I was lucky enough to bag a ticket to catch Ash’s comeback show at Camden Barfly in London on Wednesday night (February 18) – timed appropriately to coincide with actual Ash Wednesday, of course.
First thing on Wednesday morning, the band announced their new album Kablammo! and new single Cocoon, as well as a gig at Barfly that very night. Having seen the band a few times in the past, I jumped at the opportunity.
And as ever, they certainly didn’t disappoint. Opening with new song Fortune, which the band debuted in the US in October last year, it’s evident Kablammo! is set to more than live up to its name.
Fortune features a massive driving riff, not to mention frontman Tim Wheeler’s trademark guitar histrionics. Cocoon went down similarly well, as did two other new’uns aired for the very first time – Evil Kinevil and Shut Down.
As for older numbers, while Clones still evades me despite this being my fourth Ash gig, I was delighted to catch Wildsurf and Petrol again, Evil Eye for the very first time and, of course, the blistering Joy Kicks Darkness. All the old favourites were there too.
The full set ran:
Fortune / A Life Less Ordinary / Wildsurf / Goldfinger / Evil Eye / Evil Kinevil / Kung Fu / Cocoon / Oh Yeah / Shut Down / Shining Light / Orpheus / Girl From Mars / Joy Kicks Darkness / Petrol / Burn Baby Burn
The band have shot off back to New York to finish off Kablammo! which is due to be released in May. The band are coming back for a string of dates in June, including another show in London, this time at the Scala on June 11 – the day before my birthday. How could I refuse?
Five hardcore punk rockers eschewing their riffs and power chords in favour of flamenco guitars and burbling brass while leading their fans through a cheery array of polkas and waltzes?
Get real.
The thronging hordes crammed into The Boileroom on Tuesday night (February 17) would, however, suggest otherwise. It’s a sell-out, and with good reason.
Let’s spool back a bit. In 2002, The Bronx were founded by five like-minded guys in Los Angeles. Their sound was raw, punchy and abrasive.
Then, in 2007, they announced they were recording not one, but two new albums. The first, a straight up ballsy punk album; the second, a mariachi album entitled El Bronx. And thus, Mariachi El Bronx were born.
The band have since released three albums as their flamenco-inspired alter ego and on Tuesday, they made their bow at The Boileroom, ably supported by Pounded By The Surf, who entertained with their 50s-inspired surf rock stylings reminiscent of The Tornadoes and The Shadows.
www.sophiegarrett.co.uk
Swelling to an eight-piece to accommodate a host of weird and wonderful new instruments, El Bronx barely have room to breathe on The Boileroom’s diminutive stage.
There is nothing diminutive about their performance, however.
Every song during the band’s more than hour-long set has room to develop, to progress and to meander without members treading on each other’s toes – musically as much as physically.
Empty beer bottles soon litter the stage as the band quickly grow into their performance, led by frontman Matt Caughthran, who is warmly greeted by hundreds of Guildfordians.
Suited and booted in traditional Mexican attire, albeit without a sombrero in sight, there is a slight of hand about El Bronx’s carefully constructed melodies and rhythms you might not necessarily associate with a group of musicians so firmly rooted in hardcore punk, an ethos rarely famed for subtlety.
Flicking between intricate time signatures in a stroke, the band lead their audience, almost involuntarily, on something of a merry jig, although decent trade at the bar doesn’t harm their cause.
www.sophiegarrett.co.uk
Fan favourites such as 48 Roses and a triumphant rendition of Litigation litter the set, which draws heavily from both the band’s guises and, of course, plenty from El Bronx’s third eponymous album, released last year.
They even break out a brand new song which, says Caughthran, was penned just hours earlier at the George Abbot pub overlooking the River Wey. Cue hysteria, of course.
Make no bones about it, El Bronx are a band revered the world over by their hardcore fans – but it comes as something of a surprise the sheer affection with which they are held here in Guildford.
Who knew there was such a demand for something as relatively diverse and alien as mariachi music, let alone a twisted hybrid of mariachi and punk?
Mariachi El Bronx’s infectious grooves are as much a joyous antidote to dozens of rock and punk gigs as they are a tender homage to a style of music that clearly means a huge amount to every member of the band.
It is a rare delight, as is watching a band with the talent to switch so readily between two very different styles of music with ease. Olé amigos!
The jangly indie-pop stylings of Frankie & The Heartstrings saw Independent Venue Week (IVW) celebrations at The Boileroom in Guildford kick up a notch on Wednesday (January 28).
The Sunderland quintet have built a small, but loyal, following since the band’s chance encounter in a bar on the city’s left bank in 2008.
Three years’ hard graft later, 2011 debut album Hunger charted at number 32 – earning Frankie and co knowing nods on the national and international stage.
Their 2013 follow-up The Days Run Away spawned single Nothing Our Way and fan favourite Everybody Looks Better (In The Right Light).
In the intervening period, playing second fiddle to the likes of the Kaiser Chiefs, The Vaccines and Florence And The Machine did little to stymy a steady flow of glowing reviews.
Ably supported themselves by Wiker, Future Talks and the anarchic Arctic Monkeys-esque sneer of Woking rockers The Sheratones, there was an understandably fuzzy feeling of community at the venue on Wednesday night when the band took to the stage, slap-bang in the middle of IVW (January 26 to February 1).
www.sophiegarrett.co.uk
It was vocalist Frankie Francis who perhaps summed up the real importance of initiatives like IVW most succinctly, quipping in his Mackem burr: “They’ve got a noodle bar here – perhaps all venues should have noodle bars!”
In many ways, there is arguably something ever-so-slightly immaterial about the actual gigs held as part of IVW, which aims to celebrate everything that is so unique and often unusual about the country’s slew of embattled independent music venues.
The Boileroom has been the last bastion of Guildford’s alternative music scene for nearly a decade and continues to thrive, despite a myriad of obstacles which have, at times, put the Stoke Fields venue at risk.
However, from Wiker through Future Talks, The Sheratones and finally Frankie, there is a sense that the crowd as much as the bands understand just what is at stake if support dwindles for venues such as The Boileroom.
And it speaks volumes of the venue’s quality and draw that it was able to swing, as part of IVW, a gig on Friday (January 30) by Weybridge chart toppers You Me At Six, which saw thousands of fans try to bag just a couple of hundred tickets.
Dapper Frankie frontman Francis quickly makes the stage at The Boileroom his own, strutting about with an air of confidence and vigour you might expect from a young Mick Jagger.
www.sophiegarrett.co.uk
He is flanked by guitarists, founder member Michael McKnight and ex-Futureheads axeman Ross Millard, who take it in turns to briefly tear away from the band’s twee verse-chorus barrage with the occasional flash of virtuosity.
Rhythm section, bassist Michael Matthews and drummer Dave Harper, tie the band’s tight sound together, elucidating a handful of passionate sing-alongs as the gig reaches a crescendo after a slightly slow start.
Choice cuts from Hunger such as Fragile and the title track bring the band’s 45-minute set to a raucous, yet also understated finale.
The band pay their respects with a nod to the IVW before they stroll off stage and out into the crowd to wind down with their loyal fans.
It’s such a simple gesture, but one that can only be achieved at a venue like The Boileroom – and one their fans, most importantly, will remember and cherish.
Shortly after I started my job here in Guildford, I was offered the opportunity to accompany a couple of hundred teenagers from across Surrey on a trip to the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Poland with the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET).
Nick Clegg came along too. It was an extremely unusual and moving day, one that will stick with me for the rest of my life, as I’m sure the experience of visiting Auschwitz does for all who set foot there.
I was perhaps only three or four months into my job by the time the trip came around and I still look back at this piece with a degree of pride, if only for somehow managing to collect myself and my thoughts before regurgitating them in a vaguely coherent manner.
Disclaimer: Yes, I know Krakow isn’t the capital of Poland. Junior reporters make mistakes.
Before I wrote this post, I had perhaps cast an eye over this article once since it was published back in October 2012. It’s somewhat strange to read it more than two years later, and arguably, two years wiser.
Today (January 27) is Holocaust Memorial Day. It’s some 70 years since the liberation of the indescribably vast Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Poland, and 75 years since the town of Oswiecin – then, ironically, something of a beacon of inter-faith tolerance – was so cruelly cemented into the history books.
We’ve all seen pictures of the various Nazi death camps. They are, thankfully, a part of our common conscience in 2015. At best, they serve as a reminder of an atrocity the world simply cannot allow to be repeated. At worst, they hark back to an atrocity the horrors of which echo to this day, having since been repeated in Congo, Armenia, and at Srebrenica during the Bosnian War, among others.
But nothing, absolutely nothing I’ve ever seen, compares with gazing out of one of the central guard towers at Birkenau, the biggest of all the Nazi death camps. It is simply breathtaking. You can’t process it there and then. The fact I can recall it so vividly more than two years later is perhaps an indication of the time is has taken, and continues to take, me to rationalise it.
In my postbag of January 1, I found this tale of woe.
Sadly, I wasn’t granted right of reply as the sender decided to hide behind a rather hackneyed pseudonym. I feel in the interests of balance, it should be republished forthwith.
This morning, I tried to buy tickets to see Royal Blood.
For the uninitiated, Royal Blood are a hugely talented two-piece drum and bass act who properly rock. In 2014, this is something of a rarity.
Their self-titled debut shot straight to number one this week, the first rock act to score a UK number one in the best part of three years. This morning, they sold out a two-week UK tour in just two minutes.
So far, so good. It’s been a meteoric rise for bassist Mike Kerr and drummer Ben Thatcher – and it is richly deserved.
I caught the duo at this year’s Glastonbury Festival and they put on a truly exceptional show. Like their forebears Death From Above 1979, they make enough noise between the two of them to put most other bands to shame.
But here’s where things turn sour.
Come October, it will be ten years since I went to my first ‘proper’ gig – Franz Ferdinand at Exeter University Great Hall, if you were wondering. Their debut album had just come out, it was great.
Since then, I’ve travelled all over the country to see bands, and rarely – if ever – have I been unsuccessful in bagging myself tickets. Now, that does not in any way go to say I am somehow ‘deserving’ of a spot at any show that’s going.
I’ve mashed the F5 key for hours on end, orchestrated teams of friends to get the tickets we need, and even paid a touch over the odds to get the tickets I want.
So at 8.45am this morning, I was online, ready, Seetickets and Ticketmaster tabs open, wallet on standby, and with another friend at home doing the same.
I knew it would be a bloodbath (‘scuse the pun); Royal Blood have become an almost overnight sensation. They are riding the crest of a bloody tidal wave.
By 9.02am, tickets had sold out, although not before I’d managed to enter all my details on Seetickets and hit ‘Buy Tickets’.
With a relieved sigh, I lent back in my chair, only to be told tickets had in fact sold out and that my transaction could not be completed. What kind of two-bit ticket retailer doesn’t hold your order while you enter your payment details? In fact, I’m sure Seetickets USED to do this. Hmm.
Suffice to say, my friend had similarly scant fortune. We were buying on behalf of two others too. Our little group weren’t off to see the band. Boo-friggity-hoo. It happens.
It was then I noticed Twitter was bursting at the seams with people sharing our frustration, spewing their spite, bile and vitriol over websites like ViaGoGo and GetMeIn.
If you haven’t heard about these sites, they are – in short – a pernicious, evil blight on Britain’s live music scene. While I stop short of saying they actually sound out people to buy up dozens of tickets to flog at grossly inflated prices, this is nonetheless the result.
Within minutes, there were HUNDREDS of tickets for sale for Royal Blood gigs up and down the country, with prices ranging anywhere from £50 to £100+. Face value, the tickets were £15.
Excuse me while I simmer down a moment.
Here’s a snapshot of ViaGoGo I took shortly before 9pm tonight, a full 12 hours after the tickets ‘sold out’.
See?
This is legalised touting. There is no other way to put it. And that snapshot is only the cheapest end of the scale. Some ViaGoGo users are quoting up to £150 for a single ticket for Royal Blood’s second show at the Electric Ballroom in Camden on November 7.
When I counted them up at 9pm, there were 85 tickets available – Electric Ballroom can only hold around 1,000 people. That’s nearly ten percent of all the tickets sold being touted. And that’s before you include all the ones desperate fans have already snapped up (there were as many as 150 on ViaGoGo earlier for this gig alone), all the ones being sold on other sites like GetMeIn and eBay, plus all the tickets that will be touted outside the venue.
I’d say that means around a quarter of all the tickets for this show will likely be sold to fans above face value which, if you remember, was just £15. I can feel that red mist descending again.
A couple of years ago, ViaGoGo fought tooth and nail to stop Channel 4 airing its terrific Dispatches documentary, The Great Ticket Scandal. They even took out an injunction. This is how lucrative this swizz is. Thankfully, Channel 4 won. There was clearly a strong public interest reason for showing this piece.
Stand outside any sold out gig for a couple of minutes and you will no doubt be serenaded with a chorus of ‘TICKETS! BUY OR SELL!’. Transpose this onto the internet and you have ViaGoGo and GetMeIn. They rob genuine fans of the opportunity to share a moment with their idols and their fellow fans. They are pricing out the average gig-going member of the public.
When I first started going to gigs ten years ago, a club show in some grotty toilet venue would cost you £5, a typical academy or university £10-£15, an arena £25-£30.
You can double if not triple those prices these days. Yes, lessening revenue from album sales has played a part in this, but nonetheless, live music is now a huge money-spinner. It has also an increasingly trendy – dare I even say bourgeois or yuppyish – way to spend an evening, irrespective if you give a toss about the music. For some people strolling into work and being able to say, ‘yeah, I went to a gig last night’ gives them the same insta-kudos Gordon Brown thought he would get by chucking his Arctic Monkeys fandom around willy nilly. Eugch.
Heck, GetMeIn is, and I quote, Ticketmaster’s ‘official ticket marketplace’. ViaGoGo, meanwhile, is affiliated with Festival Republic, one of the country’s premier festival organisers (they put on Reading and Leeds, among others).
These sites are being condoned by the very industry selling the tickets in the first place. This is blatant, vile collusion. I’ll save their utterly ridiculous ‘booking fees’, ‘transaction fees’ and now ‘printing charges’ for another rant.
Actually, no, seeing as a printing charge is a new one on me, I’d like to take this opportunity (or I would have, had I got a ticket) to thank-you Ticketmaster for charging me £3 for the privilege of printing my own ticket at home, with my own paper and my own ink. I just hope that £3 is enough to compensate you for your troubles.
The catch, sadly, is the great British public. People will readily pay these prices and these charges. I have, I admit, on one or two occasions, paid a few quid extra to swag a ticket off eBay – but never from these so-called official resellers. A sea-change could only be effected if we, en masse, stop giving these sites our money.
But that won’t be enough. The Government has tried to act on this but failed miserably, although why should it care, really? It’s a small fry, so far as issues go.
The acts themselves? Yeah, good luck with that. A few bands have tried some increasingly innovative ticket selling methods, but these are usually logistically cumbersome and tricky (read: expensive) to operate and police.
No, this is a revolution that must be led by the gig-going public. We must embrace ethical ticket exchange programs (RIP Scarlet Mist), we must not pay these hugely inflated, extortionate prices, we must not be bullied by these sites.
Of course, the sooner the acts themselves, the venues, the industry and the Government puts their oars in too, the better.
EDIT: Contrary to the above, I’ve just discovered Scarlet Mist is still going. Use it.
It has been a week of contrasts for California ska punk icons Reel Big Fish.
Their show at the vast Sonisphere festival at Knebworth House was duly followed by an appearance at the intimate Boileroom last Friday night (July 11).
But then Reel Big Fish have always been something of an enigma.
Like their peers, Less Than Jake, Sublime, and so on, they have carved a career from a style of music which arguably saw its heyday while the band were still in short trousers.
But despite never enjoying a ‘hit’, per sé – save for the popularity of 1997 single Sell Out – it’s hard to argue with a career that stretches back the best part of a quarter of a century, spawning eight studio albums.
Ska has always been the preserve of the outsider, of the also-ran, and it is this underdog mentality that seems to chime with the hordes who packed into The Boileroom on Friday.
Following lively warm-up acts, The Magnus Puto and The Jellycats, a heady haze of steam, sweat and anticipation hangs over the sell-out crowd. There is no pretension; everyone’s here for a good time.
It’s an intoxicating feature of The Boileroom, a venue, which over the best part of a decade, has established itself as arguably the last bastion of live alternative music in Guildford.
It has built a reputation for giving top acts a reminder of the club circuit where they made their names.
The band’s infectious enthusiasm as they bound onto a stage, barely big enough to accommodate them – let alone their brass ensemble – is testament to the kick they still get out of performing.
Delving deep into their fulsome back catalogue, the band’s hour-long set draws as much from the likes of fan favourites Beer and Trendy from 1995 debut Everything Sucks as it does from 2012’s Candy Coated Fury.
But it is the blinding finale, featuring hit covers Monkey Man by Toots and The Maytals and A-Ha’s Take on Me that bring the house down.
Limbs flail and beers are spilled as the skanking and the po-going reaches a crescendo. It may be just another night on tour for Reel Big Fish; but it feels like The Boileroom has scored a coup.
While the band may have been selling out much bigger venues more than a decade ago, Reel Big Fish come over as a group enjoying their twilight years.
And if the dozens of smiling faces who trouped out of The Boileroom are anything to go by, they will be welcomed back any time.
Originally published in the Surrey Advertiser, 18/07/14
Note: The Boileroom is currently facing a licensing review, which could potentially result in its closure. Please help support the venue by reading and signing this.
Last week, while idly sitting in the customary traffic jams in and around Guildford, I heard a brief report on BBC Radio 5 Live from a cricket match between the Birmingham Bears and the Northants Steelbacks.
Err, what?
Now, it must be said that county cricket long ago bowed to many of the tropes of US-style club franchising. Indeed, my own beloved Somerset bizarrely became the Somerset Sabres rather than the Somerset Wyverns (the wyvern being a well-documented symbol of the county) – evidently because alliteration is far more important than hundreds of years of history, even if the shirts from the time did feature a wyvern wielding a sabre.
(And I can attest that, having been mascot at Somerset in 2000 and being given a shirt that was, then, 17 sizes too big. It’s still roomy to this day.)
Yes, that is Aussie legend Matthew Hayden on the left. And Somerset legend (and Aussie) Jamie Cox.
With all due respect to Northants (who, as it happens, were the team Hayden was captaining the day I was mascot), I can’t say I know why they are the Steelbacks but the point being their side still carries that most distinguishing feature – the fact they’re from Northamptonshire.
But I’m sorry, the Birmingham Bears is an insult. I am, and have been to this point, just about okay with the incessant franchising, even if it rarely made any sense – I mean, while I doubt swooping, winged Wyverns have ever truly descended on Somerset, as a symbol, it’s still steeped in more history, folklore and mystery than a ‘Sabre’.
I guess after a few pints of our famous ‘fightin’ cider’, a bunch of old boys out on the levels armed with a few sabres might make a good job of each other, but Somerset is not exactly Mordor. There aren’t Nazgul circling overhead riden by sabre-wielding wraiths. Think the Shire, with more venereal disease.
(No more Lord of the Rings analogies, I promise.)
The bear, however, is the symbol of Warwickshire and as someone who, despite growing up in Somerset, is half of Warks extraction (an Aston Villa fan, no less), it saddens me to see the county become the first to reject its regionality and embrace, instead, its big city credentials, although I’d hasten to bet it’s far easier to market Birmingham than Warwickshire…
But it’s the WARWICKSHIRE bear, it’s the symbol of the whole county, not just its dominant city. Good luck misappropriating old Will Shakespeare, Brum.
It’s not as if this is uncommon though. Working as a journalist in Surrey, you quickly put aside the truth that county hall is, in fact, in Kingston – in the Royal London Borough of Kingston upon Thames. This sort of thing is endemic.
Indeed, just a few hours before the broadcast that irked me so, I saw a tweet about Hull City Football Club revealing its new crest, devoid of the club’s historic name and instead, simply bearing the club’s black and gold colours – and a fearsome tiger.
Hull’s Egyptian owner Assem Allam has made no secret of his desire to rename the club the Hull Tigers, so much so he threatened to pull his investment should his rebrand be thwarted. Strangely, 60% of season ticket holders who took part in a referendum on the issue actually voted for the change – so what do I know.
All I’d say to Allam is; take note of Vincent Tan’s antics at Cardiff City. I don’t think any of us want a repeat of that. Having spent five years in Cardiff, and invested an element of myself in supporting the Bluebirds, I have, to date, been pretty appalled by his actions. I can’t imagine how torn some lifelong fans must have been after decades in waiting, watching their team finally ascend to the Premiership with millions of Malaysian Ringgits behind them (fact of the day for you right there) only to see Bond villain-in-waiting Tan almost single-handedly engineer his team’s own demise and relegation back to the Championship just nine months later.
How would I feel about Villa becoming, say, the Aston Lions, the Aston Villains, the Birmingham Clarets, the Aston Aces, etc. Hmm. No doubt it would come with buckets of cash – and with Villa up for sale at the moment, it’s by no means beyond the realms of possibility a hungry foreign business man might fancy giving the club a bit of a shake up on and off the pitch – but no, not for me thanks.
Back to cricket. Essentially, what I really do not want to see is English county cricket debase its own history and chase the £££s that make the Indian Premier League such a leviathan – and such a bore at the same time, for me.
I’ve said this before countless times, but first and foremost, I identify with being from Somerset and after that, from Europe. And while the World Cup was enough for me even to splash out on an England shirt (of sorts), our swift exit has already put pay to that flash of patriotism.
As I sit here writing this, I’m wearing my Somerset shirt. There’s an Aston Villa flag up on my wall. These are venerable institutions, let us not forget, each dating back far in excess of 100 years.
The solution? Well, there ain’t one – because we all know the sheer amount of money in sport these days is enough to win over not only the boardroom, but also the fans as well.
What I would like to see, however, is constituted clubs. I would like to see each and every club agree some kind of untouchable constitution, which dictates its name, its colours, its crest and so on. I still cling on to the belief an established institution is infinitely preferable to, and marketable than, a quick rebrand for a quick dollar. I’d bet after decades in the leagues lower tiers, Cardiff City fans would have been willing to wait another couple of years to make it to the Premiership in blue shirts.
Whether we should put history and heritage before ‘success’ (as for every Cardiff, there is a Man City) is a debate for another time.
If you need me, I’ll be on my high hors- I mean wyvern.
Rome, June 3, and Queens of the Stone Age (QOTSA) have just walked on stage at Rock in Roma, one of Italy’s biggest music festivals.
Led by the band’s daunting frontman Josh Homme, they rip into Millionaire from their 2002 hit album Songs for the Deaf. Thousands go wild at the city’s Capannelle racecourse.
The same night, more than 1,000 miles away, another man has just walked on stage and kicked into Millionaire.
But in stark contrast, former QOTSA bassist Nick Oliveri’s audience is little more than 100 devotees, packed into Guildford’s rock and roll refuge, The Boileroom.
Does he care? Not a bit of it.
Now touring his all acoustic one-man solo show, Oliveri – complete with his distinctive shiny bald head and trademark six-inch goatee – paints the picture of a man finally at peace.
In January 2004, he was unceremoniously booted out of QOTSA after his relationship with Homme broke down.
While the band has ascended to headline status, due to top the bill at this year’s Reading and Leeds festival in August, Oliveri’s career has been characterised by false starts.
Tuesday’s show at The Boileroom (June 3) was the third in a 19-date tour in support of his new single Human Cannonball Explodes and new album Leave Me Alone, due later this year.
It’s a refreshing new beginning for Oliveri.
His 50-minute set draws variously from his 20 years in the business, including Kyuss classic Green Machine, while a handful of new material is well-received by the knowledgeable audience.
But it is Oliveri’s QOTSA numbers they have come for, having co-written the band’s 2000 album Rated R and the aforementioned Songs for the Deaf with Homme.
Cheers greet acoustic takes on songs like Gonna Leave You, Another Love Song and Auto Pilot, sparking what feels like a boy scouts’ campfire singalong, only with far more beards.
Oliveri invites a dozen or so fans up on stage with him for a rousing rendition of QOTSA drug anthem Feel Good Hit of the Summer, which features the rhythmic chant of ‘nicotine, valium, vicodin, marijuana, ecstasy and alcohol’.
But opening gambit Millionaire remains Oliveri’s most distinctive contribution, one he performed with QOTSA in April for the first time in 10 years during a gig in Portland, Oregon.
While his exile from the band seems set to continue, Oliveri’s career and outlook appears the healthiest it has been in the best part of a decade.
His show at The Boileroom underlines his talent to go it alone.
James Chapple
Originally published in the Surrey Advertiser, 06/06/14
