Rock and Pop: Gig Reviews > January 6
Published: 6 January, 2011
by ROISIN GADELRAB
WE’VE read countless annual reviews, griped over XfM’s choice of The Killers’ Mr Brightside as the top song of all time and have been quite proud to be left out of the Queen’s New Year Honours list. Now, in the hope of being the first official music awards of the year, we’ve produced our own alternative prizes for 2010...
• Glastonbury award for most drenched festival:
The Camden Crawl
Rain or shine we love it. You’re only ever seconds away from a venue to shelter in, but this year really tested our resolve. As we said at the time, rivers of black eyeliner ran down Camden High Street as someone in the heavens chucked buckets at the dedicated music fans paddling their way from gig to gig.
• Most well-intentioned but ill-judged special effect: Kiss, 02 Academy Islington
They just wanted to give fans a taste of the stadium experience. But poor Kiss’s plans to set off ticker-tape from huge cannons backfired as they accidentally suffocated themselves and their fans – cutting short their encore.
• Malcolm Tucker award for most diplomatic wardrobe choice:
Missy Elliott, Wireless
She probably thought it was a nice gesture – wearing a German tracksuit from sponsors Adidas while their national team battled it out in South Africa. But Missy didn’t count on a bunch of sour-faced England fans, who booed and threw bottles at her, still sore at the country’s loss days earlier.
• MOST RIB-CRUSHING GIG: Rage Against the Machine, Finsbury Park
We thought we’d planned it so well – close enough to see, far enough back to avoid being sucked into a mosh-pit of fists and feet. I even took my earrings off just in case. But from the very first bass note, the entire crowd contracted, we were lifted off our feet, flung across a molten sea of black T-shirts and banging heads before being dropped into the centre of the pit. Phenomenal gig.
• MOST WANTED MUSICIAN (for about five minutes): Lowkey
He loves a good cause, this one. Lowkey visited students at Camden School for Girls protesting at the planned university fees hike. Hours later, he appeared on the front of a number of national newspapers as one of the people police wanted to speak to in connection with protest violence. Of course, nothing came of it and he doesn’t seem to be wanted, but seeing his face in the rogues gallery it gave his fans a swift shock.
• Biggest insult to visiting US artists:
Wireless (Missy Elliott) and the Roundhouse (Talib Kweli)
I know they had their reasons, but pulling the plug on artists mid-song is just not cool. If they are running over, let them get to the end of the song. Leaving Missy and Kweli standing there, mic and music turned off, looking like fools, is not the way to make friends and can only end badly.
• Venue to score best secret gig: Dingwalls for The Strokes
There was hysteria when news broke out that Dingwalls was going to host The Strokes’ comeback. Tickets were harder to find than a music store in Camden and there was no need for contact lenses from Cyberdog for those that missed out – the green eyes could be seen from outer space.
• VENUE TO LOSE HUGE SECRET GIG: Dingwalls for Guns ‘n’ Roses
Dingwalls had to issue an 11th-hour cancellation after learning Axl and co wouldn’t be venturing our way, causing some anger but also a lot of relief from those who wish G’n’R would cut their losses and stop ruining the memory of their best work.
• Most middle-class mosh: Jamie Cullum,
Kenwood
In among the vin, the pain and the Boursin, the picnic baskets were overturned, cheese knives waved in the air and Jamie Cullum’s encore became the oddest, multi-aged mosh-pit in the shadows of Kenwood House.
• Most generous headline performance (take note kanye): Jay-Z, Wireless
Unlike Kanye’s headline turn the year before, Jay-Z’s not mean with his time, his words, or his songs and there was not a hint of self-indulgence about his show.
• Special award for the band at the centre of the biggest office row: N-Dubz
Yes, Dappy, Fazer and Tulisa, you caused fireworks at New Journal Towers earlier this year. No need to go into it now, suffice to say – I was on your side.
• Farewell to The Luminaire, The Flowerpot and possibly The 100 Club.
• Hello to The Wheelbarrow, Nambucca (just reopened).