GIG NUMBER TEN
Who
It's hard now to put my finger on just why this show got to me so much. Seeing everyone liking a band I'd got into first and cheering the worst songs the loudest is always a downer. But it was probably that the group did nothing interesting, just playing their stuff note-perfect and without the slightest bit of spontaneity or true energy. All the rock-outs seemed so well-rehearsed that they'd ceased to rock, and the band could well had been robots for all I could tell! The truth is probably that the incredible show I'd seen SFA doing six weeks previously had raised the standard I demanded to be entertained by so much that the Stereophonics simply weren't good enough to compete anymore. I came out of the show singing Northern Lites for some reason, and to be so profoundly unaffected by a gig I'd just seen made it a total failure. Normally you go home and want to listen to some of the songs again, but instead I went home and hid my Stereophonics records away, feeling they'd been declared quite obsolete in my Super Furry world! Maybe it was some psychic instinct telling me that the Phonics were about to lose the plot worse than almost any other band in the history of the world has before! Mr Writer appalled me so much that I was unable to listen to even their old records for years afterwards. Now my opinion has neutralised and I see the Stereophonics in their correct light: as a band that used to be fairly good, jumped the shark, then later on even sacked Stuart Cable, taking away the closest thing the band had to a soul. Stereophonics provide the very definition of a band selling out!
Mark: 7.0/10
Stereophonics
Support
Our Lady Peace
Where
Birmingham N.E.C.
When
12th December 1999
Price
£18.00
Who with
A coach-load!
Position
Seated, towards the back
Comments
Quite a comedown after the SFA to put it mildly, and a poor choice for the milestone of my tenth gig. Somehow the Stereophonics had become big enough to play the N.E.C. AND sell it out over the course of the year and I was persuaded to go at the last minute after being offered transport. Wish I'd just said no now, as it was hardly cheap either! After getting a minibus there and finding our seats were miles away from the stage, I'd decided already that I didn't like arena shows or seated gigs before Our Lady Peace took to the stage with a frighteningly mediocre set. Stereotypical support and no more needs to be said. After what seemed like hours of Mexican waves, the Stereophonics made it onstage and played loads of their songs. I think the setlist was fine, the sound quality quite good and the band had considerately got some video screens set up so we could actually see all the "exciting" things the Phonics do onstage! Naturally we stood up but being deprived of a normal standing environment killed the atmosphere to a terrifying degree no matter what you tried to do! And you could still barely see what was going on regardless of the screens.
