GIG NUMBER ONE HUNDRED AND FOUR
Who
It was good to see a band on a Saturday, although it meant that the whole show was starting/finishing early to accommodate the clubs. There were massive crowds outside the Civic so I thought for a moment that the show had been moved up. We still walked to the Wulfrun, keeping our fingers crossed, and fortunately the show hadn't been promoted into the massive room. A rare conversation with a bouncer revealed that Dream Theater were playing The Civic. He said they were an oldies band and were "quite good". Who the hell?? I have sometimes wondered how an act can play such a large venue, sometimes even the N.E.C., and yet have escaped my radar completely. I've never heard of Dream Theater, cannot imagine how they were deemed more popular than the shit-hot Pigeon Detectives, and my research says they're an American 80's metal band! Doors had opened at 6:30 and getting in after 7pm had worked out quite well, as the first support band, The Wallbirds, sounded so poor that we couldn't bear to leave the bar and enter the main room anyway. Get Cape had got me worried that we'd be too "old" for such a hip act so I was relieved that much of the crowd seemed about our age, with kids, students and adults mixing comfortably. We happily hung around, singing Hey Jude continuously to hype ourselves up for seeing Paul McCartney at Anfield in 2008, which is set to be my first ever stadium show. Although a few people I know were apparently here I didn't spot anyone else and whiled away the time drinking proper ale like Old Speckled Hen and Newcastle Brown. It's great to be able to buy stuff so good at a gig, even if you do have to drink it out of plastic cups!
Although it's debatable as to if I actually saw the first band when I didn't even enter the room, we did make more effort for One Night Only. They also weren't particularly good, their zenith being the free badges that were handed out with their flyers. The singer looked like a bit of a dick and less than 24 hours after the show I have already forgotten all about them, remembering only that they had keyboards. The crowd were a bit too enthusiastic, cheering loudly, but I was more interested in how they could look red when green lights were being shined on them! I'd hoped for a nice surprise akin to The Rumble Strips so felt let down, leaving us to hang around in our reasonable position a bit to the right until The Pigeon Detectives came on. The DJ played Our Velocity by Maximo Park, and the stage was draped with a huge, albeit somewhat plain, Pigeon Detectives banner. The band came onstage to rapturous applause and kicked off with a couple of tunes that I knew. The main thing I need to stress is that they are more than a little samey, so I find it almost impossible to distinguish one tune from another for a track-by-track analysis. However, I think they played everything, which included Don't Know How To Say Goodbye, I Found Out, Romantic Type, I'm Not Sorry and Take Her Back, which sounded slightly better than the rest. The crowd went mad to the ones I didn't know, some of which I confused with the ones I did know, and a new song declaring "this is an emergency" didn't add anything new to the mix but was catchier than most new tunes I hear. Much excitement came from the over-enthusiastic crowd. The opening salvo triggered an avalanche of beer on our heads and some furious moshing I partook in. I was slightly concerned about my glasses and ruining my brand new trainers so toned it down quickly, mostly staying on the edge. It was highly amusing to see a huge gap in the crowd appear to avoid the slam pit, and also some crowdsurfers were launched in front of us.
Once I stopped jumping, it did become all too clear that the band were nice enough but had next to no depth to encourage a meaningful career. I was also more familiar with the live show than I should have been, and their regular requests for us to "bounce" sounded just a bit too similar to the live MP3s I had tried so hard to learn. The lead singer with his crazy perm dominated the show, making us shout and delivering crowd-pleasing proclamations such as it being great to be back in England after playing Bangor (Wales) the night before, and calling us Wolves at every opportunity. The comment that most impressed me was his encouragement for us to download one of their songs from Limewire, and to actually promote free downloading so openly was very brave and admirable. He still couldn't resist plugging the new single, and also the DJ set they'd be doing (for a pitiful 45 minutes apparently) at Blast Off next door after the show. The whole thing finished at a near-record 9:30, fifteen minutes before the imposed early curfew, and there was no encore. As they had no other tunes to play, keeping it short and sweet rather than overwhelming us with new songs or obscure cover versions was for the best, and as this was one stop on a long tour for them so was understandable. It took slightly too long for the lights to come up to indicate the show had finished, but I left feeling sweaty and reasonably satisfied. No surprises had been pulled, it was exactly what I'd hoped for. I hung around for the bus home and once again drafted much of this review by txt message. This was the worst gig of the year, as it didn't have decent support bands to prop it up like The Sunshine Underground, but it served its purpose and was a lot better than some of the weak sets I'd seen in late 2006!
Mark: 7.0/10
The Pigeon Detectives
Support
One Night Only
The Wallbirds
Where
Wolverhampton Wulfrun Hall
When
10th November 2007
Price
£11.50
Who with
Nick
Position
Towards the front, in the moshpit
Comments
We'd got tickets for this one months in advance, after deciding that The Pigeon Detectives were one of the bands that we wouldn't miss a chance to see. At the time I didn't know any songs, I just thought they had a cool name (not a bad name - anybody who disagrees should stop taking music too seriously!) and the hype around them was incredible. They seemed like a band of the people, and this drew me in, although having since studied photos of the group they, like The Enemy, do look like knobs, which usually puts me off! I never got round to hearing the album but had heard plenty of their live songs from the festivals and they sounded alright. However, as the show drew nearer I became less excited, as they seemed to have become slightly too popular already and therefore not quite as interesting. 2007 had been a great year for gigging and I'd expected The Pigeon Detectives to be fighting with The Sunshine Underground for the dubious title of weakest show of the year, no matter how good they were. That's simply a case of the competition being so strong, but seeing a band and thinking "they're not as good as..." did make me feel rather old. The combination of not going to a festival in '07, the death of Top Of The Pops and deciding I should no longer waste time listening to Radio 1 beyond the UK Top 40 had made me feel distinctly out of touch. I just have to keep telling myself that bands like The Pigeon Detectives are simply not as good as older acts, be they The Beatles or The Killers. It's not a case of me being too old to understand them! I spent the day of the show writing my SFA gig review, and am now writing this review less than 24 hours after the show, knowing I have a busy month ahead and not wanting to fall behind with the website. I set out around 6ish, we met up and went to Chav Bar Yates's for a pleasing Balti Curry and a combination of white beer (Kronenbourg Blanc) and black beer (Guinness), something I maybe should experiment with more often.
