They came on stage wearing shirt and tie, jeans, and old British Rail drivers' jackets. Most of them had beards. They played a brooding, intense, indie guitar music.
The first lines of their songs hook you straight away:
'I discharged myself today'
'Don't go into the kitchen, that's where the knives are'
No-one danced. You can't dance and brood at the same time.
A guitar broke just before they were going to start playing their song about chess. Whilst we were waiting the singer invited members of the audience to describe any chess matches that they had played recently. Sounded promising, but a flat headed screwdriver was found and the gig resumed.
I bought a t-shirt: a map of Britain with lots of squiggles on, each squiggle marking a railway line that Dr Beeching closed down in the 1960s: isobars linking places of equal marginalisation.
The highlight of the gig was their encore when they invited the support bands on stage to be the Greek chorus in their tragic dirge of venom 'The Beeching Report' : you can here the track on their myspace site
No comments:
Post a Comment