MrBen

I always thought The Wildhearts would be perfect for festivals precisely for that reason - they've got so much history that many people will remember the old stuff and be curious. They could pull quite a big crowd of festival-goers that wouldn't bother paying to see them headline a show of their own.

I've no idea why they were left out of the news article - best ask Sean I guess. Probably just an innocent mistake.

Then again, it must be three years now that they've been trying to get back on the Reading bill again. It's a positive sign that they're there at all. Seriously, the kind of live shows they're playing at the moment I wouldn't be surprised if they won quite a few people over and started to move up the bill over the next few years. Having been seeing them live on and off for about the last eight years (I think), right now they're the best I've ever seen them.

Maybe they were so low down the bill that Sean had stopped reading before he reached them. Shame they're so low down, but I'm sure they will be amazing whatever time they're on, if the recent UK tour was anything to go by. I'd have gone to Reading anyway, but it's definitely a welcome addition.

No worries, just wanted to reassure you / anyone else that the tour hasn't been cancelled.

The UK tour dates were rescheduled a while ago because the band was touring America with The Darkness. Oxford, the only date to remain the same, has annoyingly now just been cancelled because of illness.

The dates are now as follows:

23/04/04: Manchester - Academy
24/04/04: Glasgow - Garage
25/04/04: Edinburgh - Liquid Rooms
26/04/04: Leeds - Uni
27/04/04: Nottingham - Rock City
28/04/04: Liverpool - Academy
30/04/04: Dublin - The Village
03/05/04: Bristol - Academy
04/05/04: Cardiff - Uni Solus
05/05/04: Wolverhampton - Wulfrun Hall
06/05/04: Newcastle - Uni
07/05/04: Sheffield - Leadmill
08/05/04: Southampton - Uni
10/05/04: London - Hammersmith Palais
11/05/04: Northampton - Roadmenders
12/05/04: Norwich - Waterfront
13/05/04: Oxford - Brookes Uni

I always found the fact that Tim's a bad singer part of the appeal of Ash. I couldn't explain that rationally, of course. Orpheus sounds OK but not really single material to me.

6:30 onwards is one of the few post-reformation WH songs that gave me that classic Wildhearts experience of initially hating it, then a few listens in realising that it's amazing. I think the other stuff's great, but I've found it a lot more immediate than their earlier material.

Great review though, and this record must be perfect for those that hated the simplicity of the last album. Annoyingly, the only reason for me to buy it would be to get Return to Zero on CD, but I can't justify paying a tenner for one song that I already have on vinyl.

Opinion's divided on what the 'classics' section is for, but I treat it as a section for records that have been overlooked, rather than old records that are perfect. I really really like the album, and think more people should know about it, but at the same time it is only worth 3.5. Maybe their album would have been better if it ever materialised. :o(

Sounds brilliant, I'm really looking forward to it. Thanks for the info, and a more melodic version of 'Clones' sounds ideal for my ears.

Shame, as I really, really like the new single. I was horrified when I heard the clichéd opening, but for once Wheeler's vocals seem to complement rather than detract from the song.

Damian - are they just previewing the album or are they playing other stuff too? Being only a 'minor' fan of the band, I'd like to know what of their material I should be revising for the Oxford show.

And if you go to the band's DiS profile you can download a track from their previous release. If that's anything to go by, this album should be pretty good.

As well as Therapy?, they will be accompanied by The Glitterati on (I think) all dates. That officially makes it the best lineup ever, in my opinion. Two of my long-term favourite bands, and one of the best new live bands I've seen recently.

Out of the handful of times I've seen the band, by far the best performance was last summer in Gillingham (fortunately the only reason it was worth going there for). It seemed that the band's new-found maturity was adding a real complexity to their live performance, and the addition of piano-led tracks alongside the bouncier guitar stuff also made for a more dynamic set, where it was hard to get bored because you never knew what they were going to do next. I agree that many of the new songs have a haunting quality, and this was most evident at that gig.

What lets me down about the new record is that it isn't as dynamic - it relies too much on the haunting side of things, at the expense of the more upbeat numbers which I feel are an integral part of the band's appeal (for me, at least). Essentially what's being said on this thread, and on the easyworld forum where the fans are ranting about Adie's review, is that this is what the band *does* now, and we should either accept that or fuck off. The only problem I have with that is that I know what the band's capable of - I didn't love Easyworld initially *just* because of their throwaway pop songs. I loved their complexity, the fact that they would place 'By The Sea' alongside 'Bleach', or even the dynamic variation within a particular song - 'Demons' being a particularly good example. Their increasing interest in using keyboards in their songs could really have added to that complexity, but sadly it seems to be detracting from it.

Ultimately if a band you like turns into a band you don't like, you will stop listening to them, but what is wrong with registering your disappointment? That's what reviews, discussion forums, etc. are all about, surely? Right now, though, I'm very much on the fence. Ask me in a week what I think of the album and I'll either be bored sick of it or sickeningly in love with it. Similarly, as you said, how the band changes in the future is entirely up to them, so they might surprise us all.

p.s. nice to hear from you Mr Nicky, come and visit soon. xx

Sadly I don't think there's much chance of a TOTP performance. I used to love TOTP - you'd get some shit but there'd nearly always be at least one interesting act on there. It seems that since the re-launch they've stopped featuring anything other than the biggest, most obvious rock/alternative bands. And Easyworld aren't obvious enough for that. Although my opinion of the album, based on a first listen, veers slightly nearer to Adie's than to that of the easyworld forum posters who've magically become DiS readers for a week, I do think that the band deserves a bit more exposure. Their songs vary, and that affects their lives sets, but at their best they have been incredibly captivating performers. As long as they don't take their arse-licking fans too seriously they could go on to record an amazing third/fourth album.

They are horrible people as well. Which shouldn't put me off their music, but it does.

Their recent stuff does seem a bit dreary. I'll reserve my judgment until I've bought the album, but I prefer their rockier stuff. 'When You Come Back, I Won’t Be Here' sounded good live, though.

I would hate anyone to think that I went to the gig and had a completely shit time. Getting drunk and standing in the middle of a big room singing along at the top of my voice to some of my favourite songs will never fail to delight me. It just didn't seem as 'special' as it could have been.

Given the comments that have been made, maybe I should temper my review and acknowledge that my reaction was based partly on the fact that I've seen Ginger, The Wildhearts and SG5 a number of times before, and my opinion of this gig was conditioned by my previous experiences.

However, I disagree with your statement that in these shows he was playing to the 'hardcore'... On previous occasions, this has been the case. At the Zodiac, although there were obviously a lot of people there who knew all the songs, by far the biggest reactions were to the 'classic' Wildhearts songs. At the Barfly last September, by contrast, people seemed happier to hear 'Thunderfuck', 'Dangerlust', 'Nurse Maximum' and other less well-known tracks that they might not have expected to hear. I think that tells you something about the audiences, and although I don't want to be elitist about it, this fact inevitably affects the atmosphere at the gig.

On the other hand, I can't wait to see the full band in March - if the Japanese set lists are anything to go by, it should be a different situation entirely from what I witnessed in Oxford.

So do you think easyworld have got worse, or have your tastes changed? One of the thing that puts me off the band is the pretentiousness of their fans. You go to a gig and everybody's so worried about how they look to everybody else that they forget to do things like talk to each other and have fun. I can't think of a band whose fans are less accessible, and that definitely detracts from my enjoyment, especially when the band seems so smug about the whole thing. Plus they've started writing dreary ballads rather than the nice punchy pop rock they used to do.

Thanks for that - I was wondering where the promised backstage footage was.

Although it's great to watch another live show by Therapy?, the DVD as a whole is a big disappointment. The videos just recycle the same idea, basically just the band performing the song, and are shot really badly. They just look tacky. The Q & A is a waste of time - the only member with anything to say is Andy Cairnes, and it would have been better to have done an in-depth interview. The show is OK, but on screen the band just doesn't seem as exciting as they have when I've seen them live. And what a shame that Therapy?'s recent live sets have consisted of very little more than tracks from Troublegum and High Anxiety. They have so many good songs - some variety would have been nice.

I'm very excited about getting my hands on the Therapy? DVD, whenever that should be.

I don't believe that the Wildhearts one will ever come out. They're very good at committing themselves to things then failing to deliver - the '10th anniversary album and double DVD' thing smacks of Ginger's '12 singles in 12 months' claim to me.

The point of the story is that the DVD isn't Australia-only as it'll play on UK machines - good news for those of us who thought that it'd only be 'available' (i.e. in a practical sense, to watch) for Australian fans.

Thanks for the tip. Any others we should know about?

Thank God for that, they had become embarrassingly shit. Just the other day I was comparing TV performances from now and then, and it is just shocking how bad they have become.

Yes, he seems to be one of those musicians where you can just about guarantee quality every time. Each of his records is brilliant, & somehow unique and characteristic at the same time. The fact that he's an amazing singer and guitarist helps, of course.

Spot on about The Bookoo Movement (but then you knew I'd say that, probably)... What's the delivery like live? I'd have thought the songs would sound better live, provided the band can play well enough of course.

I love all of the Foo Fighters albums to date and can't wait for the next one to drop into my mailbox. They all show that the band can write in many different ways yet still put together a decent song, whether it's all-out rock, melodic chart fodder or whatever. The reason I can't wait for the next album is (a) because at Reading this year the band dropped several new songs into the set that I'd never heard before, and they sounded just as good as the classics, and (b) the review printed here actually *has* given me some idea of what the record sounds like, without just doing a boring track-by-track run-through. Let's hope it comes tomorrow - then I can open my windows, turn the speakers up and piss off the neighbours.

I'm not very technologically minded, so I might be getting this all wrong, but anyway...

... I got the impression that the Cure's recent 'Greatest Hits' album had been subject to an anti-copying device, because I leant it to a friend to copy and they found that it didn't work. However, I copied the songs onto my computer as MP3s using MusicMatch and it worked fine. Is it possible that this is another way of defeating the anti-copying attempts, or am I being ridiculously naive?