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 |
