Myspace is great for keeping up with bands. That local band that you saw at the pub last week will most likely have a myspace so you can listen to that rockin' tune you danced to, put a name to it, find out when they're gigging next, if they're recording a sweet EP, etc.
Some bands post bulletins every now and again announcing such news.
A local band added me recently. They were pretty good so I added them back.
Unfortunately they are the biggest online whores on the planet. I constantly received comments, messages and bulletins from them.
Saying the same thing.
They're not the only bands who do this. I have deleted a few bands off myspace for doing the same thing, which can't be doing much for their fanbase.
I posted the following rant on myspace (via a bulletin, ironically enough...):
I just deleted a band off my friends list for posting 5 bulletins.
In a row.
Saying the same thing.
This is a real bummer because they're actually a pretty good band but seriously, I do NOT need that many bulletins saying THE SAME FUCKING THING on my page.
Seriously, if you have some cool shit going on, post like one bulletin or something and put the info on your main page. If you have decent fans who have half a brain, they will look at your actual site if they wanna know what's going on. If they don't know how to do this then TOUGH FUCKING BISCUITS, THEY MISS OUT BECAUSE THEY ARE TOO STUPID TO USE THE INTERNET.
Or do the old fashioned thing - posters, word of mouth, street teams, merch stands at your gigs, whatever. If people are interested they will check it out. Getting in people's faces online will drive people away because NOBODY LIKES SPAM.
Conclusion: All bulletins and no music make Ellie a very pissed-off music fan. End rant.
What is music? For some, it is a creative outlet for personal self expression. Others use it as a means to make profit by mass-marketing consumer popularity. Some just like making a shitload of noise.
But sometimes music doesn't make sense at all.
In no particular order, here are my personal Top 5 Great Musical Mysteries!
1. Rihanna and the Numa Numa song.
Many internet geeks know about "the Numa Numa song", otherwise known as "Dragostea Din Tei" by Romanian pop group O-Zone. It was made famous by Gary Brolsma - your average nerd who thought it'd be a laugh to upload a video of himself singing and dancing along to it, way back in 2004. The video became a hit and had 13 million views by 2006.
Imgine my surprise when I heard the familiar lyric "Mi-a-hi, mi-a-ha", digitalised and sung to a hip hop beat by none other than Miss "Umberella, ella, ella" Rihanna herself.
The great mystery: Why Rihanna's producers thought it would be a good idea to cash in on a song made famous by a fat, dancing nerd.
Maybe it was so "Umberella" would sound less annoying by comparison?
2. Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue's duet
The darkest Australian musician meets "the singing budgie" with a fondness for gold hot pants and writes a song.
I must say I'm not a fan of either Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue. It also seems highly unlikely that any Nick Cave fan would like Kylie Minogue, and vice versa. Yet here they are singing a song about falling in love and killing each other. And it works.
The great mystery: Why is this song so goddamn good?
3. The lyrics to "My Humps"
What you gon' do with all that junk? All that junk inside your trunk? I'ma get, get, get, get, you drunk, Get you love drunk off my humps, Humps, my humps, my humps, my humps, my humps, My humps, my humps, my humps, my lovely little humps (Check it out)
"How do you know what that means?" "No one knows what it means. But it's provocative." "No it's not!" - Jon Heder and Will Ferrell in "Blades of Glory"
It doesn't really take a rocket scientist to figure out that "humps" refers to curves (or boobies).
But why "humps"? There are thousands of words for female body parts and she chose "hump", which makes me think of "heffalump" or someone who is horribly disfigured.
This particular verse:
They say I'm really sexy, The boys they wanna sex me. They always standing next to me, Always dancing next to me, Tryin' a feel my hump, hump. Lookin' at my lump, lump. You can look but you can't touch it, If you touch it I'ma start some drama, You don't want no drama, No, no drama, no, no, no, no drama So don't pull on my hand boy, You ain't my man, boy, I'm just tryn'a dance boy, And move my hump.
... could easily sound like Fergie is singing about a disgusting tumour growing out of the side of her body.
The great mystery: Choosing the most unsexy word to sing about sexy you are.
4. The video clip to "Total Eclipse of the Heart"
I adore this song. Ever since I saw an old man singing it (really well!) in karaoke at the Victory Hotel, I love it. Bonnie Tyler has an amazing voice. The song itself is about the doubts and fears somebody can have in a relationship, but ultimately realising that love overpowers all.
So can anyone explain to me why Bonnie Tyler is wandering around a spooky old boarding school with creepy boys doing extra-cirricular activites around her?
The great mystery: What I just mentioned above. Plus, seriously, there are ninjas fighting in the middle of it!
5. Avril Lavigne's self-censorship Oh, Avril Lavigne. You are hardcore like a 14 year old girl wearing an Emily the Strange shirt.
Ms Lavigne released an incredibly annoying song last year entitled "Girlfriend". I'm sure you all know it. In case you don't, here it is for your viewing pleasure! (Youtube won't let me embed the video for some reason).
At some point in her tirade to get some dude to cheat on his girlfriend, she declares "I'm the motherfucking princess!". Radio stations usually bleep these words out for the general public and to shield the kiddies from such naughty words. You can usually hear the uncensored, naughty version on the CD.
My ex worked in a CD shop around the time Avril's album came out and had to play the dreaded harpy's music all day. He noticed something a little off.
Indeed, you never hear "motherfucking" in the song at all. Avril sings "motherffffking" on the recording itself.
The great mystery: Avril Lavigne fails at being hardcore, even when she says "motherfucking".
Two rather interesting things happened to me today.
1. I met John Birmingham. 2. I saw an awesome gig (I've become interested in reviewing as of late after giggling at the bitchy user reviews on my247.com.au, so I'm trying to write my experience in that format)
1. I met John Birmingham. You know, the author of one of my favourite books which I quite possibly count as a major influence behind why and how I write? Yeah, that dude. After he randomly came across my blog a few entries back, Dan had emailed him and asked him to sign my book for my birthday (I turned 20 on the weekend, by the way). It conveniently turned into a lunch meeting. Holy cow! I slipped into "quiet, softly-spoken and socially retarded" mode due to pure shock of meeting someone whose life I've repeatedly read about in He Died with a Felafel in His Hand and a few of his other autobiographical books. Knowing a bunch of intimate details - deeper things than you'd find on a myspace profile - about someone before you meet them is a very bizarre feeling.
Nevertheless, John turned out to be a really friendly guy and I quickly got over my "oh my god I'm stuffing my face with spicy Chinese food in front of one of my favourite authors". It was great to meet him, even though I was concentrated on not coming across as a dickhead the entire time. Hey, I guess I just don't meet many famous people.
2. Tonight was the Gyroscope concert, supported by the Shihad and Sugar Army. You know it's been a good gig when you declare to anyone who will listen that "I'm going to marry everyone from Gyroscope."
This prestigious event took place at the Arena, which I've never been to before. Performance-wise, there wasn't much to complain about; vertically challenged people such as myself had the option of viewing the bands from an upstairs area, and the lighting was meticulously perfected, which added a real bang to the show. Now I might just be being a bar nerd here, but the Arena's bar service is awful. I understand that the Arena is a music venue, not a bar, but the bar staff seemed like a bunch of random kids that were chosen for their indie charm rather than skill or experience. One girl looked positively terrified as she slowly and carefully measured out the shots, and I earned a "oh my god I can't believe you're drinking that" look of disgust from another girl when I ordered a Corona. I'm terribly sorry, should I have ordered one of the many cans of VB in the fridge? I gave up after that.
Yuck!
Oh, and the floor was sticky.
Sugar Army started the night off with what I first perceived as intense indie rock. Unfortunately, they quickly ran out of steam by the third song. After playing one of their songs that I vaguely remember hearing on Triple J, the songs all seemed to melt into an ocean of mediocrity; the highs and lows were predictable, the ambitious progressive guitar riffs didn't make sense, and the singer sang out of tune. I was also put off by the way they danced. I usually enjoy when band members move around when performing, but this was ridiculous. The guitarist's signature move was bouncing around in a circle as though he lacked knees, while the bassist assumed a move where he looked like he was attempting the splits while pelvically thrusting at the drummer. I put this down to the fact that they were both wearing extremely tight pants. Shihad were on next. I admit that I don't know many songs of this immensely popular New Zealand heavy rock band, but I was greatly entertained as they made up for Sugar Army's lacklustre performance and then some. Singer Jon Toogood announced that Shihad had been together for 20 years this. That's right. This band are as old as I am, and they still bloody rock. It's great to see a band that obviously loves performing. A most impressive feat was Jon's journey into the crowd, up the stairs, pausing to play guitar over the balcony, run behind us (!!), run around to the other side of the stage and jump off a speaker stack back onto the stage. Followed by a leap into the air on the final guitar riff of the song. Brilliant!
Just when I thought that Shihad had topped everybody in the "most energetic band of the night' competition, Gyroscope ripped through a set that left me awestruck, euphoric and smitten. There's a certain harmony to explosive guitar riffs combined with the sugary sweet vocals of singer/guitarist Daniel Sanders. It's interesting to see the differences between their old and new songs; their older songs have a very strong punk influence, while the songs off their newest album Breed Obsession are more melodic, with a moody grunge feel to them. You could tell that every lyric that Daniel sang or screamed was genuine - even when he unexpectedly launched into a cover of Midnight Oil's "Beds are Burning". You could tell that there must be something special about this band when everybody in the audience sings along to every song, word for word. Gyroscope performed with a passion that left everybody smiling, hugging, dancing and reaching out to touch the amazing band members as they shook the hands of some lucky punters in the audience. Their final song, "Snakeskin", made the entire Arena turn into a moshing, singing frenzy.
I emerged from the Arena dazed, happy and full of love. Which is how everybody should feel after any good gig.
First port of call: Radio. I do not have a CD player in my car, nor can I be bothered to buy a stereo. So I must listen to the radio. There's nothing wrong with this, really. EXCEPT FOR ONE THING. When I'm on a long drive and I'm doing the flicking between radio stations, I'm looking for some music. It frustrates me that more often than not, there is no music playing on any of the four radio stations I listen to. Instead I am treated to impotence ads where Gary can now go all night long, or the pure comedic genius of the hosts making witty observations like:
- Men and women are different - Sometimes, they have sex. - Paris Hilton/Britney Spears/silly famous blonde woman is pretty dumb.
Men and women are different? Wow! That's so refreshing.
That's nice. Not. I don't listen to the radio to hear people talk, I listen to it so I can dance me some funky tunes. I can't sing along to your voices, can I?
(Note to people who will go, "Omg, you should stop listening to commercial radio": No. Triple J is just as bad in the afternoons. Yes, I think Dools and the like are quite hilarious, but I would still rather listen to the new Hives songs than a bunch of silly jokes and plugging various upcoming music festivals.)
If this wasn't bad enough, this mindless banter has been replaced with one topic and one topic only.
That's right kids: The upcoming federal election! Oh, joy.
And that brings me to my next point.
That was a pretty awesome segue into my next point, yes?
I am getting tired of hearing about the election.
I turned on the radio today to do my radio station flicking exercise while driving to taekwondo. One station was interviewing Julia Gillard. The others were all talking about the election (Oh wait, there was one radio station laughing about impotence or something). Eventually I screamed in rage, turned off the radio and sang loudly to myself instead.
There was an election ad before the movies. Uh, I want to see pretty people sing Beatles songs, thanks, not smug Australians telling me how awesome John Howard is.
I couldn't stand watching the TV the other night because there were at least two election ads for every ad break. God, I'd rather watch tampon ads.
And most of all, I tire of people asking who I'm voting for, then telling me who they're voting for, then telling me that I should vote for whoever they're voting for. It's starting to get to a point where I'm afraid to actually tell people, just so I can avoid a big debate over something I don't actually care about.
But wait! Am I not a journalist student? Should I not have my ears to the ground, following the election coverage with bated breath? Shouldn't I be concerned about the future of this country?
Yeah, I should. But to be honest, I really couldn't give a flying George Bush about politics. Oh yeah, and in case you haven't noticed, I'm much more interested in ordinary people than politicians. I find the entire affair incredibly frustrating.
Let's make my reasoning a bit clearer.
This election is between...
this wanker
and
and this douchebag.
I have this somewhat annoying compulsion of mine to see the good and bad in everything. This isn't very useful when I have to choose one or the other.
Some of the wanker's policies are quite good and work well for certain areas. Some of them don't work so well with some others. Some of the douchebag's promises will benefit some people, but not work so well for others. Neither of the leaders will ever do anything that will realistically benefit every single person in Australia. Oh, and to make things more confusing, both of the main parties are copying policies off each other.
Some unions are good, some unions are bad. Get over it.
Politicians are told by PR to avoid certain questions in interviews. There's a lot of information we're missing. Most of the good things we hear about politicians are from their own mouths. Most of the dodgy things they do are well-publicised. Reading the paper is painful for me. It depresses me that such idiots are in power of this country. And that's not just with one politician; it's all of them.
And of course, they break promises. Who could forget the wanker's promise that there would be no GST and low and behold, there's a GST? And who knows if the douchebag will keep his promises?
You may have figured out by now that I am having a bit of trouble with who to vote for. And no, engaging in lengthy debate with people who proudly proclaim who they're voting for and try to "help me decide" is not helping one little bit.
I have seen heaps of good friends fight nastily due to political preference. This disturbs me. What happened to tolerance and respect of other people's beliefs? Not many people like fundamentalist religious types who proclaim loudly that they are born again Jewish Christian Wiccans Cow Worshippers and anybody who isn't will burn in a tub of sulpheric acid for eternity. This is exactly the same thing.
Either way, whoever's elected will make some things good and some things bad. All it boils down to, really, is who you are in society and whether it will benefit you or not. But there are a lot of different people in this country, and not everybody is going to be happy with everything.
To be honest, I can't see much changing either way. Money will be thrown at things, but I can't see a major upheavel in the system without people getting up in arms over the change in infrastructure and the sacrifices made.
Vote Labour. Vote Liberal. Vote for the Communist Party. Hell, vote for the "I hate Asian girl bloggers with red glasses" party if you want. I don't care. I really, really don't care. Just take notice that when I say "I don't care" in regards to the election, this is not an invitation to engage in lengthy political debate with me. It is the proclaimation of a very confused, exasperated, cynical girl who has to choice between a wanker and a douchebag to lead the country in the next election.
If you were an Aussie kid growing up during the 90s, chances are you got up or stayed up until odd hours to watch rage.
I was a highly impressionable young kid and remember sitting there in the dark, quivering, remote tightly clenched in hand, as some frightening videos played on screen. Back in the 90s, trance/techno crossover songs weren't as sexualised as they are today. There was something dingy and dark about them, conjuring up thoughts of dark places where strange people would go. (I learnt later that these places were called "nightclubs".)
Click, I'd change the channel to a bright, happy sitcom, hoping such images I'd seen wouldn't give me nightmares.
After watching "A night at the Roxbury", I was reminded of such songs from my childhood rage watching, particularly that of Brainbug's "Nightmare". "That's the alien song!" I yelped. "That song scared the shit out of me as a kid!"
With the help of Youtube, I uncovered these songs of memories past.
Video Clips That Scared the Shit of out Me when i was a kid
Brainbug - Nightmare
The song itself is fairly sinister sounding, but I'm relatively sure I had nightmares (har har) about this video clip when I was a kid. I wasn't wrong about the aliens. This also reminds me when I watched the terribly authoritive show "A Current Affair" one night when they interviewed a man who had apparently been abducted by an alien. They even showed obviously real footage of an alien! It never occurred to me that it was just a recreation of what the fellow supposedly saw. It didn't stop me from telling people in Year 4, very seriously, that aliens were DEFINITELY REAL because I saw them on TV!
Great song though. You gotta laugh at the awful costumes and flying saucers on strings flying about. Maybe I was scared of the dodgy special effects.
Chemical Brothers - Hey Boy, Hey Girl
Again, another somewhat sinister-sounding song with an equally terrifying video clip. Well, now that I watch it, my initial reaction is "HAHA CGI SKELETONS HAHA". But for some reason I remember completely crapping myself at the sight of skeletons dancing at a nightclub. I mean, argh. SKELETONS. I WANT MY MUMMY. It's still a little bit creepy to this day. However, all fears are quashed at the end when that dodgy taxi driver/skeleton says, "Where you going, baybeh?"
Hooverphonics - Mad about you
When I saw this video clip as a youngun, I had a fairly basic understanding of love and sex. Men and women fell in love with each other. Sometimes men and men, or women and women. NOT WOMAN AND PLANT. This video clip definitely tugged the "this is wrong!" sensors in my brain. Later, I would find out that compared to beastiality, pedophilia, hentai tentacle sex, foot fetishes etc. it wasn't really that weird at all.
Still disturbs me a little bit though.
Green Jelly - Little Pig
Man, you try hearing the story about the Three Little Pigs then seeing this video clip. Mind warping for sure. I think I was also against bad, squishy claymation that seemed to be quite the novel special effect back then too.
X-Files Techno Remix
Ok, so this isn't the original video clip for the song. But seriously, what was the scariest thing you ever watched when you were a kid growing up in the 90s? That's right, the X-Files. Listening to the techno remix just made me think of the show, and I'd say this fanvideo pretty much sums up my thought process.
Well, I hope you enjoyed that. I'll add more if I can think of any.
For now, enjoy a video clip that scares the shit out of me TODAY>
Look at those high waisted pants! Camel toes galore. It makes me cringe, cross my legs, and thank god that I was not of clubbing age during the 90s.
Well! Uni is finally over for the semester and I can update this blog for once.
I have decided to review the places I have been lately. That's right, I go outside and without my laptop sometimes. Shocking, I know! Your Mate’s House Your Mate’s House is a great place for pre-going out shenanigans, such as taking incriminating photos in the kitchen. Your Mate’s House is preferably near the city so you don’t have to pay a truckload for a taxi fare. Your Mate should have a good liquor supply so Another one of Your Mates, who works at a restaurant, can make excellent, too-strong cocktails for you all. Your Mate also supplies a quality antipasto platter specially imported from Woolworths.
10/10
The liquor range at Your Mate's house.
The Press Club The Press Club is a sweet, cozy little bar near the Empire Hotel. The bar has an even more impressive liquor range than Your Mates House – the shelves nearly go up to the ceiling. Although the Press Club is quite classy, I decided it wasn’t really my type of place. It seems to be the sort of bar that city workers go after work - most of the people there were in their mid-twenties or older (I’m only 19). A relaxing atmosphere, if you’re looking for it, but I was looking to get raucously drunk and dance. And despite the extensive range of liquor, I was quite disappointed by the Press Club’s rendition of the ever-popular Jagerbomb. Served in a small, skinny glass, the barman simply poured the Jagermeister into the Red Bull, rather then plonking in the shot glass. In other words, he took the “bomb” out of “Jagerbomb” and charged us $9 for it. My friends and I agreed this was quite a poor effort and left.
6/10
What a jagerbomb should look like.
The streets of the Valley If there’s one thing I love about big nights out, it’s the moments of utter surrealism that occur whilst you’re drunk and between bars. “Where are we going now?” Alex inquired. “Hell,” said Jerome, pointing at a sign. And indeed, that sign said nothing but “Hell” in drippy red letters. Ignore the legends and myths you hear about Hell. We didn’t see fire, brimstone, or foul demons demanding for our souls; Hell is a car yard. But not just any car yard. This car yard was full of vans, but not just any vans! Hell is white vans with pictures of breasts painted on them. White breasts and black breasts for the sake of racial equality. Hooray.
I didn’t know this, but apparently walking from bar-to-bar is a good place to find love. We were approached by a group of men possibly in their 30’s. “You’re the best looking girl in the street,” one leered at me. “You’re old,” I replied, and we were on our way.
We were also approached by a fast-talking Russian. “Spraken ze deutsch?” Alex asked cleverly. “Ah! German, German!” “No, we’re not German.” “You meet my German friend?” “No thanks. Er, danke.” “Here he is!” “RUN!”
10/10
The Fringe Bar The Fringe Bar has lovely bouncers. Before entering the bar, my friend Georgia and I were discussing the possible words that the C in the C Mart across the road could stand for. Our suggestions were rather loud and obscene, as we were somewhat inebriated at this stage. Nevertheless, us crude young lasses were still allowed in.
The Fringe Bar’s liquor range was not quite as extensive as the Press Club’s. However, the pretty lights shining under the bottles were quite fascinating to me.
More surrealism occurred here. I went upstairs in search for a toilet to find myself in a crowd of strange people – sailors, cowboys, construction workers… It was like I had entered some parallel universe where everybody was a member of the Village People.
The music at the Fringe Bar wasn’t anything special, mainly your Top 40 pop sort of thing. Although I was drunk enough to dance, I got bored quickly.
5/10
The people I saw upstairs at the Fringe Bar.
Bad Girls We were quite keen on pointing and laughing at slutty girls with their saggy boobs out, so off we went to Bad Girls. However, we didn’t bank on the cover charge of $15. “Fuck that!” I declared. I can look at my own boobs for free anyway.
0/10
The Mustang Bar The Mustang Bar is a sports bar. This was confirmed by Alex cheering on rally drivers on the plasma TVs set up around the bar, and myself goggling at the male gymnastics which was shown later on.
I walked into the Mustang Bar with my nerd sense a-tingling. Hark! A long tabletop video game machine with Pacman on it! There was also a Simpsons pinball machine next to it. I was in nerd heaven. I liked this place already.
The music was definitely not my thing at all, but that doesn’t mean it’s not fun to dance like an over-enthusiastic rapper to Kanye West and the Hilltop Hoods. Highlights were “Poison” (albeit the remix, but it didn’t stop me from growling along to it and striking rockstar poses in the mistaken belief that I was Alice Cooper) and “Freestyler”, a song I haven’t heard since I was 12 and trying to be cool at school dances. Not much has changed, except I am now drunk on alcohol rather than hyper on Coke and red cordial.
What I liked most about the Mustang Bar was that although there were your usual crew of sleazes, the majority of people there were quite friendly. We had a funny crew of boys ambushing our photos. My over enthusiastic dancing knocked over a very tall fellow’s drink. I wept for forgiveness, which was met by a high five for my dancing. All in all, I had a lot of fun here.
8/10
This is why I liked the Mustang Bar.
The Mustang Bar Toilets (Ladies) Quite possibly the worst toilets I have ever been in. Pungent aroma? Check. Piss on the floor? Check. Strange substances smeared on the walls? Check. The fleshy insides of someone’s bleeding nose all over the floor? Check. Wait, what? Alex alerted me to the cocaine spilt on the floor. Ah. That explains that, then.
Yuck.
0/10
Quite a bit of this on the floor of the Mustang Bar toilets, sans blood and bits of septum.
New York Slice “What shall we do now?” we pondered as we stumbled out of the Mustang Bar at 3.30am. “NEW YORK SLICE,” roared Georgia. At first I was spitting chips at $6 for a slice of pizza. Then I realised that these slices were huge and delicious. I did not enjoy the amount of capsicum on the pizza, so I contented myself with waving it in front of Georgia’s face. “Here comes the capsicum plane!” I cooed. We were quite peaceful, sitting there munching on pizza and watching the colourful lights flickering in the Empire across the road. A rather frightened looking fellow running around and hiding behind our table interrupted our early morning meal. “Will you girls take care of me?” he asked. “What’s wrong?” “I was with my friend, and I can’t find him,” he whimpered. “I’m from Western Australia and I don’t know where I am.” We chatted with him about Western Australia for a little while, until he pointed at a man in a white shirt lurching up the street. “That’s him, that’s him!” he squealed. “He’s over here!” we called. “What are you doing?!” the man in the white shirt blustered. “Get up and stop bothering these beautiful people here.” “This is fucking good pizza,” I said, while the men argued. "It's amazing what some people do to talk to girls," observed Georgia. 9/10
Rose Tattoo, Skid Row and Guns n Roses
Initially I was worried about this gig. I heard that the performance the previous night had gone awry due to Axl Rose having a tantrum and storming off after three songs. However, Dan and I have a knack for seeing bands at the right time (we saw Nine Inch Nails before they cancelled a show and threw a tantrum in Melbourne) and they did not disappoint. We arrived at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre, freezing our nipples off. “YOU’RE IN THE JUNGLE, BABY!” squealed a group of already-pissed Guns n Roses fans. We counted 15 mullets just walking from my car into the entertainment centre. There were too many bandanas to count. I felt like I had stepped into the 80’s.
Rose Tattoo was on first. I’ll borrow Dan’s remarks on the performance – “Not bad for an old fart”. Angry Anderson was in his form, passionately ranting about freedom in Australia and calling everybody his brothers and sisters. Share the love indeed. Skid Row was next. Sebastian Bach burst on stage, glorious, Pantene-commercial-worthy hair swishing about and donning a pair of rather tight leather trousers. He bounced and ran about the stage with the energy of a little child. His scream was perfect. “You might recognise this next song,” he said, “because it’s on our myspace page. Oh my god, I can’t believe I just said that.”
A punch-up in the middle of the moshpit made Sebastian halt the song to hurl abuse at the person causing the fight. “We’re here to have fun and have a good time, you motherfucking cocksucker!” he screamed. He demanded a security guard cart him outside. “Everybody say goodbyyyeee!” said Sebastian. We cheered. I decided I was in love.
Sebastian Bach is a man who takes matters into his own hands.
I occasionally froze, my jaw open, whenever the guitarists played a face-melting solo – which was EVERY time. “Musicgasm,” I explained to Dan.
Then the moment of glory came. Skid Row exited and roadies fiddled about on stage. Another platform with a shining drumkit was revealed. Dan and I munched Maltesers and gripped each other in enthusiasm. How romantic. The lights dropped and so did my stomach, as though I was jumping off a cliff. We proceeded to wet our pants with excitement. A dramatic orchestral number boomed from the stage. What the hell was going on? Was this some kind of horrible song from the new album? Had Axl Rose turned into a pretentious prick and turned Guns n Roses into some DNA-mutated experimental band? It faded into silence, which segued into the opening riff to “Welcome to the Jungle.” I more or less did a back flip in my chair in excitement as a little white spotlight shone on Guns n Roses’s new guitarist, who was wearing a hat vaguely reminiscent of Slash’s. Fireworks shot out and things exploded.
Axl and Sebastian. (Photo from Guns n Roses's myspace) (Lol, myspace)
Another expectation I had was that Axl Rose’s performance may be somewhat lacklustre. Axl Rose is, after all, an ageing rockstar who has consumed a fair few illicit substances in his time. I expected him to walk onto the stage, clutching the microphone like a life boat and croak out Guns n Roses’s hits in a decrepit fashion. I was proved wrong as Axl ran onstage, welcoming me to the jungle. I was delighted to see that he could still do the wiggly dance he does in the “Sweet Child of Mine” video clip. He ran around the stage, jumping and leaping, even unexpectedly mounting his piano. Axl has indeed still got it.
Unfortunately, the guitarists were quite disappointing. One was quite good, but the other two proceeded to butcher various guitar solos. You may know of the technique called “tapping” – it’s basically when a guitarist uses both hands to press on notes on the neck. The introduction to AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” is a good example. Tapping sounds impressive and tricky, but I can do it, therefore it can’t be too hard at all. Anyway, it only sounds good when used at the right time. The Skid Row guitarists got it right, putting in subtle flourishes when needed. The new Guns n Roses guitarists did this to excess. “Stuff this,” I said. “I can do that.” They were the experts of fancy guitar tricks, but not much else. The guitarists were given ample time to show off as Axl kept disappearing backstage. God knows what he was doing. Dan thinks he was drinking; I think he had a bad case of the runs and needed to poo quite badly. Perhaps the poor fellow had been slipped a laxative!
Highlights were “Knocking out Heaven’s Door”, “Sweet Child of Mine”, “Patience” and Sebastian Bach returning onstage for a duet. Unfortunately, one of my other favourite Gunners songs, “November Rain”, was horribly butchered – the drums were too fast and one of the bad guitarists took it upon himself to change one of the solos. Sacrilege, I say! The show ended with “Paradise City”, with more fireworks and red confetti exploding everywhere. I left feeling warm and fuzzy as Dan and I ranted and raved in excitement on our way back to the car. A good night was had by all.
9/10
More photos of the Valley Shenanigans will be uploaded as soon as Georgia gets off her lazy bum and sends them to me.
I have been going to a fair few gigs lately. I also watched the Eurovision semi-finals last night. I have learnt things about music that I wish to share with you:
If you are a guitarist in a band, you HAVE to jump around like you have caterpillars in your pants and hump the amp wildly. If not, you suck.
Being Trent Reznor also helps.
All men in Europe are hot. However, they are also all raging homosexuals. No straight man can wear a silk, open shirt with gold chains. And leather pants. So many leather pants.
You are not allowed to be a Polish "rapper" in golf pants.
Dear Turkey: STOP THRUSTING. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP THRUSTING. love, Ellie
No matter how tight your pants are and how much camel toe you have if you can't hit the high notes then you can't hit the high notes.
Emo kids are allright when they sing cute pop-punk songs and are from Andorra.
It turns out that the portly, butch woman of questionable sexual orientation who was in my way the whole time at the Nine Inch Nails concert was the Serbian entrant in Eurovision! How about that.
You have to PUSH THE BUTTON.
Danish drag queens sing better than most girls.
You know you're at a quality gig when the band finishes with, "Add us to myspace!"
Hello there, welcome to my blog. My name is Ellie. I'm a 20-year-old journalism student in Brisbane, Australia.
I'm a politically-incorrect Korean adoptee who wants to be a writer and can make a mean Long Island Iced Tea. I think about things a lot and the bits that don't stay in my brain go into this blog.
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