On Sunday night, Kristy and I joined Dean and Leanne for what was undoubtably one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to: Karnivool. They played at the O2 Academy at Islington, however it was in the upstairs venue which I’d never been to before (let alone knew that it existed)! It’s very small and intimate – maximum capacity is only 300 people – which meant no matter where you were standing, you had a great view of the action.

Kanivool are a Perth band who’ve been touring the UK as support act for Skindred; however on Sunday night, their roles were reversed – Skindred came out as a bit of a surprise and played as the support band for Karnivool! And my what a surprise it was – if you’ve never heard any of Skindred’s music you should check it out. Imagine if Bob Marley joined a heavy rock band, and that’s pretty much what you’d get…

There was one other support band called “Forever Never” who were far too loud for the little venue. All I could hear was distortion – and that was with earplugs in. I was glad when Karnivool took the stage about an hour later.

Karnivool’s songs are generally quite progressive (typically 8 minutes in length or longer), with multiple “stages”, often with differing time signatures. They’re so complex that I had trouble believing that they’d be able to play them convincingly live; however, about one minute into the first song, my doubts were erased – these guys are awesome musicians!

There was three songs that I was really hoping to hear them play – Deadman, Cote and New Day, and they did all three of them! I was one happy fanboy.

gerrod.com rating: 10/10.

After having quite a run-around to get tickets for Pearl Jam, I was especially looking forward to their concert at the O2 Arena, and on Tuesday, all our waiting finally paid off!

My only worry was that the tickets I had bought off eBay would be fake and they wouldn’t let me in – but thankfully, this was not the case! In fact, it was quite the opposite – the tickets were actually pretty good!

Gomez – another band who Kristy and I are both very fond of – were the opening act, so really for us it was two concerts in one. They played a short set consisting mainly of songs from their latest album, and also a few old favourites such as Silence, and How We Operate.

Pearl Jam came on around 8:45 PM to a momentous applause, opening with their classic song Release. They played a two-and-a-half hour set, consisting mainly of songs from their older albums, quite a few B-Sides, plus a few previews from their upcoming album Backspacer.

The show was simply brilliant! The highlights for me were Alive, Footsteps, Yellow Ledbetter, and by far the best version of Crazy Mary that I’ve ever heard.

I managed to record a bit of the show on my camera, and was surprised by how decent the quality was. Check it out:

Time – 3:16, Size: 22.1 MB

Full set-list

Release, Animal, Corduroy, Why Go, Eldery Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town, Immortality, The Fixer, Even Flow, I Got ID, Rats, Got Some, Whipping, Light Years, Insignificance, Black, Life Wasted, Blood

Encore 1: Supersonic, Hail Hail, Footsteps, Love Reign O’er Me, Do The Evolution, Alive

Encore 2: Better Man, Crazy Mary, Leaving Here, Porch, Yellow Ledbetter

Ever wondered what a national air guitar championship would look like? Well, so did Todd, and somehow he convinced me that it was something that I had been wondering, too. So on Friday night, he and I, along with Al and Becks, rocked (heh) up to the O2 Academy Islington to check it out.

And, as it turns out, an air guitar championship is pretty much exactly what you’d expect it is – a bunch of people on stage jamming to music, on air guitar. Each contestant had 60 seconds to show off their moves, after which they were judged by a panel of dudes who were nowhere near as cool as they thought they were.

Still, for a tenner, it was a decent evening of entertainment! Here’s a sample of some of the acts from the night:

Time – 0:56, Size: 6.4 MB

The first guy is the ex-national champion from the UK; the second act was “sudden death” for the two finalists; the guy in the black shirt with pink writing was the winner.

A couple of weeks ago, Al and I went out to Brixton to catch Faith No More playing at the academy. I must admit, I’m not the worlds biggest Faith No More fan, however there are a lot of their songs I consider to be a classic, and given this – along with the fact that Brixton has to be one of the best venues ever, due mainly to the sloping floor – I was happy to tag along.

The warm-up act was easily one of the most forgettable bands I have ever seen. At one point, Al said to me, “What’s with that chick?” referring to the lead singer; unfortunately though, it was, in fact, a bloke. But I had to let him off the hook – the way he was dancing and the clothes he was wearing made it rather ambiguous. It was also the first time I’ve ever seen a band actually booed off the stage – it was harsh, but fair!

Faith No More came on to an eruption of applause. It was their first gig in something like 10 years, and judging by the reaction from the crowd, they had been sorely missed.

If I had to summarise the gig in one word, it would be “loud”. I was wearing earplugs, yet at times I still had to cover my ears to dampen the noise. I think this was mainly when Mike Paton (the lead singer) was yelling into a microphone – through a megaphone.

As you can see, the noise meter on my iPhone tops out at 120 dB. Each time I took a reading, the needle went straight to the end of the display, and didn’t move. I’ve never seen it do that before, it usually bounces around a bit before finally reporting the “average”. Yes, this was definitely the loudest gig that I’ve ever been to, and I felt extremely sorry for all the hardcore fans who are still convinced that earplugs ruin the sound.

But, credit where credit is due – it was an excellent concert. With such a plethora of hits at their disposal, they could have played practically anything and the crowd would have loved it. Definite favourites for me were Midlife Crisis, Stripsearch, and Be Aggressive.

The commute home was a bit of a nightmare due to all tube lines being down (tube strike), so I missed the last couple of songs in order to save myself having to get a taxi. But I walked out extremely satisfied, so no real complaints! gerrod.com rating: 8.5/10.

One night when we were in Singapore I got a message from Dean around 3 AM in the morning, asking me if we wanted tickets to see The Butterfly Effect. Well, it was an easy answer – even that early in the morning – heck yes! I immediately texted him back and asked him to get us some tickets.

Turns out that the sense of urgency I felt wasn’t entirely warranted, as the show wasn’t even close to a sell out. Still, they manged to pack in about 600 fans (mainly Aussies, I suspect) at ULU, which I think is pretty good given that they’re barely known at all over here.

Last night was my first Butterfly Effect gig, and I have to say that I was extremely impressed! They played a really good mix of songs from all three of their albums – all of my favourites, and all of their singles as well. My favourite song of the night (and probably my favourite of all of their songs) was Reach – it’s the song that has everything!

Of course, no gig is without its downers, and last night had its usual collection of knob-heads in the mosh pit. Julian made friends with a guy who was dancing so enthusiastically that he must have thought that everyone had come to see him perform; but really, he was harmless. It’s the guys that create circle pits and throw themselves at the other patrons that really get me going. I wasn’t too sorry to see security drag a few of those idiots out.

Still, a few losers couldn’t tarnish was was otherwise an amazing show. Hopefully they’ll be back in London again soon!

God knows how much I hate the theatre, but when Kristy first told me about The Lost and Found Orchestra, I actually didn’t want to hurl! In fact, it actually sounded really not sucky! So I signed up for a ticket.

People that have seen Stomp said that the two shows were fairly similar, and given that they’re created by the same mob, I guess it’s not all that surprising. I lost track of how many people were on the stage at the same time – I stopped counting after about 30, and that didn’t include the choir of 100 or so that came out at the end. Suffice to say, it’s over the top!

The music itself is mesmerizing; it’s impossible to believe how rhythmic people can be using only a few bits of pipe and some balloons. My favourite tunes were the ones which involved as much banging of stuff as possible (i.e. drumming); everyone else in our group preferred the more melodic hits, but I’m used to being the odd man out.

Based on my love of banging noises, I think I’d enjoy Stomp even more than this show; but as an introduction to the concept, this was quite simply, amazing. gerrod.com rating: 9/10.

Does anyone want to come and see Coheed and Cambria with me tonight?

See, during the day on Tuesday, a workman drilled through the main power cable to the venue, which forced them to reschedule that evening’s show. Of course, we only found this out after trekking up to Tottenham Court Road and having some dinner and a few pre-drinks; so even though we didn’t see them play that night, we were still home quite late!

Anyway – the long and the short of it is, the show has been rescheduled for tonight, and Al unfortunately can’t make it. So at this stage I’m going by myself – but, his ticket is up for grabs, if anyone wants it!

No time to update! We were away all weekend (more details on that later), and for the next four nights – that’s right, four nights – I’ll be at the Coheed and Cambria Neverender tour. They’re playing all four of their albums over four nights!

I’ve just got back from the first show – The Second Stage Turbine Blade – and even though it’s the album that I know the least well, it was just awesome. It’s such a cool experience to be at a live show where you know exactly what the set list will be!

My ears are ringing slightly even though I was wearing earplugs, so I have no idea how the “hardcore fans” who insist on deafening themselves are feeling right now.

Nathan managed to score some cheap tickets for us to attend the O2 Wireless festival last Sunday, so attend we did! We arrived at about 3:45pm, just before The Goo Goo Dolls took the stage. Though I’m not exactly their greatest fan, I do listen to their albums every now and then, and it turned out I knew almost every song they played! I was particularly impressed when I said to Kristy, “I really hope they play ‘Big Machine’”, and only a few seconds later, they granted my request and started playing it!

Next up was one of my favourite bands – Powderfinger – who I must have seen live at least 5 times before. Powderfinger never fail to satisfy; they’re such reliable, live performers. And even though Bernard’s gum chewing wasn’t exactly a winning look on the big screen, I think he managed to win back the crowd by granting someone’s request for “Bless My Soul”. Awesome, as ever.

The second last act of the day was Ben Harper and The Innocent Criminals, who I’ve also seen before. Though the performance was technically hard to fault, it left me wanting more – mainly because they didn’t play any of my favourite songs (how can you call it a Ben Harper concert without the bongo solo preceeding Burn One Down?)

Finally, the headline act took the stage at about 9pm – The Counting Crows. Now, I’m a big fan of their music, and was expecting a huge show from them. Boy was I disappointed! Adam Duritz (the lead singer) seemed to be out to indulge no-one but himself; instead of singing each tracks with a few “live variations” thrown in, he basically did the whole thing as a spoken word concert! It was not cool – by the time they got to “Round Here”, I was wishing they’d just put the CD on!

What made it even worse, was that the set list was extremely well chosen, and the band all performed flawlessly. But the spoken word show just did not fly well with me (nor anyone around us); we walked away very disappointed.

It was still a great day out, and it was very “London” since we had every type of weather imaginable (except for snow); but such a shame – it could have been oh so much more!

Thank goodness it was a long weekend, because on Monday night, Nick and I headed up to Angel to see Red Jumpsuit Apparatus play at the Carling academy. Angel is a long way from our home in Chiswick and I just don’t know if I could have faced the late-night commute after a day of work!

That’s the first time I’ve been to that venue, and I was surprised to find that it was (a) so tiny! I guessed there would have been less than 500 people there, but it was sold out and apparently the capacity is 800; and (b) so well ventilated! Most venues like that have no airflow and quickly turn into sweat-boxes, but the air-conditioning was absolutely pumping – it was almost too cold in some of the places we were standing!

Like usual, we turned up to the gig only a little before the main act was supposed to come on – however things seemed to be running late and we caught most of the second warm-up band – Sherwood – as well. They were actually pretty good; not only did they remind me a lot of Fall Out Boy, but we got to meet the lead singer and bass player after the show!

Finally Red Jumpsuit came on at 9:30 PM – about an hour late. They were a great live act, mixing up their show with a bit of everything, from their typical hard rock, to a few acoustic numbers, and even a couple of covers (“Hero” by Foo Fighters, and a Beatles song I didn’t know). Unfortunately, there were a few losers in the crowd who insisted on making circles in the mosh pit, but a few discreet punches in the back and they seemed to stay away from me.

Overall it was an awesome gig, especially given its price tag of only £11 (including booking fee!); but as I had suspected the commute home sucked – I wasn’t in bed until close to 1 AM, and it was a school night!