Entertainment For Lively Minds
Some Fuckwits and Crowded House
Posted by Captain Underpants on 9 June 2010 - 7:44am.
When:
8 June 2010
Where:
Hammersmith Innit
Comments:
Coming on shortly after Crowded House, the 8-piece Fuckwits treat Rows S-Z to a 2-hour tour de force of shouting and fidgeting. Opener Can I Sit Next to Chloe is followed by What are you Drinking? before the slow shuffle of (Let me out I need a) Slash has everyone on their feet. This new arrangement heralds a full 30 minutes of The Tall one Sits in front of the Curmudgeon, which I particularly enjoyed. Back from the Bar raises the seat backs once again, and segways into the hilarious call and response of Over Here Kerrie (You're in the wrong aisle). There are occasional nods to their support act, with Fuckwit C fittingly texting throughout Message to My Girl and F7 breaking off a blistering solo anecdote to scream I know this! repeatedly during Four Seasons in one Day. By the time Finn seranades us with Better Be Home Soon, they've already gone.
The Audience:
Some tuts and well reallys, but no real participation. Most were content with occasional glimpses of Finn, Seymour and Co, viewed in the distance as if on the CCTV screen of the 4.00am nightbus.
Food & Drink:
If they'd spent the price of the tickets on WKD, they'd have had 380 bottles and a much better night. And so would we.
It Made Me Think...:
I'm never leaving my house again.
Great Review
I've seen The Fuckwits before, but never on this kind of form.
I feel...
your pain. Incomprehensible.
It's a major problem
But sadly it was ever thus. I can recall having beer spilled all over me by some cretin bringing a tray of drinks for his chatty mates, at a John Martyn gig in 1980.
Music venues should all put up signs like this one
this was taken from one of my favourite facebook pages - shut the f**k up, the band is playing
Signs like this are dotted all over the Luminaire in Kilburn.
In fact, this may very well be one of those signs.
I saw the Memory Band perform one of their hugely entertaining Music And Songs From The Wicker Man shows there the other week, for perhaps the quietest audience I've seen at any London show in ages (during the songs, that is). Someone who started chatting while one of the support acts was playing was politely told to button it by one of the bar staff, and actually obliged.
Difficult as it is to regulate such behaviour in larger venues, it's good to see smaller "boutique" venues like the Luminaire adopting a proactive stance towards what has to be the single most irritating aspect of gig-going these days.
Hell is other people
Harrumph
Can only agree with the Y-fronted one, with whom I endured said madly aggravating Fuckwittery. What struck me first was how innefectual everyone, myself included, was at dealing with this. Surely if you paid 50 quid for a great meal and then some random stranger ruined your enjoyment by pissing in it you'd subject them to some unwanted dentistry. But we sit there looking at each other helplessly in our soppy British manner and nobody says a bloody word.
And then what I realised was that this is not the real problem. We SHOULDN'T HAVE TO shut the Fuckwits up. The real problem is a simple lack of courtesy. It's just bad manners. In writing those words I feel very old and very conservative, and that's a problem too. Whither politeness, altruism, courtesy?
It's all right, I'll go and have a little lie down now.
I've got...
...verbal bastard diarrhoea today. Hence, edited this post for being pointless and interminable.
As usual...
George Costanza shows us the way...
The bastards are everywhere
A few of the fuckwits were at the Pixies show last Friday.
I was standing in a crowded, but non-moshing, section of the audience when drunk Fuckwit and even more drunk Fuckwit 2 decide they wanted to stand right in front of me and P junior, despite there not actually being a space there.
They were clearly on their way back from the bar, but Fuckwit 2 decided he didn’t need one of the two drinks he was carrying and decided my shirt had more use for it.
After my admittedly sweary, but not overly-aggressive complaint, Fuckwit 2 started to insist it wasn’t really that big a deal that I was dripping in someone else’s over-priced alcohol.
Reason temporarily deserted me and I had a minor postal moment, which I must stress involved no actual violence – though I think the threat of it may have been implied.
Cue Fuckwits moving to the back of the hall, and one mortified teenage son.
I do feel bad nowabout embarrassing the lad and losing my temper, but my it felt good at the time.
They were out in force on Thursday night too
My favourite being the chap that was fairly politely asking to get past people early on in the set. He appeared to be trying to return to some friends after being at the bar or toilet, or so I thought. Suddenly he decided that he'd found a good spot and just stopped- right in the space that somebody had vacated to let him pass.
An honourable mention to the large number of people that were at the bar until the opening song of the gig and then decided that they absolutely had to be the front, and the best way to get there was by employing their elbows.
I feel your pain
and you've expressed it eloquently with a wonderful mix of spite, malice and gallows humour.
The Fuckwits' Mancunian Auntie and Uncle were good enough to drop by The Dry Bar a few years ago at the same time as Ray LaMontagne was singing an intimate acoustic set on stage. The kind of set where under normal music-appreciating circumstances you would literally hear a pin drop, the air was stuffed with heady reverence and cheek-burning awe, applause felt like breaking a communal vow of silence.
Well it was until Auntie F decided that it would be a good time to unleash her banshee laugh prompted as she was by Uncle F's insistence that now was the right moment to tell her about his day at the Chester races in a loud voice. To be fair Uncle F (imagine if his name was Axel! Hah!) had to use a loud voice as Ray was obviously competing unfairly by singing songs into a microphone. Bastard Ray.
Spite
Funny thing is, I couldn't really bring myself to dislike them. I think they genuinely didn't think their behaviour was out of line - they were a bunch of kids having a good night out. So maybe it's me that had the wrong expectations for the evening.
It's not their fault, for example, that they didn't know why a band of 50-somethings would choose to cover Moonage Daydream at the Hammersmith Odeon, or why Neil Finn's explanation of why he despises Steely Dan ("all those major 7ths") was funny.
And although I've chosen to be all pipe-and-slippers about it for comic effect, I had a good night too.
Not your problem Captain
I know us chaps are all old and grumpy but is it really too much to ask for a bit of courtesy whilst the band are playing? Age and lack of gig-going savvy is no excuse for being an ignorant twat, or twatess.
Glad you enjoyed it anyway.....next time make it a trip to Brum to the Symphony Hall where the audiences are ever so polite.
Moonage Daydream
Good call Mr. Finn. I hope the fuckwits didn't spoil it for you.
Ah that's why I don't like Crowded House
I flippin' *love* Major 7ths!
This is why...
... I was unable to contribute to the Your next three gigs thread early. Sadly I never have three ahead as most audiences make me want to commit random acts of violence.
I hope you feel better now Captain...
My most memorable recent one...
...thankfully not that recent now, was when there was a free outdoor spree at Pier Head in Liverpool , with Gerry and The Pacemakers, The Proclaimers, The Wonder Stuff, and more.
Now OK, it was a free outside gig, so allowances must be made, but I had a not bad spec, happily listening away to The Proclaimers when a gaggle of young local girls barged their way though and decided to stop right in front of me. They then proceeded to declaim loudly about their clothes/sex lives/history of inebriation/the latest in Big Brother, ignoring the the band completely except to occasionally speculate why they hadn't played 500 Miles yet.
So I moved, finding myself what seemed to be a listening area and not a yakking area. This lasted about about 10 minutes, and then the Scouse gaggle landed in front of me , AGAIN, to regale us all with their inane drivel and complete indifference to the turns. Thankfully the Proclaimers played 500 Miles and then they pissed off.
Grr...
I was lucky enough...
...to catch an unadvertised performance by a slimmed-down, jazz trio version of The Fuckwits at a recent Iron Man 2 matinee.
You have to be on jolly good form to upstage Robert Downey Jr. Listening to these master improvisers spontaneously riffing on a variety of subjects completely unrelated to anything taking place on the screen (in essence juxtaposing intimate real life events with their fictional celluloid counterparts) was a real treat.
It sounds like those bastards in Crowded House did their best to ruin the show. They should have realised that few bands can match The Fuckwits on a good night.
Mortified
I had the misfortune/innate stupidity whilst a shy, retiring 16yr old schoolie to agree to accompany an idiot cousin * to the local fleapit's screening of chop-socky classic Enter the Ninja. He fancied himself as a bit of a wag and determined, through the platinum logic of the irredeemably thick, that it would be a rare old laugh if he contribued 'additional dialogue' throughout the movie. In the style of a less charming Danny Dyer.
Highlight/nadir came when the Cowellesquely camp ubervillain introduced a display of synchronised ballet dancing in a pool (honest.) Said miscreant then inquired of the captured hero: 'How do you like my art?' Only for a voice to boom from the cheap seats: 'It's f***en' shit!' closely followed by: 'That was a good one, Paul, eh eh?' I slunk off like a salted slug when the houselights eventually came on.
* luckily for me he'll never ever read this
The Cinema Fuckwits
are an offshoot formed by the little-known 9th Fuckwit, who left the group when he grew disenchanted with the endless treadmill of talking loudly at gigs in increasingly giant and impersonal venues.
Eschewing the easy route of irritating the maximum number of people at a time, he found contentment in the provincial cinema circuit, where the lower volume and frequent moments of dramatic silence allowed his freeform chatter to really fuck everyone else off
I feel for you..
...its one of the reasons i've given up on going to gigs, that and the cost.
On the plus side its nice to see that Finn plays Message to my Girl with The House. I love that Split Enz tune. Does he ever do I Got You with the band also??? Now that I would like to see.
Just as long as the Fuckwits stay at home.
Point of enquiry to the international Massive
- have The Fuckwits toured other countries? Or are they a homegrown phenomenon?
Swedes
are usually almost unnaturally quiet and polite, but it depends on the genre and the venue.
In some places you can almost feel like a bit of a freak if you dare to dance to the music...but that's getting better.
I've never been disturbed by people talking, but I can get a bit tired of all the people who seem to think that the live experience is greatly enhanced by watching it through their new phone's screen as they're filming the show...
And of course without seats you will constantly be pushed and trampled by people going to and fro with beers spilling all over you.
But I still prefer that to sitting down!
just wanna doff my cap
To the cap'n for a brilliant post as well as to PaulHolmes for 'Slunk off like a salted slug.'
I meant
to credit Dannies Kelly/Baker for that. My work is both original and good but unfortunately etc....
I blame Oasis
Noel gives quality quote and I recall he said that he knew he could fill Knebworth cos the 'squares' were now into the band.
In my experience, the people (the 'squares') who are these Fuckwits didn't used to go to gigs prior to 1994. They were all in muddy fields singing E's-r-good and hugging each other or they were at football grounds.
Gigs were for music fans, passionate about listening to the music their favourite bands were going to play.
The Fuckwits pre 1994 were many and bountiful.....
Kinks show at the Town and Country Club in Kilburn in 1990 was perpetuated by young professional yuppie couple yapping loudly about their long hard days in the City whilst enquiring loudly to all around whether we thought they'd play "Days" - then enjoying a 2nd wind courtesy of Kirsty's cover - As Davies held out on Days until the encore to introduce Kirsty on stage - these idiots meandered on and on for the best part of two hours. Grrrr.......
Not wanting to go out
is how I am getting these days, I get so bloody cross at gigs its not worth it. Jackson Browne at Hampton Court on Tuesday was a night out for the chattering classes. My wife will complain to the stewards which leaves me embarrassed in the first instance then often moved to a better seat. A box at the Albert Hall on 2 occasions & ON THE STAGE at the Robert Plant/ Alison Krauss gig at Wembley. The Luminaire has it right with it's no talking signs. & as for people filming the whole night though their pesky little camera phone. gggrrrr.
Talking through gigs
I was at Hammersmith for last Tuesday's Crowded House show. I had a couple next to me blathering away as soon as CH came on. Just as I was about to tell them to shut the F up a couple of people in front of them beat me to it . At least they heeded the intervention and remained quite for the rest of the show.
It is totally beyond me why people go to a gig and then talk through it.
Is it a generational thing? I don't know..I don't remember it being a problem until relatively recently. Is it that (some) younger people don't actually really LISTEN to music now? Perhaps it has just become an adjunct to something else, listened to through headphones as a distraction from some other activity they are doing, or skipping from one unfinished downloaded track to another. Consequently when they go to a gig they treat the performance in the same way i.e. as something to dip into now and then when not having a chatter or popping out for another beer.
The trouble is once you have got aggravated by it, even if the perpetrators finally shut up, it spoils the mood of the evening.
Generational... perhaps
You might be correct when you say that a lot of people don't listen to music anymore- they frequently don't seem to listen to it at gigs.
I think it a lot of it has to do with the way that people consume music nowadays. Many people don't buy or listen to full albums, they just download their favourite tracks from iTunes. Consequently, when the go to a gig they are only their to hear the songs they know. They have no patience with anything they don't recognise and will entertain themselves in whatever manner they see fit.
They worst example I have experienced of this in the last couple of years was at an Arcade Fire gig at Brixton Academy. The two twerps behind me were talking incessantly through the set until they started play Intervention. At this point, one twerp turns to the other and bellows 'This my favourite song, it's fantastic!'. This filled me with joy- I thought I'll at least get one song in reasonable peace. The silence lasted for about 30secs. The twerp, clearly pleased that he had his 'I saw Arcade Fire and they played my favourite song' story to regale his mates with, carried on blethering.
It also seems increasingly common for people to film large tracts of a gig through their mobile phone or digital cameras. Why? It's certainly not going to provide any footage that's going to merit one viewing, let alone repeated ones.
Another thing I've noticed is for people to spend the entire gig taking photos of themselves and their mates- presumably so they can put them on Facebook and prove to their extended social circle that they have social life. I can't imagine that they would be able to recall many details of the gig though.
I love live music but increasingly hate going to gigs, which I find hugely depressing. I can only conclude that I am 28 going on 69.
Gigs are now all about the audience not
about the artist.
I caught the last few minutes of that Bon Jovi documentary on the Beeb last week and there was a moment where Jon Bon Jovi ushed one of those ramps to get in amongst the audience. He stood no more than 2 or 3 feet away from them which, once upon a time, would have been the biggest thrill of being at a gig, something you'd have talked about for years.
But instead of being caught up in the moment, there were a couple of people staring intently into their mobiles as they filmed him up close. I really can't see how that's as much fun as just getting into what's happening at that precise moment and being excited by it.
Agreed
But unfortunately I think weddings of the future may feature headcams. They may even have snicko technology in the bridal suite for disputed orgasm claims by either player.
The Roundhouse
I was going to start a thread on the venue, but as the Captain has started this one, there's no need for me to start my own thread.
I've been to 2 gigs at The Roundhouse - Steve Earle two years ago and Band Of Horses last night.
Both gigs have been spoiled by people talking non stop. Now I know this happens at plenty of gigs as this thread and others have attested. But the Roundhouse seems to be in a class of its own. It's not just the odd group, it's 30 - 40% of the audience at a conservative estimate. You can't tell the group in front of you to shut up because there are more to the sides and behind you.
Have I been especially unfortunate or is my sample of two gigs actually representative of the people who go to Roundhouse events?
Crowded House Last Night
I was sitting in front of Jeremy Vine and he was relatively quiet but did spend most of the night trying to impress his young "date" with his CH knowledge.
I had a pretty good seat but when the inevitable rush to the front happened I could no longer see and had to spend the rest of the gig standing. I'm fine with that but I don't need someone shouting at me to get up for Don't Dream It's Over... Said in Australian accent "Surely you gotta get up for this one". Why, so I can sway from side to side and clap.
I don't like to be told what to do at the best of times but assuming that I wasn't enjoying myself because I wasn't up and "bopping" really pissed me off.
As it happens I was loving every minute of it, especially the cover of Moonage Daydream, but I was enjoying it from my seat (which I'd paid £45 to sit in thank you very much)
As I left a truly memorable gig I remembered why during the WWY Hitmakers heyday I chose to go and see them outside London to avoid certain CH fans. And before you all think this is some anti Oz / Kiwi rant, it's not. It's a rant against all people who talk all the way through gigs. It just happens that at CH gigs they tend to be from the other side of the world.
I went to...
...university with Jeremy Vine's now-wife. I wonder if she knew about his "young date"...
Sorry. Mischievous of me.
I use date
in it's loosest sense. He was with a woman, she looked young. Perhaps she's a researcher on his radio show!
Ronnie Scotts Birmingham
happily no longer a music venue.A few years ago went to see Nils Lofgren on his acoustic tour. Stunning show spoilt by a couple of arses in front of me talking shit. Rather than risk a fracas I went and complained to a security guard. He came over and told them to keep the noise down. 'You can't talk to us like that, we are members' came the response. 'I dont care what you are, you can leave now'. They were both escorted out - great result but was left wondering if I was going to get ambushed once the show finished. I think there should be more done about this type of behaviour - it is unacceptable.
What?
I used to go there when I lived in Brum. What happened to it?
I think it became
a lap dancing establishment. Jazz dancing. Nice.
Not that I've ever been there m'lud.
Cap'n...
I salute you. Thank you for the chortle!
Crowded House last night... again
Tuesday night's party of Fuckwits obviously enjoyed the show, because they were back last night as well!
Great work sir
39 Up Arrows - that surely warrants immediate publication in the magazine?!
I must say I've not been troubled by The Fuckwits of late. I tend to avoid seated gigs like the plague since at least if you do get stood next to chatterers you can go somewhere else. I wouldn't tag younger folk as being the chatty ones either, a lot of shows I've seen recently I've found the younger ones incredibly respectful and far too busy drinking in the music to be fiddling with mobiles and so forth.
The chatty ones I think you'll find are not regular gig goers and probably not that interested in the show or have come along for the craic with someone else/on the guest list. They know not what they do, so I do think 'shut-up' signs are a good idea, amazed this isn't more commonplace especially at seated or acoustic shows.
Suits
I've noticed that the people spending the most time filming the gig, texting and looking rather bored are middle-aged men in expensive suits and elegant ties...maybe they get free tickets as a bonus from the snobby firms they work for ?
Extraordinary
I'd just posted on here about tonight's Elvis Costello gig then saw this. Are the Fuckwits doing research on members of the Massive and following us around?!
I've heard that
The Fuckwits are planning a "Graceland" style approach to their future performances. Expect some South African vuvuzela action at a gig near you very soon.