A fellow gig-goer

I went to my first proper gig just after I started University in 1993. Catherine Wheel, at the Hop & Grape in the Student Union. And bloody fantastic it was too. Ever since then, I’ve gone through stages of amazement, amusement, and, er, reassurement, on looking around at my fellow gig-goers and spotting, among the faces and band t-shirts of the indie kids, and the confused looks of the wandered in off the streets by mistake gang, a smattering of strangely old-looking people. Mostly I’d figure they must just be quite cool to still be going to the same gigs that a hip, savvy, young music lover like myself would be at.

Monday night down at the Pyramids in Portsmouth, and a horrible, nauseous, sickening awakening takes place. I should have twigged while I was at the bar and a couple of girls queued next to me: one of them declaring how much she loved being 18. But I didn’t. Lost in the inexplicable desire to get my hands on an over-priced pint of weak lager, I strolled, still in my work clothes (semi-smart, semi-casual, trying to strike the almost impossible balance that satisfies status meetings in the afternoon, and American indie guitar pop in the evening) around to the merchandise stand, thinking of the days when I owned at least 5 Gene t-shirts, and at least 4 Tindersticks t-shirts, and barely a gig went by without an open display of “hey, look who else I listen to. Cool, huh? (used to work well with Belle & Sebastian t-shirts before they were, you know, popular and all).

Then my friend points out to me that there are no old people. Anywhere.

I was probably only half-listening, half wondering why they couldn’t put a few chairs out round the side. Just so, you know, you can rest your feet for a bit while there’s not much on stage to get lit up about. And then as I scanned the faces around me, it hit. We were down with the kids. And impossibly, suddenly perhaps we were those random old folks. I don’t know how or when this transition happened. But there we were. Nearly twice as old as everone else around us. And fifty times as cynical. And a hundred times as wise?…

OK, so I heard recently that DCFC are the favourite band of some character in The O.C. At least I think it’s the character, and not the actor. Could be called Seth. But that doesn’t explain why I suddenly had to feel like fact and fiction were melding. Honestly, I felt like I was at an audition for the next series - well, I guess I’m old enough to play a high-school student now. A thousand teenagers who’d between them spent 6 months working their hair just to stand in the semi-dark of a gig. And stand, and stand some more, and never move. An audition crossed with a freaky game of musical statues: all except for the camera and phone crew, jostling for position, little flickery figures on the small screen too far away, not enough flash, all taking pictures of half a drum kit because they have to hold the stupid things high above their heads like a post-modern torch-song affectation. And because they’re all tall. Christ, young people are tall these days. Maybe it’s just the hair again - the average height is staying the same, but the stronger hold the comes as a result of improved cosmeticry has added an illusory 3 inches to the average human head.

In the midst of all this, a gig broke out.

Some Californians came on stage and played very much in the mould of a state where I’m led to believe it hasn’t rained since 1844, and where the local dialect has no equivalent words for “grey” and “overcast”. Nothing to write home about, in truth, just four or five guys with amps and guitars, and songs about I don’t know what, love, loss, and sunshine I suppose. Mind, if that’s what west-coast US alternative indie guitar sounds like, it works for me. Only one problem: Vanderslice is not a good band name - Vanderslice, Vandelay, that sort of connection. Too distracting during a live set.

As for DCFC themselves, they were OK. If I’d thought about it, I’d have realised that a band that has spent the best part of 5 albums not breaking far out of a well-worn groove would not suddenly lurch left on stage. So, taken from probably all the albums (some I have, some I don’t) but with a disappointing absence of some of the stronger material from The Photo Album, the band played through for an hour or so, never moving far beyond the scripted delicacy of the material. There are no solos to really take them off anywhere, so what you get on the records is pretty much what you see and hear live. Think of your personal favourite from their back-catalogue, and who knows, they probably played it. They work the crowd well as far as I can tell, as they work to the close, but it’s not until the start of the encore, when lead singer Ben Gibbard steps into the light for a solo acoustic run through I will follow you into the dark that there’s a feeling of something far beyond a made for TV soundtrack.

Good, but they’re no Catherine Wheel 1993 model.

Tags: Music, Gigs