Glowsticks pt.IIComments Off
m posted in General moans, Music on February 15th, 2007
This time, there really were glowsticks involved. Last night, I unwisely attended a gig that made me feel older than the father of Old Father Time. Older than Old Father Time’s father’s father, in fact. Older than the hills. And so on.
Shortly after getting home from the disturbing experience of the Bristol leg of NME’s New Rave tour, I wrote the following in an email to some people. I reproduce it here, as I don’t think I’ve completely carried the anger over into today. I’ve toned it down a little, in the cold light of day, but want to represent how I felt last night;
I’ve just spent a number of hours in a big room - a room that seemed to be turned on its side, as it was much higher than it was long - knocking glowsticks and whistles out of the mouths of water-drinking Jocastas and Henrys. I know this isn’t the first cultural phenomenon to have come round twice during my life, but it’s got to be one of the most annoying. If I go to a proper gig i.e. one that is for music fans, rather than retarded children, and someone blows a referee’s whistle within leaping distance of my head, I will immediately disable them, hollow out their heads, free their eyes from the sockets and blow into their nose until they make a loud “pheep”ing noise.
CSS were quite good, I expect, but I couldn’t really see them, and I couldn’t hear much after the 2 Unlimited sample, because the sound disappeared up into the uselessly high ceiling, and its remnants were strangled by the braying children and their whistles.
There were empty glowstick packets in the men’s bogs. IT’S JUST WRONG.
If I try to consider it rationally, I suppose I don’t object to New Rave in principle. I object to these bands (Sunshine Underground, CSS and Klaxons) being termed “New Rave”, when they bear no relation to Old Rave. But, if kids want to do something that they’ll be embarrassed about in 6 months’ time, then let them show up at clubs with glowsticks, whistles and white gloves. But these bands…you’d at least expect a tenuous connection to Rave buried somewhere in their music, but it’s pretty difficult to find. Three bands showed up to this gig, and all of them were largely guitar-orientated indie bands, with a disco attitude to the open hi-hat. Franz Ferdinand have already revived that sound, and I doubt they get pelted with glowsticks whenever they take to the stage.
What’s most annoying about it, is that this risks turning gigs into clubs. At clubs, it’s all about the audience/crowd/clubbers, so they prance about in order to get noticed by the opposite (or the same) sex. Like greasy birds of paradise, they leap and whoop, attempting to attract a temporary mate, or a shout out from the DJ. But gigs should really be about the band on stage. And it’d be nice if there was some applause between songs, instead of the TOTP-style shrieking of teenagers and waving of glowsticks.
OK, you want some crowd atmosphere, but you don’t want it to completely envelope the band’s performance. Or at least, you probably don’t want that if you’re 32 years old. If you’re 17 and into New Rave, it seems that this is exactly what you want. So perhaps that’s what the link back to Rave music is; self-absorbed tossers in search of a beat that they can wave their hands at.
I’m not prepared to stand by these comments, by the way. I’m just angry about not being able to see or hear 3 bands who I was curious to see and hear. Glowsticks made it more annoying than it needed to be, I think.
