The Low Lows – Live, The Ark, Edinburgh, Tuesday 29th April 2008
I don’t like the Ark as a venue at the best of times, and the fucking shameful treatment dished out to Eagleowl, who played before The Low Lows here tonight, was just fucking embarrassing. People just talked over the performance, and if the band got any louder they they just raised the volume of their conversation to avoid the inconvenience of actually showing the band even a fragment of fucking respect. Fucking pathetic. Unfortunately, Eagleowl don’t play loud enough music to actually be able to drown the wankers out, which meant the rest of us just had to sit through it. Bloody ridiculous. If you don’t like it, fuck off outside and talk. I have been to enough crap gigs recently where I didn’t like the bands enough, found myself talking too much and promptly decided it would be best if myself and my pal left the room until they finished. It’s called a bare minimum of fucking manners, and The Ark audience would have done well to try and bloody well show some.
Fortunately The Low Lows do indeed make a racket, and any chatter was instantly swallowed in a buzz of noise and feedback. Their recent album, Shining Violence, is fuzzy enough, but there’s something much more primal about the live show. The music has an angrier, looser vibe on stage. It feels much less controlled, as if it were somehow likely to break loose and launch itself at you.
It wasn’t the swirl of experimental feedback that I was somehow expecting, don’t ask me why, but what it was was a more feral, confrontational version of its recorded self. Between the nasal bark of the delivery and the amazing levels of reverb on his mic channel, PL Noon’s voice was pretty much indecipherable, but that didn’t matter so much. The feeling in his voice drove home the added force of the music beautifully.
There was much more synth in the live show that I had noticed on the record as well, which was interesting. Synths have been a staple of the classic indie-pop combo for some time now, from the angular haircut bands to the more arch dancier bands, but with the Sargasso Trio using them so successfully in what is essentially a folk-pop band and now this, it appears that the instrument is enjoying its spell in the limelight. In this scenario, set against the buzz of guitars, it did sterling work, bringing an dystopian surreality to songs that for the most part were already slipping sideways in a barely controlled manner.
You know when you go to a gig with not all that much knowledge of a group and come out thinking ‘Nope, these guys really are the business’? Well this was one of those gigs.
The Low Lows – Modern Romance
The Low Lows – Sparrow
a redeeming feature of the ark, however, is that ralph the soundman has a microphone (and the inclination) to tell people to shut up when necessary…good old ralph.
That really, really did make me laugh when I heard that.
Who were the bands on before, then? Anyone I should be listening to? I am guessing you wouldn’t recommend the ones immediately before the Owl.
“Dystopian surreality”? If I want dystopian surreality I’ll just watch Dubya’s last State of the Union Address.
That was a bit writerly wanky wasn’t it. Sorry. It may have been a bit dystopian, but it was very energising at the same time, if that helps.
Could’ve been worse; you could have described it as “gossamer.”
Like the Albatross?
Precisely. What an appalling name. Sounds like a Def Leppard tribute band.
i think people that don’t want to watch bands and want to talk should leave. the low lows were absolutely amazing but I left remembering eagleowl’s last song most. just beautiful.
Well they don’t have to leave permanently, just step outside until the band they aren’t interested in has finished. Easy.
or, a device could fall from the ceiling that traps them in a glass box. we couldn’t hear them and they couldn’t hear bands. problem solved.
And would this glass box contain rotating knives?
possibly – or maybe just scarlett johansson singing tom waits songs?!
How about a swarm of angry bees?
how about you matthew – just you and your verbal onslaught. that’d teach them.
or maybe ace of base “i saw the sign” on repeat would teach them a lesson they’d never forget!
I’ve found that in most venues in Edinburgh the support act gets treated shamefully by large elements of the crowd. At the Isobel Campbell gig at the Liquid Rooms, it was virtually impossible to listen to Jaymay who was supporting, the crowd were so rude, Jaymay however commented that the crowd was so much better than Cardiff, so it may not be just an Edinburgh thing, however in my experience it happens there more often. The last time I saw Roddy Frame in the Queen’s Hall, he had to ask some arseholes if they would mind talking when he wasn’t playing and that’s who they had paid fuckin money to see. I get on my high horse about this and it hasn’t been the first time that I’ve told someone to shut the fuck up during the support, they have all the time to talk when some roadie is going 1, 2 2 2 2 into the mic.
I was at that gig, but I didn’t like Jaymay very much at all actually. Mind you, seeing as I was by myself I think it would have taken a very special and very bizarre effort to be all that disruptive.
i think small venues with the bar and the stage in the same room is never a great idea, particularly for quieter bands. and as the ark has the architecture (arkitecture?) of a tunnel, it’s made worse by people at the back being totally disconnected to the live band
Ah…the thing is I’m not afraid to tell anyone who is talking while a band is playing to shut the fuck up. And those tend to be my exact words.
Its not just thoughtless inconsiderate bastards who do it either.
Tindersticks at the Liquid Rooms a few years ago saw me turn round and utter my catchphrase to Colin McIntyre and other sundry members of Mull Historical Society who had been the actual support band. He seemed bemused that someone would have the temerity to talk to him like that….and it was only when I spoke to hime a second time that he moved away out of range. On a point of principle, I have never listened to any of the band’s songs since.
A few weeks ago some rather mature folk (ie my own age) were really loud while not paying attention to Pop-Up at the Oran Mor in Glasgow – to be fair, I didnt swear this time but still went over to where they were sitting with their backs to the stage oblivious to what was going on. It was only when the next act – We Were Promised Jetpacks – came on did it become clear that the talkers were in fact the mums/dads/aunties/uncles of the Jetpacks.
I think the worst though had to be the wankers at Malcolm Middleton at Classic Grand in Glasgow. There we were, right down at the front when all of a sudden, in the middle of the quietest song in the middle of the gig, two drunken pricks barge in from nowhere and begin a conversation with their two mates, and I kid you not, about the price of a bottle of lager at the venue. I threw a punch at one of them….
I’ve been to recent gigs by Edwyn Collins, Neil Young, Billy Bragg, Morrissey and Aiden Moffat where the average age of the audience was that bit higher. Funny thing is….no-one seemed to do anything but show the utmost respect to the artists.
Seems its the young folk just dont know how to behave themselves properly nowadays….
Did they know how to behave themselves in your day, JC? I don’t for a second think that they did.
And believe me, I have told a few folk to shut the fuck up in my time, just in this case it was the entire venue. Bellowing at everyone to be quiet just seemed logistically difficult. The sound guy tried it and was roundly ignored, and short of going round every obnoxiously loud conversation and threatening them there wasn’t a lot to be done.
don’t think bands should tell people to shut up from stage – have seen it done and cringed at times – that said, more than happy for other audience members/sound engineers etc to tell the ignorant bastards to remember that they just paid money to watch people perform.