|
The year 2000
definitely won’t go down in history as the most exciting year for live music,
infact the first 11 months of the year were fairly pitiful with only two decent
events on the calendar Radiohead’s big top tour and the witness festival.
When
Placebo announced they were playing Dublin’s Olympia Theatre in December I
rushed out and got a ticket, next our very own JJ72 and Ash announced Irish
dates, followed by American Rockers ‘Foo Fighters’ ‘Green Day’ and ‘at
the drive in’, next British indie darlings ‘dove’ and ‘the bluetones’
announced concerts all in the same week as ex-verve front man Richard Ashcroft
was playing the Olympia. What had caused the current avalanche of concerts is
unknown, my only complaint is that they nearly all play in the space of two
weeks when theres another 50 weeks in the year that they could have played.
Review 1:- Placebo 3rd
December 2000
Placebo are an amazing
band to see live, they know how to work the crowd by playing the right songs in
the right places, few bands can follow an ear bursting guitar driven song with a
soothing piano number and still keep the audiences attention.
Placebo attract a very
interesting crowd, most put a lot of effort into going to see the band – there
were more boys in makeup than girls – infact strangely the one person who
wasn’t dolled up for the night was singer Brian Moloko.
The
first hour of placebo’s set went without one single being played, normally
this would be a recipe for disaster but most of their album tracks are strong
enough on their own without having to be slotted in between hits. It also built
an air of excitement because everyone knew that they would eventually have to
start playing singles and when they did they all came together – “Every you,
every me”, “taste in men”, “slave to the wage”, “nancy boy” a
slowed down version of “teenage angst” the band then ended with “pure
morning”.
Brian Moloko was in
fighting mood on the night – he stopped half way thru a song to scream at a
bouncer who was throwing someone in the seated section out for standing up.
Brian made everyone in the seated section stand up, promoting safety in numbers,
‘if anyone has a problem – talk to me’ he shouted. This was the first of
two humorous interludes, the second was Brian seeing bits of the ceiling caving
in, he refused to play until someone climbed up and examined the roof of the
aging Olympia theatre, after getting the all clear the band played on.
8 out of 10
Review 2:- Foo
Fighters 5th December 2000
The roof continued to
fall on the 5th of December (I can see a huge disaster happening
soon) but Dave Grohl – singer with Foo Fighters put it down to falling dust
“we’re so old we’re gathering dust” he said. Dave gave the impression of
being anything but old – I’ve never seen anyone with as much energy as this
man. The foo’s opened their set with a thumping version of recent single
‘BreakOut’ complete with two ear bursting drum kits – one played by
resident drummer ‘Taylor’ the other by Dave himself.
One thing that really
impressed me about this concert was the amount of crowd participation – Dave
regularly took time out to chat with the crowd, he too had an issue with the
bouncers throwing people out for standing up, “If people want to watch a
concert and sit in a chair then they’ll rent the Woodstock movie” he
shouted. He encouraged the audience to get up out of their seats saying that if
people in the balcony didn’t stand up and dance he’d go up there himself and
make them stand up…. And he did!! During ‘Stacked up actors’ Dave climbed
up on to the speaker system into one of the viewing boxes at the side of the
Olympia stage, he then jumped over onto the balcony (with his guitar) and hopped
thru the crowds, it looked as tho he was about to
jump into the sea of waving arms below but was advised by the bouncers
not to do so. Instead he crawled thru the swarming crowd on the balcony and
jumped into another viewing box on the opposite side of the stage and then
jumped back down to his drumkit and finished the song.
The foo’s concert was
one of the most entertaining ever, Dave said he much prefers playing live now
than he used to – its what its all about and it definitely showed on the night
as the band clearly were enjoying themselves probably even more than the
audience.
10
out of 10
|
