February is short, dark and quick full of dank mornings and ever danker nights. The best way to get through it is to draw the curtains on returning from work, crank up the heating and flick the v's at anything more demanding. Hence the radio silence on here - but never fear, once you're out then it's the homeward ride to spring - hello sunshine! Aside from eating eggs three times a week, here's what helped us thrive in Feb...
Soulwax's new live set up has three drummers. Three! It's a lot but were there even three? Were there four? Or ten? Who's counting other than the players themselves?
For many of us, Soulwax just sounded like one huge Robocop-esque synthetic machine, only intent on taking the very roof of London's Roundhouse off rather than doing any high-end maths.
We were lucky enough to clock them in the midst of December when they took over the venue for two nights. Their arrival was a relief as they cut through the festive chaos with their white suits and sleek electronics. But we, by contrast, were all over the place, lighting up snouts inside and hollering at every opportunity. We missed Jarvis Cocker's DJ set as were too busy getting pissed in the pub across the road, can just about remember the start of their set, went back to our buddy's with about 30 cans of czech lager, then woke up on the sofa fully clothed and in total disarray the next morning. It took a lot of beige food items, including Scotch eggs, Mcdonald cheeseburgers, chicken burgers, pork pies and even a quiche to feel anywhere near present or correct the following day. Brap to all crew involved. A strong showing indeed...
As celebrity death matches go, a tussle between two elderly veterans of pop music sheen, the very venerable Hall and Oates and even more doddery Steely Dan, couldn't be nicer.
Both are proponents of tunes smooth enough to buff your best crockery with. Although you might argue that the latter are slightly more prickly than their hair plug sporting counterparts. But whatever, both peddle 'AOR' of the most excellent variety. Rather than watching them putting their dukes up and slugging it out in the ring, we had the pleasure of catching them both play over consecutive nights as part of the Blues Fest at London's cavernous, vertigo inducing arena at the O2.
Saturday night was all about Hall and Oates who successfully transported some California sunshine to Greenwich. Thankfully, they didn't dilly dally with new material, instead just wheeling out a dazzling set of total bangers from Private Eyes to I Can't Go For That (No Can Do) and sporting some delightfully buffonic hair do's. One of the funnest aspects of watching an old band is the old audience and we felt incredibly young as we went through the airport style security of the arena. We were also the only punters on our side of the stadium to ingest too many Stellas and dance in the aisles while simultaneously shitting it that we might come a cropper and tumble to an almost certain death from our vertigo-inducingly high seats. But we lived to tell the tale. Whoooop.
Sunday evening was spent feeling a little more stale and watching Steely Dan from the vantage of the BT corporate box on the other side of the stadium.Our contact got us in on the lure of a cheapish ticket, plus free booze and food. But while we were ushered into the venue via the VIP entrance, the promise of gratis stuff to stick in our gobs never materialised. Instead one of our party spent £7.50 on a bowl of nuts and we again got on the Stellas. Steely Dan went through a greatest hits style set with one of the slickest band of session musicians you'd ever did see. And while they'd lost a member in the form of the sadly departed Walter Becker, a lone unused microphone paid tribute while Donald Fagan twitched his way through some of the best, jazzy-pop bits... these guys might be fucking ancient but they've still got it...
