Boards
My Supersonic Story
Apologies for the length of the post but I have a lot to tell!
Khonnor – Good start to the evening. He works best when he sticks to more standard song structure. When he goes off on a tangent working in effects, it’s not as engaging and there are people that do this kind of thing better. I felt sorry for his mate who was wearing a fluffy dog helmet in the baking afternoon heat.
Tunng – The programme described them well as the local pub band from The Wicker Man. Really gentle folk with samples and hushed electro beats. It got a little samey after a while and they waste the fact that they have three singers who all sing the same in the same key. Little bit of harmony would have been nice. But they were cool and accompanied our cold lagers well.
Aereogramme – My favourite band of this century didn’t let me (us) down. I just love this band. The festival peaked early as expected with the dual drumming crescendo of the epic The Unravelling. The place still hadn’t filled up but I think they went down pretty well. I spoke with the bass player Campbell Mcneil (how Scottish is that name??) before the gig (yes I know, I’m a sad groupie) and he told me that they’re soon to be working with Isis to make a mixed album. I can’t imagine anything better.
Jesu – Big and sludgy. I would have preferred them later on in the bill as they would have worked better for me during a drunken slow head bob. I didn’t understand why they hid the drummer behind a curtain, maybe it’s meant to just be about the guitars. That backfired for me a little though.
Battles – Had it not been for the brilliance of Aereogramme, Battles would have been the best act of the day by a long way. The drummer was incredible, mostly for his sheer workrate but also for the complexity of what he was playing. Unusual positioning of the crash cymbal though! (about 8 foot in the air). Besides the drumming, the two main dudes played guitars and keyboards at the same time which is something I’ve never seen before. I will be seeing this band again.
Formation Flight – Oooh, jaggy, spiky, angry and shouty! Good though. The singer was really intense and had a funny dance almost like an Elvis shuffle. He also looked about 15. Again some really amazing complex drumming.
Dalek – Not really a big fan of hip hop or rap but these fellas were pretty good. Atmospheric and intense.
Noise Noise Allore! – What the hell!!!? If you were to just take the band, you could describe them as tight, fast, hard and complicated. Then there’s the singer! Where did they find this ‘man’? He prances around like Mick Jagger getting electrocuted and sings in the most ridiculous falsetto tone. I couldn’t stop laughing but nobody else in the crowd was so I left before I offended anyone!
Brian Duffy + Modified Toy Orchestra - The biggest disappointment of the day for me. Yes it was a spectacle and yes, it was definitely something very different but it just didn’t do it for me. When I heard about this, I expected a man to be playing toys in daft tunes. Instead we got noise that genuinely could have been anything. I didn’t really see the point of modifying the noise of everything so much that it didn’t matter at all that it was toys. There were highlights though such as the demonic dancing doll and when he got some guest artists on the stage. This section was what I’d expected from him. Each player had a toy and they played a daft tune together like a band which just happened to use kid’s toys as instruments. It was funny, entertaining and memorable unlike the first section. I will qualify this review with the fact that I was cooking alive in that tiny packed theatre.
This was the last act I saw on the day because as I’m sure most of you are aware, there was a bomb scare in Birmingham and all pubs, clubs and bars were being evacuated. It was disappointing to leave early but I had seen everything I’d wanted to. I was hoping to see Merzbow but you couldn’t have paid me to go back into the theatre/sauna. I don’t really understand why he wasn’t booked to play the main stage which was empty at that point.
So, me and my two companions left the Custard Factory, heading back to their flat. The walk there was weird. As we neared the centre of Birmingham we heard something pretty unusual for a city centre on a Saturday night – Silence. It was like a scene from some post apocalyptic film. The usual twenty five minute walk became a forty minute one as we had to go all the way around the city. Half way back however, my mate made the worrying discovery that he’d lost his keys. So we had to walk back to the custard factory hoping that we would find them or that they had been handed in. We saw hordes of police everywhere but the people walking the streets seemed to be in good spirits.
We got back to the Custard Factory which was all locked up and we were told we couldn’t get back in. So a hotel it was!
There are a few hotels near there but we decided to go for the Paragon a few streets away.
When we arrived we asked for 3 singles but were told they were full. We were about to leave when they said they’d found 3 rooms for us. It actually turned out to be 2 rooms but my 2 friends are a couple so that worked out ok. The bloke at reception told me my feet would be hanging over the edge of the bed and that these were there ‘emergency’ rooms. I’m 6’4” and my feet ALWAYS hang over the edge of the bed so I just laughed it off.
He wasn’t bloody joking! The mattress was maybe 4 foot long.
I slept on the floor that night and got about three hours sleep.
Alls well that ends well though and my friends managed to find their keys the next day (someone had handed them in) and I made the most of the hotel’s breakfast buffet.
At least we’ll always have a story to tell about Supersonic.
Khonnor – Good start to the evening. He works best when he sticks to more standard song structure. When he goes off on a tangent working in effects, it’s not as engaging and there are people that do this kind of thing better. I felt sorry for his mate who was wearing a fluffy dog helmet in the baking afternoon heat.
Tunng – The programme described them well as the local pub band from The Wicker Man. Really gentle folk with samples and hushed electro beats. It got a little samey after a while and they waste the fact that they have three singers who all sing the same in the same key. Little bit of harmony would have been nice. But they were cool and accompanied our cold lagers well.
Aereogramme – My favourite band of this century didn’t let me (us) down. I just love this band. The festival peaked early as expected with the dual drumming crescendo of the epic The Unravelling. The place still hadn’t filled up but I think they went down pretty well. I spoke with the bass player Campbell Mcneil (how Scottish is that name??) before the gig (yes I know, I’m a sad groupie) and he told me that they’re soon to be working with Isis to make a mixed album. I can’t imagine anything better.
Jesu – Big and sludgy. I would have preferred them later on in the bill as they would have worked better for me during a drunken slow head bob. I didn’t understand why they hid the drummer behind a curtain, maybe it’s meant to just be about the guitars. That backfired for me a little though.
Battles – Had it not been for the brilliance of Aereogramme, Battles would have been the best act of the day by a long way. The drummer was incredible, mostly for his sheer workrate but also for the complexity of what he was playing. Unusual positioning of the crash cymbal though! (about 8 foot in the air). Besides the drumming, the two main dudes played guitars and keyboards at the same time which is something I’ve never seen before. I will be seeing this band again.
Formation Flight – Oooh, jaggy, spiky, angry and shouty! Good though. The singer was really intense and had a funny dance almost like an Elvis shuffle. He also looked about 15. Again some really amazing complex drumming.
Dalek – Not really a big fan of hip hop or rap but these fellas were pretty good. Atmospheric and intense.
Noise Noise Allore! – What the hell!!!? If you were to just take the band, you could describe them as tight, fast, hard and complicated. Then there’s the singer! Where did they find this ‘man’? He prances around like Mick Jagger getting electrocuted and sings in the most ridiculous falsetto tone. I couldn’t stop laughing but nobody else in the crowd was so I left before I offended anyone!
Brian Duffy + Modified Toy Orchestra - The biggest disappointment of the day for me. Yes it was a spectacle and yes, it was definitely something very different but it just didn’t do it for me. When I heard about this, I expected a man to be playing toys in daft tunes. Instead we got noise that genuinely could have been anything. I didn’t really see the point of modifying the noise of everything so much that it didn’t matter at all that it was toys. There were highlights though such as the demonic dancing doll and when he got some guest artists on the stage. This section was what I’d expected from him. Each player had a toy and they played a daft tune together like a band which just happened to use kid’s toys as instruments. It was funny, entertaining and memorable unlike the first section. I will qualify this review with the fact that I was cooking alive in that tiny packed theatre.
This was the last act I saw on the day because as I’m sure most of you are aware, there was a bomb scare in Birmingham and all pubs, clubs and bars were being evacuated. It was disappointing to leave early but I had seen everything I’d wanted to. I was hoping to see Merzbow but you couldn’t have paid me to go back into the theatre/sauna. I don’t really understand why he wasn’t booked to play the main stage which was empty at that point.
So, me and my two companions left the Custard Factory, heading back to their flat. The walk there was weird. As we neared the centre of Birmingham we heard something pretty unusual for a city centre on a Saturday night – Silence. It was like a scene from some post apocalyptic film. The usual twenty five minute walk became a forty minute one as we had to go all the way around the city. Half way back however, my mate made the worrying discovery that he’d lost his keys. So we had to walk back to the custard factory hoping that we would find them or that they had been handed in. We saw hordes of police everywhere but the people walking the streets seemed to be in good spirits.
We got back to the Custard Factory which was all locked up and we were told we couldn’t get back in. So a hotel it was!
There are a few hotels near there but we decided to go for the Paragon a few streets away.
When we arrived we asked for 3 singles but were told they were full. We were about to leave when they said they’d found 3 rooms for us. It actually turned out to be 2 rooms but my 2 friends are a couple so that worked out ok. The bloke at reception told me my feet would be hanging over the edge of the bed and that these were there ‘emergency’ rooms. I’m 6’4” and my feet ALWAYS hang over the edge of the bed so I just laughed it off.
He wasn’t bloody joking! The mattress was maybe 4 foot long.
I slept on the floor that night and got about three hours sleep.
Alls well that ends well though and my friends managed to find their keys the next day (someone had handed them in) and I made the most of the hotel’s breakfast buffet.
At least we’ll always have a story to tell about Supersonic.