I sacrificed seeing Baby Shambles for the 3rd time to see the Shout Out Louds instead. It wasn't a massive sacrifice by any standards, but being approached by Dublin's infamous one-legged tout - offering to buy my non-existent ticket from me for €80 - gave me food for thought:
Me: Do you know if the gig is even on?
Him: Huh?
Me: I mean, last I heard was at about 5 o' clock...he was in bed in Paris.
Him: Ah, who does he think he is?
Me: Dunno.
Him: What exactly has he done? Nothing.
This coming from the thief who makes hundreds of euro at every major concert in the city from decent music fans, in comparison to a musician who made the best punk album of all time and almost a dozen fantastic free acoustic albums.
Shout Out Louds in Whelans is the debut show of 2006's Bud Rising festival, so the venue is packed out with industry folk and alcohol promoters. Otherwise, I'm sure their Irish premiere wouldn't be sold out with masses being turned away at the door. I counted myself as part of that mass, and it was down to the kindness of the lovely bassist (he's obliged to be nice: his name is Ted) to let me in.
Opening with the chugging guitars and keys of The Comeback, they perfectly showcase their lovelorn, outsider lyrics juxtaposed with beautiful and well-crafted melodies. The crowd is entranced from the opening beeps of their set which signal "go!", and they often let loose to sneak in a sly jump or sing the keyboard melody that isn't being played live for some reason. Although their set is relatively short (it seemed to be shorter than the support band's), they managed to spin out all of their perfect singles with the only irritating ommission being the obscurely popular Wish I Was Dead.Standing at the frontline of Sweden's amazingly good music scene, it can only be a matter of time before their deal with Capitol takes them to the very top (presumably with their long-awaited 2nd album, in early 2007). They give us a quick sneak preview of their new material and it sounds like world-conquering stuff. Largely incomparable (however; think of a poppier Pavement), I recommend you buy their LP Howl Howl Gaff Gaff right away.
(Perhaps you could sign up to an entirely free trial at eMusic, where you'll receive 50 free mp3s of your own choosing. 10 of your choices should definitely be HHGG.)
Videos
A vast array of their excellent videos, during all of which they seem to be playing bored. They aren't though! Who could be, with that type of music emanating from within them?
Their myspace
1 comment:
That one legged tout is mad. How does he get tickets out of his one-legged pocket without losing balance and falling over?
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