Thursday 2 April 2015

Catfish lost his bottle man

The One Show
One Album - they have one album and they played it all and nothing else, 
One Light Show - for all but one song we were treated to the same red and swivelling white lights 
One Hour - well they played for less than an hour!

Did I want more? 

Yes not to feel short-changed...

...but then again no because Catfish lost his bottle man and played this so safe I lost interest by the end.


But there again they didn't have to do anything - they could have stuck the CD on shuffle and the crowd would have been happy - hang on that's basically what they did!!! 

This was a festival crowd - a drunk, as if they had been drinking all day in the sun, beer throwing crowd - greeting every song with a cheer so loud as to imply this was the band's masterpiece and every chorus sung at full volume and an excuse to bounce....

Beer-soaked and Bounced Upon
I should have taken the sign from the album title - The Balcony - and bought a ticket up there - yes I still would have left short-changed but not beer soaked and bounced upon as well! We had everything in the stalls - Girlfriends on shoulders - after loosing interest in the gig one of the highlights was watching for five minutes as one drunk boyfriend tried to manoeuvre his girlfriend onto his shoulders - we had good old fashioned crowd-surfers and the right of passage for the teenager with his dad at his first gig...



Poor lad couldn't see a thing on stage in amongst the bouncing six-footers and spent most of the gig with his phone, on video mode, held at arms length high in the air, bouncing up and down himself (wasn't sure if it was because he was really into the gig - or he was just trying to see!) - he will no doubt be watching snippets of the gig for many days and making himself - and all his mates who were so jealous 'cause they couldn't get a ticket' (thanks Dad!) - sea-sick!!!!!

That Difficult Second Album
Don't get me wrong Catfish and the Bottlemen powered through a precise set - but I wanted more than just the album played back to me - more than just complete strangers bouncing on me - more than showers of beer - am I getting old or just expect more from a gig than a human jukebox?

They said they had the second album written - why couldn't we have heard a couple of new songs to see what we can expect from that difficult second album. Or is that the reason - it's been so difficult they are not confident to air a song or two!

Why not throw in a couple of covers - songs that they are listening to on tour or have influenced them? 

And guys, this advice is free, go to see Ian Siegal and learn how to communicate with the audience - I know at the moment you don't need to because you are the band everyone wants to see and people love you and people know every lyric - but believe me there will be a time when you can't just power through a few songs and have the place bouncing - take the crowd with you now and you will build yourself a future - lazily rely on this wave of popularity and you'll be a catfish left floundering out of water - this years' washed up bottlemen on the violently shifting sands of popular music.

So will I buy the second album - I doubt it because on the evidence of this gig they will have played it safe and I don't want to be left hanging again!

Total Waste of an Evening then?
No evening of live music is a total waste of time and I'm glad I went - just disappointed in the head-line act - Little Comets supported, and their set was not that much shorter than Catfish and the Bottlemen, yet they left me wanting more not because I felt short-changed but because they didn't play it safe....


...and they didn't have red and swivelling white lights!!!


Gig: 4 of 50
Date of Gig: Tues 31st March 2015

Venue
Shepherds Bush Empire

Artists
Little Comets
Catfish and the Bottlemen

Running total of artists seen 8

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