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Review |
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The Academy in Bristol is a pretty interesting looking venue, with three
separate rooms, the first being just as you walk in the venue and go past
the box office you walk into the main downstairs bar room which is extremely
spacious, if you go upstairs there is another separate bar room which
is also known as the Bar Academy where the more underground bands end
up playing in Bristol whilst the rest of the venue is shut off. Then finally
the main room where the band play is quite small but fits a fair amount
of people in due to the look of the room, it’s a rectangle shaped
room with twisty stairs going up to the top of the venue where people
can stand and watch the bands. Once upstairs you have a great view if
you are right at the front of the barrier but if you are not the venue
has two tv's hanging down showing what’s happening on stage but
the quality’s so bad it feels like you’re down your local
pub watching a dodgy pirate copy of a concert.
We arrived at the Academy half way through the set of the first band who
were called No Bra, and to be fair they were the weirdest band I have
ever seen and heard this year and consisted of a person stood on stage
with an extremely short pink mini skirt on and no top on with tits hanging
out, yeah this might sound thrilling to some people but the strange thing
was this person had extremely long hair, a slight bit of stubble and a
mans voice, yes that’s pretty freaky was it a man or was it a woman?
I was pretty convinced No Bra was a man but I have since been told that
No Bra is a female. The bands sound was spoken word over a bit of acoustic
music with lyrics about whose got the biggest cock, catching syphilis
in Topshop and how to tell if someone likes bum sex which could please
some people but certainly didn’t make me a fan of the band but drew
me to the bar extremely quick.
The second support band were Pencil Toes and they were only on the Bristol
show of the Gossip tour and we some how managed to miss them due to talking
in the bar for a long time.
Gossip were due to take the stage at 9.45pm and the time was fast approaching
so we made our way out to the main room, the fans soon started to get
impatient as Gossip were running late, the lights of the venue finally
dimmed and the band took to the stage. To be fair Gossip are a very strange
looking band where each member is so different. Guitarist Brace Paine
was situated to on the left hand side of the stage and looked every bit
like a stoner geek rocker with his long hair over his face, big geeky
glasses and spending most of the show rocking back and forth strumming
his guitar. Drummer Hannah Blilie was situated in the middle at the back
of the stage and was dressed in a blue vest top with her skinny arms on
display showing off her bright selection of tattoos. Vocalist Beth Ditto
took to the stage wearing a yellow dress and yellow shoes to match, the
shoes lasted about 5 seconds before Beth kicked them off and spent the
rest of the show bare footed.
Beth Ditto is a really confident person who really loves to interact with
her fans, talking to them at every opportunity about anything that comes
into her head from admitting to buying her dress from cheapo shop Primark
to dodgy stories about Yorkshire Puddings. The band played through a number
of songs from their albums but it wasn’t until about 5 songs into
the set that the crowd got really into the show singing every word of
'Jealous Girls' along with Beth.
The crowd were loving every minute of the show with nearly half the crowd
kitted out with glow sticks and glow bracelets with a handful of fans
throwing their glow sticks on stage for Beth who happily picked them up
and threw them back into the crowd. Beth was extremely energetic throughout
the whole show moving back and forth along the stage like one of them
cheap wind up toys.
When 'Standing in The Way Of Control' was played both the band and crowd
went mental, Hannah was bashing the drums with force and passion creating
the tinny drumming sound that really makes the song. Beth spent the majority
of the song off the stage down with the security guards shaking hands
with the fans at the front of the barrier, towards the end of the song
Beth decided it would be a good idea to join the crowd and climbed over
the barrier and joined the crowd which didn’t go down too well with
the security who tried to drag her back but totally failed. Whilst being
mobbed by the crowd Beth managed to finish the song word for word without
making any mistakes which was pretty impressive. When the song finished,
Beth finally managed to get away from the crowd and back on the stage
and the band quickly left the stage for a quick two minute break before
coming back on to play their last song of the night 'Listen Up!' which
is my personal favourite song by Gossip and was a great finish to the
show.
Overall the Gossip were impressive with Beth's vocals sounding so strong
and exactly like they do on cd, the only down side to the show was that
the Gossip were over far to quick with a set that lasted just over 50
minutes.
4/5
Review By Trigger |
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Gossip |
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Beth (Vocals)
Brace (Bass)
Hannah (Drums) |
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Related Links |
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| Review
Score Code |
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- Top Cheese
- Brilliant
- Pretty damn good
- Ok I guess
-
What Was That? |
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