuse was wonderful stuff, showcasing their DJing skills within a new type of Soulwax song. As well as Slowdance and Miserable Girl, YYY/NNN proved another rewarding new track that made me want to both dance and jump! Last of all, I recall Accidents And Compliments being dispatched also, ensuring practically all of the tracks from the new album paid us a visit tonight!
It wasn't quite all-new songs though. My highlight of the set was almost certainly the very loud Much Against Everyone's Advice. This awesome rock moment led to a moshpit of fantastic intensity (as well as seeing Tom getting to the front) and, although I found myself largely doomed to jumping at the back of the pit trying to break in then being pushed out again, I had great fun. Too Many DJs was another hit in a similar vein. Although the start-stop intro was drawn out to an insane degree I simply jumped slower for the bits where they stopped and that seemed to make perfect sense. The middle part of the tune was replaced by a chilled-out bit of guitar that could had come straight from Loaded by Primal Scream before the song kicked into life again and everyone continued having fun! My neck hurt, I felt exhausted and sick but so what? This is what gigs should be about! As far as the band themselves were concerned, they were dressed in black and had disappointingly decided to put away the white suits. As Tom confirmed, only three members of the original Soulwax remained, some of the peripheral members having vanished with no explanation. The brothers spent a good deal of the show pressing buttons on their back-to-back keyboards creating what proved to be a pleasing noise. The drums were strangely to the left, although this was perhaps to save walking distance for when the drummer decided to get up and pound the speakers!!
I was very disappointed that the wonder of standing still and pointing at each other had been abandoned from the show although, according to Tom, the band were planning to reintroduce gimmicks once they had got used to their new songs. After two encores drawn just about entirely from their new album, Soulwax left the stage almost 30 minutes early, sadly with no mention or tribute for Sir John Peel. I was left standing in total bemusement that they had somehow managed to not perform my two favourite songs: Saturday and Poplife. How could they possibly drop the Casio guitar? That's just criminal! Although this was one of the most satisfying shows I'd seen so dedicated to a new album, finishing early was strange and seemed downright mean. I had a beer and exchanged phone numbers with Tom before he went backstage to meet the band again, then I bought some official Soulwax stickers for £1 before making my way into the night, ears ringing particularly loud.
Mark: 8.0/10
Soulwax
Support
Clor
Where
Manchester Debating Hall
When
26th October 2004
Price
£13.00
Who with
Tom
Position
In the moshpit
Comments
First things first, something very sad happened before this gig that totally overshadowed the occasion. John Peel - greatest DJ of all time and general super-nice funny bloke - died that same afternoon. It came as a total shock to me as I'd never even realised he wasn't in fine health and it will go down as the saddest celebrity death of my lifetime. I'll never forget the fact that he'd got me into Half Man Half Biscuit on the basis of a 30 second record and just the general thing that here was a 65 year old guy into more cutting-edge music than anyone else around. It was well worth listening to his show just to hear that fantastic voice and sense of humour, even if many of his tunes proved so strange that they made your head hurt after a bit of listening! We've lost the man I regularly have called God and that rendered this show a pretty trivial event by comparison. The most important person involved in the music of the 20th century, no contest. So, although I wasn't much in the mood anymore, I set out alone to see Soulwax who'd been away doing their DJ thing for far too long. I'd revised for the show beforehand by hearing their new album Any Minute Now as many times as possible but wasn't quite sure about it. I think that the sounds on it were simply too intrusive to enjoy by walkman so it wasn't until I'd played it on my stereo that any enjoyment was derived. By the time I arrived I felt surprisingly up for it and very much in the spirit of wanting to keep good music alive. I had my fingers crossed for a great Soulwax show as the previous two occasions had been slightly disappointing affairs.
