Gig Review

Mindless Self Indulgence
Birmingham, Academy
25th April 2008
               
     
Tonight we went to the academy in Birmingham to see Mindless Self Indulgence. The show was originally planned to be at the Academy 2, the smaller room in the venue but due to how popular Mindless Self Indulgence have been getting over the past few months the show got upgraded to the main room in the academy, this was good news for the fans as all the shows on the bands tour had sold out with Birmingham being the only show still on sale due to the upgrade which meant more people had the chance to go along. We got to the Academy at 7.45pm and headed straight into the venue, we had a look around the venue for a few minutes checking out the merch before finding a spot in the crowd to watch the show. Birmingham academy is my second favourite Academy venue, with Brixton academy being at the top on the list, Birmingham academy is a big venue, there is a downstairs to the venue and also an upstairs, you can see the stage from pretty much anywhere in the venue, we decided to stand upstairs against the railings on the right hand side from the stage.

Mindless Self Indulgence took to the stage dead on 8pm, Steve took to the stage first waving to the crowd before taking his position on the far left hand side of the stage, Kitty then took to the stage and placed herself behind her drums, next was Lyn-Z to take to the stage, the crowd cheered that little bit louder, Lyn-Z positioned herself on the far right hand side of the stage and before you knew it they started off with 'Shut Me Up' with Jimmy running on stage which was greeted with huge screams and cheers from the crowd. The first thing you could tell from hearing the screams is that there were a lot more females in the building than males, from where I was standing you could clearly see the front row, it was dominated by female's with only a few males in the front row, there were a lot of My Chemical Romance fans in the building tonight with their My Chemical Romance band t-shirts on and MSI written down there face in black pen, clearly here to check out Gerard Way's new wife Lyn-Z, now Lyn-Z spent a lot of time interacting with the crowd, sticking her tongue out and talking to the crowd at every opportunity, she also did her regular trick of crowd surfing which resulted in her hovering above the crowd for 5 minutes battling to keep her skirt up with the fans trying to pull it down.

Frontman Jimmy Urine is an interesting man, he wears the same jacket at every show displaying the big white words 'No One Is Safe', I have never seen words so true, no one is safe at a Mindless Self Indulgence show as everyone and everything gets abused in someway. After a couple of songs Jimmy grabs one of the photographers from below the stage and pulls him on stage getting him to take photos of the crowd and himself before kicking him off the stage. Midway through the set Jimmy announces to the disabled people upstairs sat in their wheelchairs that tonight’s show is a standing only event and they should stand the fuck up, to make matters worse the lights in the venue beamed onto the disabled area, luckily everyone just smiled as they know what Jimmy is like.

A huge number of songs were played during the bands 1 hour and 15 minute set, a few songs from the new album 'IF' were played with 'Never Wanted To Dance' being the biggest crowd pleaser from the new material. The bands classic songs went down really well as well, with 'Stupid MF' being one of the biggest crowd pleasers of the whole night.

The song I was looking forward to the most was 'Faggot' but when the song finally got played it was totally ruined, now you are probably wondering how does a song get ruined, was it out of tune, did the band fuck up, well the answer is both a yes and a no to both questions, something was out of tune but it wasn’t the band and the band did fuck up but not musically. Before the song started, Jimmy started talking about kids and how he would like a young kid to come up on stage and help out after going through the crowd for a couple of minutes he choose a kid, the security pulled a 14 year old looking girl out of the crowd and let her go on stage, Jimmy then announced to everyone that he's not going to sing this song but the girl is, the girl looked really nervous and looked really out of place and like she really didn’t want to be there, the music started but before you knew it the music stopped again with Steve shouting down the mic that the girl wants her friend on stage, this was met with huge boo's from the crowd and Steve shouting down the mic you have to do it yourself, the music then started again, no words came out of the girls mouth so Jimmy soon came in with his vocals he then came up to the girl and held her hand dancing next to her trying to get her to dance and she was having none of it, Jimmy then shouted down the mic "fucking sing" the girl did nothing. Mid song suddenly out of nowhere the girl screamed down the mic, the scream was loud and ear piercing, now I never thought screams could be out of tune and sound bad but this sounded fucking awful, now one scream was bad enough but the girl continued to scream a further two times before the song ended and Jimmy chucked her off the stage and back into the crowd. Now most people would of jumped at the opportunity to be on stage with Mindless Self Indulgence, but this girl really made herself look stupid and pissed off the thousands of people in the venue who would of killed to be in her position. 'Faggot' sounded ruined but it just shows more to the madness of Jimmy trying to get a 14 year old girl to sing about gay sex.

Throughout the whole show clothes were being chucked on the stage, mainly hoodies. Towards the end of the show Jimmy took his top off and stripped down to his fishnet top that had just enough material to cover his nipples, Jimmy then said to the crowd "I need some new clothes, who the fuck is going to give me some new clothes", and before you knew it the stage was full of clothes it was something you would expect to see at a Tom Jones concert but with the main difference being at a Tom Jones concert the crowd are 50+ and at a Mindless Self Indulgence concert the average age is 16, Jimmy then re-dressed himself with a cardigan hanging off his right arm and another cardigan hanging off his left arm and a bra around his non existent man boobs for finishing measures, Jimmy went on prancing around the stage for the whole of the next song. The show finished in its unusual manner with Jimmy dancing around stage to 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious'. Jimmy left the stage but the band returned within ten minutes to meet some of the fans at the front of the barrier and do a small signing session.

A Mindless Self Indulgence show isn’t like your average gig where the band sounds exactly like they are on there album and plays a good show. Yes Mindless Self Indulgence do sound as good live as they do on record, but the main difference from a Mindless Self Indulgence gig and a gig from another band is the fact that Mindless Self Indulgence come out on stage to fuck things up and please everyone including themselves, their stage show is mind blowing with frontman Jimmy being one of the most energetic people I have ever seen, having more energy than even the Duracell bunny, he prances around the stage non stop, climbing and jumping off boxes, climbing on the drum kit, kicking boxes on stage and generally interacting with the crowd like no other band does. Mindless Self Indulgence don’t need big screens, they don’t need fireworks or any other special effects, they just need themselves, their equipment, a stage and a crowd and anything can happen but what is guaranteed is that the show will be one that you don’t forget in a hurry.

I walked away extremely impressed and also thinking that Jimmy Urine should be an actor, the man is like no other. Mindless Self Indulgence are onto big things, it may of taken them 15 years to be brought into the mainstream, but now they are here, they are here to stay and will continue to please and shock people for years to come.

5/5

Review By Trigger

 Mindless Self Indulgence


Little Jimmy Urine (Vocals)
Steve, Righ? (Guitar)
Lyn Z (Bass)
Kitty (Drums)

 Band Related Links
Mindless Self Indulgence Myspace
 Review Score Code
- Top Cheese
- Brilliant
- Pretty damn good
- Ok I guess
- What Was That?