Archive for the 'Rant' Category

Gig Review: Franz Ferdinand at Manchester Academy 1, March 6, 2009

Or, the gig where Justhipper posts a rant and Franz Ferdinand actually take the time to respond*

I was really looking forward to seeing Franz Ferdinand live again, especially after we didn’t bother on the last go round because we couldn’t stomach the idea of seeing them at the MEN Arena. Seriously, I was looking forward to this – enough to break out of my blogging lethargy.

I really wanted to go down to the Academy 1 tonight and have a great time and write a glowing review of Franz Ferdinand’s live performance. I can’t, however, because I can’t actually tell you much about what they were like. I couldn’t see anything and I couldn’t tell if they sounded any good.

What? You ask – you don’t know how they sounded? Nope. I was there, and I can’t tell you if they played a decent show or not because the sound system was so woefully inadequate that all I could hear for most of the gig was drums and a little bass. They might have played “Matinee” or “Take Me Out.” I don’t know. They might have played “40′” and “Do You Want To.” I don’t know. They might even have played “Darts of Pleasure,” “Shopping for Blood” and “Eleanor Put Your Boots On.” I really can’t tell you because I could make out very little of the gig.

I honestly may as well have stood in a crowd of people in my front room and listened to their albums through the wall on a blown speaker.

At least it barely lasted an hour before I could come home, sit down and be very irritated.

About four songs in to this joke of a gig, Bricking Chick got really hacked off at not being able to distinguish one song from another so she went to complain to the sound guy. He told her to “Fuck off.”  So she went to complain to the venue manager. What did the venue manager say? Well, for starters, Bricking Chick wasn’t the first person to complain about the sound that night. The venue manager said that they never got complaints about the sound yet had 3 before the end of the first song. The venue manager also said that the problem was that bands had to pay a little extra for use of the venue’s sound system – a new sound system that was installed when the renovations took place just over a year ago. This new sound system is really good. Except Franz Ferdinand didn’t have enough respect for their fans or care enough about putting on a good show for people who paid £20 a ticket + booking fee + postage to shell out the extra few pounds for an adequate sound system and instead brought their own rinky dink piece of shite that was not fit for purpose.

Thanks Franz Ferdinand – for the complete lack of respect and for the most disappointing gig I’ve seen in a long time.*

I want my money back.

*EDIT – I’ve changed the H3 to reflect the fact that Alex Kapranos has had the courtesy to come on here and explain the band’s position. It’s really top of him to take the time out of his day to do this for us. It’s clear that the band did think long and hard about the sound at the gigs – sadly in this instance the crappy acoustics of the Academy 1 let everybody down.

Your time is much appreciated Alex, and we’re looking forward to seeing you play at T in the Park in a couple of months.

Franz Ferdinand – No You Girls

Posted by JustHipper on 7th March 2009 at 12:46 am | comments (58)
File under franz ferdinand,Gig Reviews,manchester academy 1,mp3,Rant.

The Hold Steady UK Tour – CANCELLED

Craig Finn of The Hold Steady live in Manchester UKIn case you haven’t heard, The Hold Steady have cancelled their entire UK tour to have started tonight, 29th September. Apparently all dates will be rescheduled. The email from Ticketline regarding the cancellation states:

Ref: The Hold Steady at Manchester Academy 29th September
> ’08
>
>
>
> Unfortunately this gig has been postponed due to one of the
> band members
> being ill. If you wish to attend a new date when it is
> announced, please
> keep hold of the tickets you have received. We will advise
> you of a new
> date when it becomes available however we also advise you
> to keep an eye
> on the website for further information. Alternatively
> please return your
> tickets by secure mail to the address below for a face
> value refund.
>
>
>
> On behalf of the promoters of the event and the band, we
> apologise for
> any inconvenience caused.
>

Pity, as we’ve been looking forward to this for months!

If you’re reading this lads, get well soon, and please don’t reschedule on a really awkward night…..

For those of you who are gutted at having to wait, here’s a teaser:

Posted by JustHipper on 29th September 2008 at 5:57 pm | comments (4)
File under CD Reviews,hold steady,manchester gigs,News,Rant.

Leeds Festival: Saturday 23rd August 2008

I know I said last year that I would probably never go back to Leeds Festival, but I tend to break these promises – I’ve been back to V as well since I swore I wouldn’t give them any more of my cash. This is not going to be so much a review, as an epic anti-touting rant, however, as I’d like to tell people about the adventure Bricking Chick and I had yesterday (although I do promise to mention the bands), especially having just read an article in The Guardian talking about how many people have been ripped off this summer by “ticket resellers.”

Bricking Chick had an amazing time watching Rage Against the Machine at T in the Park last month. I was with her at the time and I certainly did not expect them to be as mind-bogglingly brilliant as they were. I really can’t bear guitar show-offs playing long solos but we were both truly mesmerised by Tom Morello. So, she told me she wanted to try and get into Leeds for the day to see Rage again. I figured, if nothing else, it would be amusing to go along and see what happened. So we set off from Manchester about 11:30am with a 5 year old and an 8 year old strapped in the back – they can get in for free, they love festivals – they went to V last year for the weekend – and we figured having two kids along would possibly help our chances – only  a mean person would disappoint a child.

The Indie Credential vs. The Leeds Ticket Touts

The road between the M1 and Bramham Park was strangely empty – usually queues stretch miles back at that time of day, but despite this, the first tout we encountered on the road wanted £120/ticket. We laughed when he told us – our reaction annoyed him. We had no intention of paying over face value as there was, quite literally, nothing else on the bill we were interested in seeing (I’d have happily watched Henry Rollins but I knew we’d never get there in time.) The tout told us that the only chance of getting a face value ticket would be turning up at 9pm, if he still had any. We told him that would suit us, and drove off.

The second set of touts we encountered looked about 15 and they wanted £100/ticket. I suspect if anybody had fake tickets it was these kids because they were desperate to appear “connected” with the other touts up and down that road, to give themselves some legitimacy. We told them “no way” and drove off. We thought we might find some people with spares at the site itself, and you never know if the box office will have a few returns on the day – people whose cards have been refused or unusued promotional tickets or whatever. I’ve never managed to get one like that before, and I certainly wouldn’t recommend staking a weekend on the possibility, but I’ve spoken to people who’ve got lucky.

the third set of touts was back up to £120/ticket and did not seem impressed with us not even considering the price. Then we came across a van in a lay-by. There was a gnarled-looking old guy who looked as crooked as they come, and he had a rather drunk mate and two young women selling cameras and umbrellas out of the van. He was actually as nice as could be as he told us he’d just sold out of tickets but he might be able to get his hand on some wristbands – if his mate had managed to steal any from the office on the site he’d be happy to walk us in himself with the wristbands, charge us £25 each on the other side and then take the wristbands back out to reuse. We waited while he tried to get hold of his friend.

As he kept phoning the other mobile, which was engaged, he was very forthright about the fact that he sold the tickets he had at the high price of £120 because it was business. He was unapologetic and if somebody’s stupid enough to drive all the way there and pay that, then fair enough – as long as he’s getting tickets off people on the way in who couldn’t get rid of their spares. I’ve bought off guys outside gigs a few times over the years. Sometimes you pay too much and sometimes you get the tickets under face value. It evens out. It’s not like the big businesses online these days who make thousands by getting in between fans and tickets.

How do touts get all those tickets anyway?

What bothered us was how he actually seemed to get most of his tickets. For starters it seems that they have a cleaner’s uniform so they can get onto the festival site – he was bragging about doing this at T in the Park – go into the festival offices pretending to clean and then steal any tickets and wristbands they find lying around. They got hundreds at T, but had so far only managed to get a few at Leeds and Reading. If people wonder where tickets go this is your answer. Touts steal them straight out of the organisers’ offices – somebody must be aware of this and they need to take more care. They’re letting thieves escalate the touting problem. He also was bragging about getting 8 Weekend tickets off a coach driver in 2007. The coach driver had been finding dropped tickets after depositing busloads of eager fans. He sold all 8 to our new friend for £100 total. So 8 kids didn’t get in last year because a greedy coach driver didn’t hand the tickets into lost and found – he sold them to a tout – who then resold them at £200+ a ticket.

This tout though took a liking to us. Bricking Chick gave him a cigarette, he felt sorry for the kids so he did try and get some wristbands, unfortunately the friend in question was actually at Creamfields so he said he couldn’t help us. He did recommend we try our luck in the car parks where we might find somebody with a spare, and he also said that occasionally they have returns. We might get lucky. So we did try the car parks, and, as you can see, we did get lucky – we managed to acquire a pair of tickets at face value and got inside.

The sad result of secondary ticket agency ticket scams

Sadly, as the aforementioned article in The Guardian says, many people did not get inside, despite having paid for tickets – two or three times above face value. The sad thing is that the stories are so familiar – buy tickets from a company that’s not an authorised seller, tickets are way too expensive, don’t arrive and then you’re told to meet some dodgy guy in a car park. People should do their research. But, frankly, these secondary resellers should be illegal. It should simply be illegal to sell tickets above face value because at least then it could be enforced on the internet. The government should require official sellers like Ticketmaster and Ticketline to take returns – you can return consumer goods for up to 28 days if they’re unused, so why can’t you return event tickets if it’s before the date of the event? They should encourage box offices at venues to take returns – then people could purchase the returned tickets directly. It wouldn’t stop touting outside venues but before the internet those touts were never that bad – and often they do provide a service of sorts. They also weren’t quite so desperate because they had less competition.

In many instances these agencies are preying on people who aren’t seasoned gig-goers and don’t know the difference between legitimate ticket firms like Ticketmaster and See Tickets and these dodgy, fly-by-night resellers. They do look legitimate, they’re easy to find online and they can even fool those who should know better. Just a week ago a co-worker who is a regular gig-goer was shocked at the £70 price of Nick Cave tickets until I told him to try Gigs and Tours cause what he’d found was a reseller. Sadly the government seems uninterested in these scams that take huge amounts of money off innocent victims so yet again the unknowing missed out on a festival they would have loved while myself, the cynic, got inside – simply because I know what I’m doing after years of experience.

The Indie Credential at Leeds Festival 2008 – Rage Against The Machine really do rock!

So, was Leeds 2008 worth the drama? Well, these sorts of days out with Bricking Chick are always worth the drama. Watching two small kids mosh to RATM was well-worth the drama. On the whole though, even though the crowd was miles better than last year and seemed more a traditional Leeds rock crowd, the lineup really let the festival down.

There probably were some new bands I’d have enjoyed but I wasn’t in an exploring  mood, rather preferring instead to sit with a pint in the warmth with my friend and watch the youngsters collect cups and attract stares – it seems that, on the whole, people think it’s pretty cool seeing kids that young on the site – and wish their parents had been willing to drag them to festivals in their formative years. In any case, I thought Florence and the Machine were intriguing – a little bit PJ Harvey, a little bit Evancescence and not at all how I expected. Bricking Chick though they sounded like Kate Nash and was horrified.

Ida Maria was unbelieveably catchy and there was lots of dancing even though we couldn’t see much. I think she beat up her band at the end – I’m going on hearsay for that. I did enjoy the set.

Strangely, I also quite liked Biffy Clyro – although I wish they’d put their shirts on. They had on matching peacock-blue skinny jeans and a lot of energy and their odd brand of emo rock is pretty melodic and not unappealing when accompanied by warm sun and cold beer.

Less appealing were Vampire Weekend – boring, One Night Only – vile and MGMT. At least MGMT have 3 really good songs to erase the rest of the set which is incredibly unexciting. The Wombats were actually a bit better than expected. They sounded like The Futureheads and the songs which aren’t that irritating Bridget Jones one and the hideous novelty “Lets Dance to Joy Division” were actually not appalling – and they were pretty lively on stage. We abandoned their set about 4 songs in though to go get a good spot for the real reason we were there – Rage Against the Machine.

Now, I never really cared much for RATM back in the day. I saw them at Lollapalooza in 1993 in Rhode Island and was so uninterested I couldn’t tell you anything about it – except I know I was there and they were there. I don’t really know any of the songs that well and I don’t own a single RATM album – but they really were stunning at T in the Park. At Leeds however, they were 30 minutes late and a lot more subdued in comparison. Whereas they’d come on stage dressed as Guantanamo prisoners the night before in Reading and had made a very political speech at T, we got no between-song chatter except Zack de la Rocha telling the people down front to move back so nobody got crushed. The crowd were pretty good, singing along most of the way through, even as far back as we were, but the sound was terrible. The wind was blowing the sound down the hill and it was far too quiet for a rock band – for a band like Rage I expect the sound to make my ears bleed.

Now when I say Rage Against the Machine were more subdued than at T in the Park, reader you need to understand that subdued for RATM is still about 100x more energetic than anything else we’ve seen in the last month. They were still bursting with energy and, erm, rage, as they bounced all over the stage, shouting and exhorting the crowd. We jumped about, we taught kids to headbang and, where we knew the words, we sang along (I do at least recognise “Renegades of Funk” and one or two others). With the stunning finish of “Killing in the Name Of” we then departed for the hour-long trek through the typically poorly-laid-out Leeds site and back home.

Bricking Chick is back to Leeds today for The Killers and should be reporting back to us here. The Ledge and I are instead off to see one of our favourte bands of all time, R.E.M. at the Lancashire Cricket Ground and I for one am suitably warmed up for that experience after yesterday and my discovery that I do like crazy long guitar solos and rock-rap music – only 15 years late.

Posted by JustHipper on 24th August 2008 at 11:28 am | comments (8)
File under Festival Reviews,rage against the machine,Rant,Tickets,touting.

Gig Review: Death Cab For Cutie, Manchester Apollo, 16th July 2008

Unless Death Cab For Cutie amaze us with some future album, tonight’s gig was the last time I will ever pay money to see them play live. Never mind that the new album has all the depth of a wading pool, is bland, full of soppy love songs lacking the quirky lyricism of albums past and all blends together, DCFC crowds have simply become unbearable.

Gigs at the Apollo, 90% of the time anyway, are bad enough, but tonight it was be there to be seen, not be there to hear a band. The four people stood in front of us really took the biscuit, however. To be fair, I was not in the mood to be in a crowd of people. T in the Park was amazing last weekend but it wore me out and I could do with a week of being by myself (except maybe for The Ledge). Neither The Ledge nor I was looking forward to this so we got down there late and stayed in the bar until the band were coming on stage when we made our way into the edge of the crowd where we could see but not get jostled. The first five songs were really good too. Then the talking started.

I won’t make out that it was just the people in front of us because it wasn’t. There was talking. And there was more talking. And even more talking. Where the last time we saw Death Cab I was bemused and disturbed that the average age of the crowd was around 16 yet they knew all the words to everything, this time the crowd knew a few tracks off Plans and not much else. The talking just went on and on. Not that The Ledge and I were silent, but we did keep it to between songs – I’d hate to spoil somebody else’s enjoyment of a gig just because I was not enjoying it myself.

When they started to play “Soul Meets Body,” however, the young blonde thing in front of us suddenly started squealing like a Westlife fan – “I know this one!” she screamed as loudly as she could, squealed a few more times and then talked through the rest of it. “Nice,” we though, “This is a good song.” Then they played “I Will Follow You Into the Dark. “OMG!” she screamed. “I’m so going to cry over this!” Then she hugged her boyfriend and talked through the rest. She wasn’t the only one. Half the crowd sang along, half talked along.

For the rest of the gig we had four people in front of us moving about constantly so I kept having to move to see and loads of yapping, squealing and jumping – none of which was remotely in response to the band. Why they didn’t decamp to the bar is beyond me as all four of them were pretty much behaving as if they were in a pub, not at a show for which the people around them had all paid around £20 a ticket.

During the encore, one of them rolled two cigarettes and made to light up. I’d had enough by this point and I leaned over and told her not to do it. She responded with “Ooh I was only joking! I know not to! Sorry!.” Yeah, ok, whatever.

So as the band were finishing their final song she walks over and leans in and says to me “I just wanted to apologise for making you think I was going to smoke cause i wasn’t.”

“That’s fine, so long as you didn’t.” I told her. “What you should be apologising for, however, is ruining our ability to hear the gig because you talked through the entire thing which is incredibly rude to be honest.”

A bit brutal, I know, but not deserving of the response I got. Oh yes, this little madam proceeded to tell me that she was not going to apologise for talking LOUDLY through the entire performance because she was – wait for it – bored. She didn’t care, it seems, that other people may not have been bored, and when I pointed out that I’d paid to hear the boring band – not her and her friends – I received a tirade about how I have “issues” and I am a seriously anti-social individual – all for wanting to hear the band.

Now, fair dues, I do have issues. And I do get annoyed easily in crowds. But, that’s still no excuse for someone to assume that just because they don’t want to watch something nobody cares. It’s no excuse for behaving like a total yahoo and yapping and squealing and stopping other people from getting to experience what they paid for – good or bad.

If you think the gig is shite and you want to talk – go to the bar.

I’m simply not standing for this anymore. It happened through all of Radiohead the other week and it happens nearly every time we’re not at the barrier at the Apollo. From now on, if you talk, you will hear about how much you’re pissing me off. It probably won’t do any good, but if it makes one person think about the people around them I will have won a small victory.

Gig-goers – help me out. Stop allowing people to behave like fucktards and stop being too scared to stand up for yourselves. If somebody is doing something you wouldn’t do because you know it’s annoying – TELL THEM! And if they don’t stop, tripping while walking back to your spot holding a full pint is pretty good revenge….

If touts are entrepreneurs then that degree I bought online makes me a doctor.

So it seems that Glastonbury only sold 100,000 of 137,000 tickets when they went on sale over the weekend. Now this could be because of the horrible lineup (Jay-Z? Really? Ugh.) – not that a bad lineup has ever stopped people in the past. It could be because of the weather – but the weather is vile almost every year. Or, perhaps, it could be that the new anti-touting measures have worked and we’ve seen what the actual demand is instead of the fake demand created by touts and people trying to make a fast buck off other music fans. Considering that Reading/Leeds, T in the Park and V Festivals all sold out immediately, I’m thinking it’s that last one myself.

For better or worse (it’s looking like for worse at the moment), we purchased T in the Park tickets. Unlike last year, when we managed to get 1 ticket between 3 of us, this year we managed to get 4 tickets between 3 of us. Why four you ask? Well, you could only get a maximum of 2 and 3 of us wanted to go. To avoid last year’s problem we opted to try for 2 from each household. It worked. The number of people who did the same is probably pretty high. We offered our spare to a friend who accepted. Most people will have gone straight to eBay. If touting were illegal, this dilemma may not have occurred. It would also have prevented the several hundred tickets that were on eBay within minutes of the festival selling out being on there at outrageous prices. Or the hundreds that will be sold via eBay, Gumtree and other, similar sites and through dodgy ticket resellers between now and mid-July.

When hundreds of tickets go on sale every day, it suggests that an extremely large percentage of the tickets for T in the Park (or any festival or major gig) are going to touts, not to fans. So people aren’t getting the helpful opportunity to buy tickets from resellers when they miss out because they didn’t know something was on sale or couldn’t get to the phone or computer, they are being forced to buy tickets this way because touts (and we mean you, music fans who are selling your spares above face value, as well) are cornering the market and artificially driving up ticket prices.

Now, Word Magazine had an interesting suggestion which they claim will sort everything out without the need for legislation – just don’t buy tickets at inflated prices. But can you imagine being a 16 or 18 year old who’s missed out on getting a ticket to the gig or festival you’ve been dreaming of for months or years, finding out all your friends managed to get those tickets and then being faced with the dilemma of paying 2x, 4x or even 6x the face value but not missing out or staying home and feeling like a social outcast? It’s not going to happen.

With the kids starting to go to gigs now for the first time having this scenario as the norm, they will just accept it and nothing will change. If anything, it will get worse – and the bands and artists aren’t even benefitting from this. The touts are actually making more money per ticket than the artists are in many cases. If you consider that a £30 ticket to the Manchester Apollo for the Arcade Fire was selling for a couple hundred pounds, you have to wonder about a government commission that tells us that these people are offering a useful service when what they are really doing is making a living by being disrespectful to the artists and disrespectful to the fans. These people take pride in contributing nothing to the betterment of society and instead would rather make a living off other people’s hard work instead of their own. To me, that behavior is not only unethical and greedy, it’s highly anti-social.

Word Magazine suggested that maybe touting agencies should be required to pay royalties to the artists. Well now, that won’t make them raise their prices further, now will it?

When you consider that the ticket touting, ahem, reselling industry makes a living by trying to disguise the fact they are resellers, offering tickets for sale that have not been bought yet, and is full of companies that take people’s cash and never deliver, you have to wonder that the government has not cottoned onto the fact that this is not legitimate business any more than the spam emails we get from “universities” offering degrees and the ones offering prescription drugs prescribed “legally” are legitimate businesses.

When will the people who make the laws wake up and see that they should be encouraging entrepreneurship and community, not greed and laziness? Make touting illegal.

Oh, and if you miss out on tickets, or you end up with spares, please use Scarlet Mist.

Posted by JustHipper on 8th April 2008 at 9:07 pm | comments (7)
File under ebay,gigs,Rant,stop touting,Tickets,touting.

Beth Ditto really needs to get over herself and see a doctor

Now, we’re not usually ones to comment on nonsense in the gossip columns here at Indie Cred, but a story I read this morning on Teletext really got me seething. Beth Ditto has apparently issued a press release thanking Keira Knightley for saying she has an “amazing body.” Now the irony of that strange celebrity pairing aside, I have, frankly, reached breaking point for being showered with a one-trick pony of a singer constantly drawing attention to herself by making it all about her weight.

The first I heard of The Gossip was at ATP two years ago where I had a couple of people tell me I should watch their set. They praised her amazing vocals, her stage presence, the fire behind the music, the merging of indie and retro electro sounds, of the sheer danceability and catchiness of the band’s sound. Not once did anybody mention her weight. In fact, the only person who mentioned Beth Ditto’s weight that day was Beth Ditto – when she apologised for being constantly out of breath and having to keep stopping for long breaks because her weight made it hard for her to keep up the pace.

A year later and The Gossip were everywhere with their mediocre teen anthem “Standing in the Way of Control” and suddenly Beth Ditto is in the media not talking about the band and the music she writes, but constantly talking about her weight and how people should see her as beautiful. Now, pardon me, but it seems to me that Miss Ditto seems to constantly go on about her body shape because she seems to need some reassurance that it’s ok to be morbidly obese, and she needs to know that her fans don’t mind the fact that she can’t perform as well as she should because she’s just too damned fat.

Now, certainly nobody should be judged on their appearance. We shouldn’t buy records because someone is attractive or unattractive and weight should never be an issue in whether somebody can sell records or write songs or, hell, run for public office, become an astro-physicist, etc. What all of this body image nonsense that comes out of Beth Ditto’s mouth ignores is that the issue with weight – whether you have too much of it or not enough – is health. We don’t find obesity unattractive because we’re anti-fat, we naturally find it unattractive because somebody who is morbidly obese is more likely to have health problems and die young from those health problems and, quite frankly, that is in itself highly unattractive.

The fact of the matter is that Beth Ditto already has trouble doing her job to the highest possible level because of her weight so no matter how many times she tells members of the press that “fat is beautiful” and it’s some sort of media conspiracy to say otherwise, she is simply wrong. I’m not talking about being a few pounds overweight or struggling to keep to the perfect size 10, I’m talking about someone who clearly struggles to perform on stage because she’s carrying so many extra pounds around that she gets out of breath easily. The media saying she’s beautiful and praising her body image is frankly just as bad as the media pointing to a stick insect like Keira Knightley and saying that should be some sort of beauty ideal (frankly their weight shouldn’t be a major issue in the media at all, but hey ho). A person at either weight is going to feel vile most of the time and have associated health issues.

Now all this nonsense about how the media should promote an atmosphere which makes young girls think it is ok to be so overweight as to be unhealthy so they don’t feel ugly aside (personally, I’d rather be skull-crushingly ugly than suffer from heart disease, high blood pressure, asthma, diabetes and be prone to all sorts of cancers and other nasty illnesses), the remark that really pissed me off was Miss Ditto saying “I don’t judge women for feeling they have to be thin, because they’re conditioned their whole lives to ‘hate yourself, hate yourself, hate yourself’. I judge the world for being so anti-female.”

Now excuse me, but what?

The whole world is anti-female because magazines have a bad tendency of showcasing unhealthily skinny models?

Ok, yes, telling young girls that they have to be ridiculously thin is wrong, and saying that women should aim to be the ideal size 10 is idiotic because we’re all differently sized and shaped. But how does this make the world anti-female, and how does this amount to conditioning women to hate themselves?

Women are universally worshipped in art, in literature, in music. According to Greek mythology, two countries fought an all-out war over a woman. All around me all my life I have always been told that being a woman should not stop me from achieving anything I wanted, and never once did any of this come down to my weight or appearance.

The fact that girls want to look pretty and want to emulate their heroes has nothing to do with society as a whole having it in for its women or forcing them to starve themselves to meet some vile idea of beauty. Surely the problem is more that we give far too much space in the media for vapid “celebrities” and we suggest that girls should strive to be famous rather than striving to make the world a better place. The problem is that we are making the wrong people role models for our children by equating visibility in the media with greatness.

Beth Ditto, in my mind, is doing just as much harm as any vastly underweight celebrity by telling girls that they should be focussing on body image and by suggesting that it’s ok to be unhealthy and that society has it in for them and by also focussing on these same vapid, useless celebrities instead of the types women they should be trying to emulate.

Surely a strong female role model should be encouraging impressionable young women that they can be however they want to be so long as they don’t sell themselves short or settle for less either by thinking they have to accept their body shape if it stops them from feeling healthy and doing things that they want to do or by allowing anybody to tell them that something is out of their reach simply because they are female. We should be encouraging young women to strive for more than five minutes on the news or a story in a tabloid. We should be telling these girls that their appearance is not important, that what they do for the world they live in is key; that having a snapshot in a magazine is hardly an achievement when they could be working to educate people, to save their lives, to find cures for diseases, create great works of art, invent things that will make people’s lives better, work towards peace, towards helping end poverty or any of these great ideals which drive society forward, not hold it down by keeping it engaged in a pointless debate about whether some moderately-talented singer should be on the cover of some useless music magazine simply because she has an unhealthy diet.

And now for some strong, female music to wash that rant down:

Sonic Youth – Swimsuit Issue

PJ Harvey – 50ft Queenie

Echobelly – Give Her a Gun

Posted by JustHipper on 20th December 2007 at 1:05 pm | comments (112)
File under female singers,Random comment,Rant.

If I’d Wanted to Be Trampled By Elephants, I’d Have Gone on Safari.

Gig Goer(s) of the Week, part 9 – Peter, Bjorn & John at Manchester Academy 2

I think I should start a blog about manners and politeness. Clearly there are a lot of people who don’t know how to behave and who have no respect for themselves or for those around them. As a child the phrase “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” was drilled into my head over and over again. I think it’s pretty good advice and I do my best to follow it. Sadly, most people do not.

Last night, despite still having the remnants of a nasty ear infection and despite being utterly exhausted from a sleepless, strange and rather promising week, realising that I could get to the front and actually see the gig, even though we turned up quite late, I dragged The Ledge to the front of the Academy 2. I mean, it’s Peter, Bjorn and John, right? Even though they “rock out” a bit more live, I didn’t expect any more of a hassle than occurred at Leeds Festival, which was to say none at all as the crowd were very gleeful and friendly. Stood to my right was a rather drunken woman who was swaying about, but she kept smiling at me. Her boyfriend looked disinterested in Maps, but you can’t please everybody.

About four songs into the main set this woman, who had been singing loudly (off-key) and rather gleefully, disappeared, presumably to the bar or the toilet. Immediately upon her leaving, this monster with a face that could crack glass pushed her way next to me. She started bouncing about like a mad lady and was, for all intents and purposes, bodyslamming me. Her singing involved lots of “la la las” as she didn’t know the words. I elbowed back a couple of times, wary that she had a full glass of red wine and I was wearing my favourite stripey t-shirt which has a lot of white on it. Eventually she stopped, but she was exhorting one of her friends to come stand with her. I could see the boyfriend who was waiting for the return of the lady who had been next to me lean in and say something. He probably said his girlfriend was coming back – which is fair enough. It wasn’t one of those shows where you snooze you lose. The crowd was not heavily packed in and, well, politeness dictates that if someone can get back then you should let them! This girl responded by berating him for standing with his arms folded and not dancing because apparently it is wrong of someone to simply watch and enjoy, if you aren’t dancing it’s not fair on the band. He ignored this. How can you tell someone else how to enjoy a gig? Eventually the girlfriend did return and they both had to move back because, well, they clearly weren’t the “Biggest Fans” and didn’t deserve to stand at the front.

This is the point where Elephant #2 pushed her way up and I got shoved into the nice girl to my left. There had barely been room for one person when Elephant #1 appeared. There was certainly no room for two people each the size of two people. But these two did not care, I mean they were the Biggest Fans in the room, everyone else could go to hell. I was at this point treated to loud screechy talking through the next 3 or so songs which involved, mostly, drunken screams of “He’s so hot! I am going to snog him! I am going to make him kiss me! He’s so hot!” directed at lead singer Peter, poor guy. Then they started trying to get his attention by shouting these things at him. It became “You’re so hot! I want to lick you all over! Come give me a kiss!” And exclamations of “He’s not listening to me?! He didn’t hear it! If he did he’d come kiss me.” Now, I’m pretty sure he did hear them because at one point he glanced over and actually grimaced. I mean, if he’d fled the stage at the sight of these two I wouldn’t have blamed him. He’d probably have preffered snogging the shirtless fat, sweaty guy stood a couple of rows behind me. I really wanted to tell them it wasn’t a Take That gig and could they please shut up with the talking as the rest of us were trying to watch the band, but I didn’t think it was worth the argument.

That is, it wasn’t worth the argument until the band started playing “Young Folk” and these two started bodyslamming me again, dragging more mates into a small space that couldn’t fit them, screaming “Where’s John?” (playing drums where he had been through the whole gig, you dumb fucktards!) and, even better, tapping me on the shoulder and going “Smile! You look like you’re not having fun.” (No, you asshats, I’m not having fun, I’m being bodyslammed by a pair of elephants who are shouting over the music and hurting my ears.) I glared at them in hopes they’d back off and went back to trying to hear the gig.

Then Elephant #1 lit up a cigarette. Now, I hate smoke. I really really do. When it was legal I tolerated it, despite chronic sinus problems and asthma. I no longer have to tolerate it because it’s illegal to smoke indoors. So I politely leaned over and said “Could you put that out please?” She responded with “No.” Excuse me? I pointed out she wasn’t meant to be smoking and she said “I don’t care. You can’t stop me anyway.” In that split second I had to make the decision between staying put just to piss them off and making more judicious use of my elbows to defend myself or humiliating her by sending security after her. I opted for security. Sure enough, he was in there straight away and took her cigarette. She may have lit up again the moment he left, but everyone in the crowd saw it happen and I think I made my point of – you can’t smoke and yes, I can stop you. Result.

The whole thing however left a sour taste in my mouth and although I could have returned back to where I was as The Ledge is very good at saving my spot, I figured I felt ill, I was tired and I didn’t want a fight with a herd of drunken animals.

The point? Why is it that people feel the need to make a spectacle of themselves in the hope of the band spotting them and branding them the “Biggest Fan?” Everyone there is there to enjoy themselves and everybody enjoys music in a different way, so why force your enjoyment on others, particularly when it spoils a gig for everyone around you? Most of the audience was in fact dancing without bodyslamming anyone or screaming like a slutty hyena over the band. So ladies, it’s time for you to learn some manners, to realise that you are not the world, and to develop some respect for both yourselves and for those around you.

Posted by JustHipper on 3rd November 2007 at 1:01 pm | comments (9)
File under gig etiquette,Gig-goer of the Week,manchester gigs,manners,mosh pits,peter bjorn and john,Rant.

Touts Spoil Everything: That Led Zeppelin Ticket Lottery

When the details were announced for the Ahmet Ertegun tribute with the remaining live members of Led Zeppelin reforming to perform, Bricking Chick phoned me up and asked if I would please register. Her better half is a massive fan, as is she, and she knew that The Ledge and I, to put it mildly, are not. I happily obliged. I mean what better thing to do than to acquire tickets to the most talked about gig in the whole world and present them to a friend?

Well, it seems, the touts have spoiled even that.

So, anyone without a credit or debit card in your own name, parents trying to buy for their kids, kids trying to buy for their dads, and, well, anyone else who may have also chosen to register to get some tickets for someone they knew would desperately want a pair – if you don’t use them yourself, you’d better not buy them.

The email I received today telling me I was eligible to purchase two tickets reads as follows:

This passcode is non-transferable. Only the winner of the ballot as named above is eligible to purchase a maximum of 2 tickets using this passcode and a credit [or debit] card in their name.

It then goes on to inform me that, “Tickets purchased by anyone other than the winner of the ballot as named above will be cancelled. ” Then there’s some stuff about not being allowed to resell them or they get cancelled, before the following piece of joy:

Each original purchaser must provide the actual credit [or debit] card used for the purchase along with valid PHOTO ID (passport or driving licence) in order to receive the tickets and non-transferable wristbands. All wristbands will be fitted immediately. The name on your photo ID must match the name against which your passcode is registered AND the name on the credit [or debit] card used for the ticket purchase, otherwise you will be refused entry to the event.

Furthermore:

There will be no exceptions to the above, no name changes or letters of authorisation will be accepted under any circumstances.

And then the two pieces of info explaining the idiotic restrictions listed above:

We reserve the right to cancel any ticket purchase made by any person whom we reasonably believe to be associated with any ticket broker or tout.

and

We are doing our best to keep the tickets for this event out of the hands of secondary ticket sellers and in the hands of the fans so please help us by adhering to the above.

So, in summary, the touting problem has gotten so bad that I cannot buy a pair of tickets and give them to a friend who is a massive fan, because if they don’t put stricter controls on the gig tickets than they do on security at airports, then these tickets, tickets for a charity gig, will be changing hands at prices that even the band, the promoter and TICKETMASTER realise are ridiculously high.

Now, if touting were illegal and all of these vile ticket resellers were put out of business; if eBay were to restrict tickets sold via their website to “Buy It Now” at face value ; if people didn’t have so little sense of morality that they were more than happy to sell tickets to other people just like themselves at prices they know cannot be afforded by the average person; and if music fans could control themselves and realise that the world won’t end if they miss one gig and refuse to pay these prices, refuse to buy from touts and shout and scream about the idiocy of the situation, then I could maybe get a pair of tickets for my friend and her partner and they could go see this gig.

And yet again, other people’s lack of ethics and decency is spoiling it for the rest of us. Good luck getting Glastonbury tickets folks.

Gig Review: Rufus Wainwright, Manchester Apollo, October 18, 2007

It is currently 1:49am and I’m awake and blogging. I skipped out on last night’s Battles gig because The Ledge got sent away for work and I couldn’t give the spare ticket away to save my life, and I was far too exhausted to haul myself down to a math rock gig on my own. I wanted to conserve my energy for Rufus, who I’d been waiting to see outside of a festival for a while now.

Needless to say the gig was memorable. I missed the opening act because I was slow getting out of the house, but timed it well to take my seat and only wait about 10 minutes for the main attraction. It was pretty much as you would expect to, a setlist consisting mostly of tracks from current album, Release the Stars. A 7-piece band. Theatrical clothing. Amazing vocals. A couple of costume changes and a couple of Judy Garland songs. Some entertaining between-song banter. He was pretty much perfect. In particular I enjoyed “Do I Disappoint You,” “Cigarettes & Chocolate Milk,” “Beautiful Child,” and my favourite ever Rufus Wainwright song, “14th Street.” It was lovely to see him bring a fan on stage to do the spoken word bit of “Between My Legs.” He sounded great singing an Irish folk tune sans microphone. He looked great in lederhosen. He looked even better dressed as a woman, tottering around on high heels and lip syncing while dancing with his band during the encore.

Something, however, was missing and I don’t think it had anything to do with what was occuring on the stage. Perhaps it was the seated venue, or the woman in front of me bitching through the whole performance that only being 20th row in a large theatre just wasn’t good enough (I don’t know what she was fussing about, my seat was fantastic, I had a great view of the whole stage, was close enough to see facial expressions, and being in the row in front of the sound board meant I had the best sound in the house!), or maybe it was because I was on my own, I don’t know. Maybe I just had a premonition.

Now, I’ve been going to gigs at the Apollo for 10 years, the Ledge for even longer. We always park in the same place when we go and in 10 years we have had nary a problem. Tonight, the first time I’ve ever driven myself to the Apollo sans companion, my car got broken into, the passenger window smashed and the bastards rifled through my glove box. Strangely, the only thing missing appears to be the jewel box for Want One. They didn’t take the CD though, as that was in the player. As this is the second car incident this week (some inattentive young lady rear-ended me at 3mph, destroying my bumper a week ago), it has somewhat marred the evening and taken any cozy post-gig glow I may have had away. So it’s now going on 2am, I’m waiting for the RAC to phone about replacing my window so I can drive into work tomorrow, I’m shattered, and I have only the memory of Rufus Wainwright in drag to keep me from losing the plot…..

Rufus Wainwright – 14th Street

Rufus Wainwright – Gay Messiah

Rufus Wainwright – Between My Legs

Posted by JustHipper on 19th October 2007 at 1:14 am | comments (245)
File under car thieves,Gig Reviews,judy garland,manchester scallies suck,Rant,Reviews,rufus wainwright.

Gig-Goer of the Week, Part 7: Brakes, Manchester Club Academy, Oct 6 2007

It’s been a while since I witnessed such clearly idiotic behavior at a gig that it deserved to get the “Gig-Goer of the Week” headline. Last night we went to see Brakes. When they came on stage they announced that they wanted to do something special so they had decided to play through both albums back-to-back. I’d have thought they were joking except Eamon clearly had a copy of their first album, Give Blood, on stage and he kept referring to it to see what was next. Despite this, some young groupie-wannabe in an unfathomably short skirt for a gig* pushed to the front and leaned across the monitors, motioning Eamon to her. He leaned in and she whispered something. His response was, “We’re going to play ‘All Night Disco Party’ when we get to it in 2 songs.” Despite this, she continued to scream for it until it rolled around in the set. The she started screaming for something else. Now, while her enthusiasm was nice to see, why she felt the need to request songs that they were blatantly going to play is beyond me, especially when she should have known exactly where they would be in the set, seeing as how they were playing through both albums, start to finish (without ‘Mobile Communication’, sadly. Why they left that out I will never understand).

Now, hopefully you’re laughing already at this somewhat ridiculous and blatant attempt by a rather silly young thing to get the band to notice her. She wasn’t nearly the most mentally challenged person in the room.

As some of you may know, Brakes have a song called ‘Hi How Are You’ which is directed at irritating hipsters who stand next to you at gigs and talk shit during the quiet songs. The chorus actually goes “Won’t you shuck the fuck up, I’m a-just tryin’ to watch the band!” They played it twice. After this double-rendition, on which the crowd joined in twice, I ended up stood in front of two women who chose to talk loudly through, you guessed it, the next quiet song. To make matters worse, and in a brilliant twist of irony, they were stood behind a young guy wearing a t-shirt which said on the back “Won’t you shuck the fuck up, I’m a-just tryin’ to watch the band!” to which, at the tail end of their noisy and unappreciated conversation, one of them pointed and went “Oh isn’t that T-shirt funny! I love that song!” or something along those lines. If I were bigger and it had actually been a farce, I would have turned around and knocked both their heads together.

*Tip: Girls, don’t wear short skirts if you’re going down the front. When people start to dance in such close quarters, your skirt will ride up and you’ll end up wearing it as a belt, backside and knickers exposed to the world.

Brakes – Hi How Are You

Posted by JustHipper on 7th October 2007 at 4:38 pm | comments (17)
File under brakes,gig etiquette,Gig-goer of the Week,mp3,Rant.