2 posts tagged “adele”

Regular readers (I jest - this blog doesn't even have regular writers) may have noticed that in April of 2007 I went to a gig and saw a lovely singer named Adele. I wasn't too impressed, having seen her after an act called Peggy Sue and the Pirates who were like a funner, better version of her, and she was a very inconsistent performer too. Now, she is the biggest thing since sliced bread, I've read about her in the papers three times this weekend and her album is number one on the iTunes chart. Who knew?
I also think she is rather brilliant. I've downloaded the album and it's wonderful. You should all download it too - it's folksy lovely ballads and throaty singing. Hopefully the cock-ups in her performance in Oxford was a one off. If not, we've all been scammed.
Therefore I hereby make a compromise. I wish to receive free tickets to see Adele in concert again so I can re-evaluate her performance and make sure she can play her guitar and hit all the right notes properly (two of her shortcomings in the 2007 performance I saw). If I cannot have the tickets, I would like Adele to say sorry. That is all.

       Well, Jack. Haven't we been elusive. It started when he moved his original March 4th gig to April 22nd, ruining my highlight of the month and leaving me hopping up and down in anticipation for 6 weeks. Then the diary containing two tickets for the gig was lost, the gig was sold out and I had a very large and scary panic. Luckily no one was home, and then I managed to get a friend from work to sign over her tickets to me which caused a whole other story of trouble and woe for another time, but I would like to thank the phone book, her dad and the few other people of the same last name that I bothered that evening. The next fly in the ointment/needle in the haystack/etc was, on the advice of a friend who had been to the same gig in London a few days before, to avoid some unpleasant yobs wearing stupid baseball hats who were very rude and pushy. Sounded easy enough. Or so you'd think...

The lineup for Penate (pronounced, despite the lack of an accent over the n on most promotional posters, pen-iaaaaatey) included one Adele and one Late of the Pier supporting Penate himself.

      Adele was...like an unrehearsed and one woman impression of Peggy Sue and the Pirates. Lots of nice, fun, jazz inspired lyrics intertwined with scatting and 'shoo be doo wop' (there's something to write to instantly make you feel stupid) interludes, but she just didn't have the mojo or the beauty of the combined voices of Peggy Sue, neither did she have the fun songs or the inspiring lyrics that, for the 20 minute set they played, made me want to throw away my doctorish ambitions and start smoking 20 a day to become a throaty-voiced (albeit dying) jazz singer.
   My impression of her was thwarted about halfway through her set when she kept missing chords on her guitar and eventually had to stop playing one song because she couldn't do it, blaming it being the last night of her tour. Well, Adele, everyone else can play their guitars on the last night of their tour, why can't you?

Next up were the wonderful and facinating Late of the Pier. Having not known their name all through the set, we asked the bassist as they were packing up and he explained it as 'not making any sense; we couldn't think of anything.' Those wacky music kids, eh. But they were brilliant! I really, really, hope they catch on. So much so I'm going to write nice things about them. First of all, check out synth keyboardist:

    Did you spot it too? That's right, it's an 80's-tastic jumper. I love it. I'm not usually much of a fan of 80's fashion, believing that leg warmers, leggings, shoulder pads and slightly-too high waisted jeans for today's modern standards should stay where they belong: 20 years ago. However, this man worked the 80's jumper look, and I could only commend him for it, even though he looked young enough to have never seen the decade itself. Ah well.
    The next excitement on the Late of the Pier front was the mysterious row of broken bed slats propped in the centre of the stage. Observe: When we asked jumper-youth what the planks of wood were for before going up, he told us they were to keep him on stage. Given that he was small, skinny, and in a large floppy jumper, this alarmed me somewhat. What exactly was he capable of that warranted the placement of barriers (on a budget) to keep him from the audience? Only when they started playing did I realise why they were there. And it wasn't, as much as I would have loved it to be, to keep the audience from rushing the stage at the amazing metal-rave-disco-pure synth action...wonder-music (bagsie royalties for that soon-to-catch-on term) but for the fittie front man to drum on! If you would care to turn your eyes to the picture on the right, you too can spot the drum sticks in his hands as I repeatedly tried to catch him mid-drum. They were brilliant. Some said they were better than Penate but they were oh so wrong. They were also very friendly and did lots of crowd-warming-uppage (although most of this was done with the synth genius.) Genius.

Penate!!! The highlight of April, gig-wise. He was suuuuuuuuuuuuuuper. Except the beginning of the gig was ruined by a very, very rude man who kept pushing me. He was wearing a stupid baseball hat. That's right, it was the stupid mean guys that my friend had warned me about. I am proud to say I fought back when he swore at me (not that proud, but I never knew my vocabulary of expletives was so very extensive) but then he elbowed me very hard and I scuttled off to complain to security, who did nothing. Thanks. I returned to the crowd, raving to Penate hits such as Spit at Stars, Learning Lines, Got My Favourite, Second Minute or Hour, Made of Codes and ending with a hefty stage invasion on Torn on the Platform. Brilliant. Penate's happy bouncy indie-pop that is Radio 1's new favourite had eeeeveryone jumping up and down, even the guitarist and bassist from Late of the Pier who, surely, must be a tiny bit bored of the same set every night. I was dancing right in front of them at one point before, upon realising it was fittie guitarist, commenced with much hair smoothing and sophisticated bobbing up and down. This pulled me back into the energetic but rather dangerous crowd full of Elbowey and his stupid mates, who proceeded to push my face away from him. This hurt and I got upset. However, when the show was over and the lights came back on, I saw him and elbowed him very hard in the chest before skipping off to the girls' toilets where he couldn't get me back. Revenge is sweet.
   

Well, Penate was brilliant, I'm off to see him again supporting the Maccabees soon. Hopefully his stupid supporters won't be there as they certainly don't want to feel my wrath twice. Maybe this time I'll take a stupid hat to throw them off. Great gig.