Gig review: KARNIVOOL, Jurojin & A Torn Mind @ King Tut's, 18/12/2010

You won't believe it, but it's a gig review! What this blog was originally intended for! My modus operandi since I last attended a live music event has undergone something of a polar shift, so please bear with me whilst I attempt to describe guitar sounds and drummers and things using words that aren't ‘ice’ or ‘hockey’ or anything similarly irrelevant! Right, on with the music.

Three bands of a progressive persuasion were taking to the King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut stage on a positively arctic Saturday in the excellent Scottish city of Glasgow. First on were the local support act, A Torn Mind. I hadn’t known what to make of them on my initial pre-gig listening session but the cobwebs were well and truly blown away as they kicked off their short but sweet set, the sound quality in King Tut’s kicking seven shades of excrement out of the obviously sub-par Myspace versions of their songs and forcing me to reassess my preconceptions of underwhelmed-ness. The Glaswegian four-piece were shamelessly prog, but revelled in the fact, show-casing a torrid love affair with their delay pedal and a hippy keyboard and rhythm guitar player whose dancing skills made me feel like a member of Diversity. Entertaining and unselfconscious, with a few catchy hooks – I feel these guys have a bright future ahead of them.

Direct support on the tour was provided by Jurojin, who sounded painfully southern in comparison to the gargling Scottish tones of the previous band, but lessened the sore thumb effect of my own cockney-ness a bit, which was nice. They were a bit of a conundrum, musically. In comparison to A Torn Mind they were almost contrived in their alternative-ness, featuring amongst other oddities, a tabla-player. They skated the fine line between potential genius and pretention for a few numbers before the singer uttered a line I’ve never heard before at a gig and will probably never hear again: ‘We’re going to do a 19th Century folk song now’. When a prog metal band says words like these, it more often than not spells danger. They weren’t so much skating the line now as perching on the diving board threatening to plummet into arty-farty oblivion. But then the song started. And it was brilliant. The singer pulled off the folk vocal perfectly and the version of ‘Black Leg Miner’ they performed was outstanding, chunky and metal and well, just excellent. They then proceeded to annihilate my earlier skepticism with a brilliant end to their set. I couldn’t fail to be impressed by them, heavily Tool-influenced as they were, particularly the drummer, Francesco, who was so technically proficient he threatened to eclipse the remainder of the band, and the tabla-player who added to the ridiculously high standard of the percussive end of the band. The vocals? Generally a little too clean for my liking but still. A marmite band? Almost certainly. Ones to watch – definitely.

By the time Karnivool took to the stage it was past 10:30 and I had my dancing legs on (read: I’d had about 6 pints and a couple of gins and was feeling merry). What can I say about them, other than ‘wow’. The Australian quintet couldn’t really go wrong as far as their setlist went, being as they have only released two studio albums, both of which I love, but somehow, they managed to make it so perfect, it wouldn’t have been better if I’d written it myself and had them wrap a chocolate bow around it. Kicking off with tracks from this year’s brilliant ‘Sound Awake’ record, the band’s sound was tight and crisp and soaring, true to the quality of the record but exceeded not only by their performance but by the sheer flawlessness of singer Ian Kenny’s vocals, particularly on stand-out track ‘New Day’. The guy was all kinds of cool, somehow managing to pull off chilled Aussie with not a single reference to the Ashes, and with the zen-like contentment of an inebriated Buddhist. My gigging companion likened him to a ‘stoned velociraptor’, a bizarre simile that somehow fit him down to the ground. The crowd reflected the happiness with a lot of singing, dancing and general expressions of enjoyment. Although, at 11:30 on a Saturday night in Glasgow, I can’t help but feel that a lot of their work had already been done for them.

The extent of my gig photography. Skilled I might well be, but you wouldn't know it. This is basically pretty much how I saw the gig, to be honest.

And so a good night was had by all, and Karnivool firmly placed themselves in my top gigs of the year list, sneaking on in there right at the end. I am a big fan, and I hope they come back sooner rather than later. Australia's not that far, right?

They tried to make me go to rehab...

(cross-posted from http://confessionsofahockeynovice.blogspot.com/)

When it dawned on me after the Dundee match that I would not be witnessing another live hockey match until after Christmas, I can’t deny that the panic started to set in. Exactly 20 days without hockey. Short of filling the intervening days with a series of bizarre and increasingly unhinged blog posts, I wasn’t sure quite how I would cope with the lack of hockey in my life. It was then I realised, what I think I had known already for a while but had been too afraid to admit to myself. But I’m ready to admit it to you now, in the hope that you can help me through what is inevitably going to be a difficult time in my life. Here goes.

My name is Katy, and I’m a hockey addict.

I’ve been watching hockey for just over two months, now. It started out small. Just one match, here and there, just a click or two on the Vipers website. A little dabbling in the NHL. A quick skim of the rules on the internet.

But then it got worse. I started thinking about hockey all the time. Even when I wasn’t at hockey, I wished I was. I met other people who liked hockey and that didn’t help, they just made me want more hockey. I watched hockey videos on the internet, at all hours of the day. I even watched hockey highlights first thing in the morning. When I couldn’t get hold of any hockey, I became nervous, unresponsive and difficult to be around. My motivation for anything other than hockey disappeared. I found myself unable to hold a sensible conversation that didn’t revolve around hockey. Mood swings? Check. I would go from being on the crest of a wave to anger and despair at the drop of a hat (or a puck). And my behaviour when deprived of my regular fix became increasingly unpredictable.

Take this Saturday just gone as an example. I was in exile, marooned in the south-east of England, hundreds of miles away from my beloved Vipers and about to miss the home match against Braehead Clan. With an aging laptop my only connection to the action, I felt fragile and out of place. I donned my ‘lucky’ jersey in the hope that, despite my absence, the good fortune which had been associated with it up to that point would continue.

And so I prepared to attempt to appease my craving with a less-than-potent combination of the EIHL live scores page, and the Vipers Hockey Facebook page, hoping that a commentary feed would be forthcoming. But like sticking an Elastoplast on an arterial bleed, it wasn’t really a suitable substitute. The withdrawal symptoms were kicking in. I DIDN’T have the shakes (because I was in a warm house rather than freezing my butt off at Whitley Bay Ice Rink). It felt all wrong. I was jittery. Just knowing that there was hockey going on, albeit 300-odd miles away, was satisfying my pining heart ever so slightly, but following a game through a live scores page... I can’t adequately describe how immensely frustrating it can be. Perhaps you’ve tried it before, perhaps not. In a way, it would be much healthier to just stay away from the laptop until well after the game is over and hence, there can be no doubt about the result. Ignorance is bliss and all that. There’s just something irrational and narcissistic about following the game live, as if little old you maybe, just maybe, might make a difference, if you want it hard enough. If you’ve not experienced the joys, it goes a little something like this:

Load page. Game has been going 2 minutes already. I can’t believe I let this happen. What if – oh poo. We’re losing already. That’s because I hadn’t loaded the page up yet. Inevitable feeling of guilt tinged with failure. I am a bad human being.

It’s funny how as sports fans, distance from the object of our affections is inversely proportional to the number of crazy superstitions we suddenly find solace in. It’s ironic that when we are in the position to offer the least support to our club (ie NOT in a live setting), we adopt the most bizarre paranoid behaviours in the deluded belief we might actually be helping in some way. Observe:

Click. We were two goals down. Nooooo! (I found this out on the Facebook page. Therefore this was deemed to be bad luck).

Let’s try the Elite League page instead. Click. We had pulled one back. YESSSS!! (This therefore instantly became good luck).

I know I’m not alone in holding these ridiculous superstitions, but perhaps I’m the first one ever to actually admit it in written form. Someone should probably put me in an over-sized petri dish and study me. I wondered if perhaps my lucky jersey was only lucky when it was physically AT Whitley Bay ice rink, with me in it. So I considered taking it off. I even briefly considered taking one arm out. Or wearing it back to front. But then decided I couldn’t make that kind of possibly game-altering decision without some other sign. The third period began.

Click. 2-2. The jersey stayed on.

Refresh. Watching through one eye, half-closed. No change! And as has become painfully clear, no news is good news as far as the Vipers are concerned. Oh wait... The timer hasn’t actually moved on since I last checked. The damn thing’s stuck.

Click. Oh here we go, the timer’s moved... We’ve conceded two more goals. Swearwords.

Two minutes later. Click. Braehead 30 – 12 Vipers?! Jesus H! What kind of monumental – oh wait, that’s just the shots on goal. It’s still only 4-2. Thank the lord.

Cuddles. Because hockey players need love too. And because. Well, it's just nice, okay? Leave me alone!

We’ve not yet won a match when I’ve been following on live scores. So I’m pretending not to watch. Trying to fool it. Using the score card I try and recreate the action in my mind, to get a feel for the game, the penalties for example – number, offence, culprit (not many – everyone must be behaving themselves). And the shots on; they had a lot more than us, does that mean we’re backs-to-the-wall again? Charlie playing another blinder? I even had a little knuckle-chew to try and recreate those game-night nerves. I found myself idly wondering whether Mike Prpich’s beard had put in an appearance. I worried for a bit that my level of interest in the aforementioned face fuzz might have reached the point of obsession. I’m sure people have had harassment suits taken out against them for less. If only he’d just let me near enough with my ruler to make an accurate measurement... Restraining order for one, please!

And so I am forced to reflect on my dirty little habit, and all its fanciful nuances. I imagine the questions I might be asked, if I went for help. Do I want to quit hockey? Nope. Maybe cut down, just a little? Not really, thank you. I just need to learn to live with my addiction. And to learn that others around me are capable of enjoying the finer things in life in moderation, even if I am not. And to find humour in the fact that I am going cold turkey, at Christmas. So who out there can help me in my time of need? And by help, what I probably mean is, indulge me, or at least make me feel like I’m not alone. Because yes, I am a hockey addict; but I wouldn’t have it any other way.