2010 - live

Our first XI this year.

1. Northern Portrait at Buffalo Bars

Um, think we gave this a couple of lines on the page you probably linked here from.

2. The Royal Ballet's "Onegin" at the Royal Opera House

"It's too expensive. And it's boring".

Now it's never inexpensive to see the Royal Ballet, and it involves a bit of planning and yes, quite a lot of saving. But we've heard baulking at the cost from people who are content to spend far more on going to see musical theatre, a stadium rock band or a first division match, or on getting their hair cut. So the truth is (as ever) slightly more subtle, and the reality is that whatever the price of entry it's a hell of a lot easier to part with your hard-earned - every pound traceable to an "urgent" e-mail, an irascible customer or a surfeit of post-it Notes saying "please deal" - when you're spending it on something of *quality*. That applies whether you're getting four bands for a fiver under Highbury & Islington tube, or for one enchanted evening being an insignificant person-shaped speck inside the breath-checking, multi-tiered ROH cavern. Sadly, "value for money" has never meant the same as "cheap".

It's also never in the least "boring" to watch ballet, although again we've heard such claims from people who are somehow prepared to sit through 90 minutes of Razorlight, or West Ham v Stoke. Actually, for those with attention spans as short as ours, a night at the ballet requires no more concentration than seeing three perfectly manageable half-hour sets at Buffalo Bars, separated by intervals of roughly the same length: either way, there's little room for flab or indulgence, and plenty of scope for smiling and nodding and grabbing a chat or a drink between sets. Anyway, now we've exposed ourselves (again) as liberal metropolitan elitist Islingtonite champagne socialists...

The back story to "Onegin" is that Tchaikovsky actually only ever scored three ballets in his lifetime: "Sleeping Beauty", "Swan Lake" and "The Nutcracker" (so quite a high hit rate, you'll observe). He also composed the opera "Eugene Onegin", from Pushkin's celebrated verse poem. However, the ballet was only put together in the 1960s, and using none of the music from the opera but instead using other bits and pieces Tchaikovsky had composed in his lifetime, arranging them for orchestra and to fit the staging and John Cranko's choreography. That may all sound rather little cumbersome, but in practice what we get seems flawless, as light as skipping on air.

The Danish Onegin, snappy suit, all cheekbones and oozing debonair, was kind of a Scandinavian Dickon Edwards, whereas his pal Lensky (an Aussie) was a floppy self-conscious fringe, a serious-minded indie kid who you could imagine these days loafing around Clerkenwell cradling a painfully trendy satchel. (In Act Two, Eugene despatches Lensky in a duel, which makes for a victory of Fosca over the more indolent studied-scruff look, plus we know - as Pushkin never did at the time he wrote the story - that this killing proved something of an unwelcome prophecy, given that the writer himself was later to die in a duel while still in his thirties). The international theme continues with sisters Tatiana and Olga - whose affairs are interwoven with the boys' rise and fall - played by Romanian Japanese principals respectively.

The setting being St Petersburg, a place bedazzling with opulence, each set is sumptious, scrumptious and bejewelled. More to the point, though, the music is equally gilded: original piano scores are transformed into hymnal sweeps of violins (the passage as Tatiana and Prince Kremin dance sweeps you particularly off your feet), interspersed with more raucous, Russian folk-leaning sections where the ensemble cast partake of both rustic dances and royal balls. And the dancing and movement is of course beautiful, particularly each boy / girl pas de deux: the long layered dresses of the girls of the Russian aristocracy billow with splendour as they glide amongst a tapestry of (suspiciously athletic, despite being made up "old" like Blanco) princes and noblemen, and from time to time the enjambement of a perfectly executed move and a crescendo of the ROH's orchestra combine to pinch your senses, give you the "wow factor" frissons that feel so alien these days.

3. KRS-One (and Supernatural!) at the Forum

Outside the Forum, the downpour is biblical: the pavements are effectively puddles, the rain bouncing vertically upwards from them, with some fury. We can hardly see in front of us. The queue snakes around the corner, down the adjacent road, around the next corner: a train of sodden punters. This is not the night for the venue to decide we all need to be searched for weapons. Nor is it the night for the scanner employed to perform this rather depressing service to break down. Ah well.

Inside the Forum, drenched after aeons in line, we manage to get in at around ten, just in time to see the main act begin (though by then we'd missed Freddie Foxx, Mad Lion, Buckshot and the man who'd just got offstage, our very own Mystro: thank you again, branded venue, for your usual branded venue cheapskate incompetence). Still, this was where things started looking up. Younger readers may wish to note that Kris Parker, aka KRS-One is a true icon: uniquely, a man heavily involved both with the invention of gangsta rap *and* with the invention of politically conscious hip-hop. Even better, he is here tonight with the great Supernatural (think "Undaground Connexion" or "Altitude") as his verbal foil: KRS's brother, DJ Scott Parker, and someone whose name we've inexplicably forgotten (at our age, we should really be taking notebooks to gigs we might review) take turns on the decks behind them.

And this is a proper show: the four of them are with us for about eighty minutes (DJ Scott for much longer, before and after the set proper), yet in that time there are virtually no full songs, and certainly hardly anything from his prodigious output even in the last twelve months.Instead, the night is a rapidfire procession of an incredibly wide variety of conceits: verses from, or nods to, all the classics that you could require ("KRS Attacks", "MCs Act Like They Don't Know", a vigorous "South Bronx", the still-sublime ilwtt,isott favourite "Outta Here", our second favourite "9mm Goes Bang" and a rapturously received "Sound Of Da Police"), mention of the phrase "real hip-hop" about every 5 seconds, liberal deployment of other cliches ("fuck tha police", disses to MTV), rightful props to the late Scott La Rock. Oh, and a chunky version of Kris and Marl's "Kill A Rapper" ("you wanna get away with murder ? / kill a rapper / the investigation won't go further"). There's an interlude where KRS gets a gang of hopefuls on stage to break / battle / whatever, and does his Teacha persona while they mostly hang around looking like extras from Oliver (21st century urban remake): we were a little distracted at this point due to being targeted as a victim of two attempted thefts simultaneously - namely one bloke trying to pickpocket me while another, the barman, was charging me £4 a throw for cans of Red Stripe - though we do manage to espy one of KRS's mod-Dickensian hood crew stepping forward to break and spin quite brilliantly on the Forum stage.

Other set-pieces see KRS show how he can rap just as effortlessly over Vivaldi and Pachelbel as over oldschool breaks, and deliver a year-by-year history of hip-hop without missing a beat. Then Supernatural gets his own section (while KRS autographs shirts and throws them into the crowd: earlier, he spends several minutes hurling autographed tennis balls at us) and almost steals the show: we know that he's a great technician, more so even than KRS, but it's still genuinely impressive to see him improvising as he freestyles a composed, smart and funny inventory of everything the front few rows can throw at him, as well as delivering impressions (who knew you'd get that kind of ITV variety at a hip-hop show ?) of Slick Rick, Busta and Biggie. There's time for a few KRS soapbox moments too: he reminds us that the copyright in the show is ours not his, encouraging us to record, disseminate, do whatever we want with the material; he urges us to find schools, hospitals and colleges for him to visit while he's here. All in all, less of a concert, more of a show, but definitely leaving the warmest of glows. He only came over for 3 UK shows; it was a privilege to be there.

And then we step outside. It might as well be buckets thrown down from the balcony. The rain hasn't finished with us yet.

4. Bolt Thrower at ULU

Bolt-Thrower's latest, largely triumphant visit to London (was this *really* four years ago ?) saw them eventually gain a hard-won victory over a ULU soundsystem which was determined to muddy their trademark low-end crunch as much as possible. Rarely have we seen this "school hall" venue so busy; the gig had obviously sold out in about 1912, with plenty coming across from Scandinavia or Germany especially for it. With Bolt-Thrower being one of the few bands with both the willpower and the commercial clout to force venues and promoters to accept fan-friendly terms, the deal on offer was typically generous: no less than five bands for a tenner all in, giving us a substantial lead-in to the main event during which Rotting Christ, the Rotted, a band we've inexcusably forgotten the name of and ever-lovable Brummie heroes Benediction ascended the assembly stage. After a gander at the merchandise stall (Bolt-Thrower only sell directly to fans at their gigs - no internet merch or tie-ins with Metal Militia), we settled in towards the back (more in the bar than in the hall, which it was scarcely possible to squeeze into by now) and let the waves of rolling riffage - and the inevitable ocean-spray of weak lager - splash over us.

In one sense, the groggy PA, which largely obliterated the vocals and any guitar breaks or solos, had the effect of emphasising Bolt-Thrower's strengths: the set became an hour of a constant groove, Jo Bench's bass locking in with Martin Kearns' drumming to create a surprisingly hypnotic undertow while the rhythm guitar fuzzed in and out, sketching a deep haze of slow metallic burn. The songs all sounded pretty much the same, merged into one sweating, indistinct blur: it was great. Karl Willetts, shaking an impressive mane of blond hair, was clearly having the time of his life: to think that he was once only the band's driver. The stagedivers rose to the occasion, with the highlight provided by a slightly surreal Mary Poppins-esque "jumper" who leapt with umbrella fully unfurled. Around us, a few little scraps broke out, largely amongst this new generation of punk kids who can't really hold their drink or drugs (we squarely blame that on the lack of politics, especially straightedge politics, in the modern punk, hardcore and metal game): we had to employ our best shoulder and elbow work - as later reprised on the tube home - to repel these unwelcome space invaders. Sadly, there were no clues from the band as to what might be happening in terms of the timetable for any follow-up to "Those Once Loyal". Come on Bolt-Thrower, get your PAs to schedule some diary dates: we want that Outlook calendar wall-to-wall with studio time.

5. "Don Giovanni" at the Glyndebourne Festival

Glyndebourne was a little different: despite Jonathan Kent's somewhat optimistic statement that his new staging of Don Giovanni should attract a youthful crowd, your intrepid and not entirely unvenerable ilwtt,isott correspondents would venture immodestly that we were comfortably amongst the youngest people there. We chose the weekend in which to hang out in the rolling Sussex hills: unlike the week, which is all corporates, new money and all the associated vulgarities of trade, the weekend is more livable, most punters being yr proper old-school aristos who've paid for their own tickets and at least appreciate the tunes, rather than being there to be seen bedecked in bling, or quaffing branded champagne. But ultimately - and this applies here just as much as to Indietracks - it's the melodies that matter, and Mozart was fair chucking them out in 1787, exactly two hundred years before the Chesterf!elds hit on that same trick of seeing how many trebly hooks you could cascade into any given minute or three.

The soprano parts are as thrillful as ever, and even if you have to wade through the occasional unnecessary aria (memo to Donna Anna and Don Ottavio: we don't care about your "Non mi dir" or "Il mio tesoro"), it's worth it not only for the unending joy of the score's constant rise and fall, but for all those little moments when two (or, in the case of "Ah taci, ingiusto core", three) voices suddenly dovetail and start to lift you away: Seville to power. The young Italian lad who played Masetto was sprightly enough to look the part; (onstage) serial Don Giovanni Gerard Finley, despite more advancing years, played the lighter moments quite nicely, and Kate Royal as Donna Elvira was usually on hand to keep things ticking along with her deceptively pretty songs patterned with either slightly unhinged or positively stalkerish lyrics. Plus, of course, there are all the staple highlights, such as the impressively metapostmodernironic bit at the feast where the orchestra strikes up "The Marriage Of Figaro" (a hit from '86: a loose equivalent might be Gang Starr sampling "You Know My Steez" in "Full Clip") and Giovanni / Gerard looks up and rakishly says "I'm sure I recognise this one".

There were some lovely set plays - the way that the orchestra strikes up unannounced, with the hall plunged into total darkness: no fading of the house lights or gradual subsiding of chatter. Or the end of the first Act, when a very real bolt-thrower hurls plumes of fire onto the stage, flames still fiercely crackling and glowing as the interval begins. The set - a kind of revolving cube, backlit as things progressed with increasingly risque classical paintings - did depict Seville as a sea of rather dull stonemason's grey, a bit like Fletcher and Godber's cell in Slade Prison, but we later worked out (from that old etching of Luigi Bassi giving the first ever performance) that it fairly faithfully reproduced the background to that, so max credit for authenticity and generally keeping it real. That, and the fact that the rousing music throughout was performed by the Orchestra for the Age of Enlightenment, whose modus operandi consists of using instruments from the time that the relevant melodies were composed. The lute that turned up for an unexpected solo in Act Two had us all scouring the pit to see where the noise was coming from: it was absolutely electric (well, as electric as acoustic can be). True fact: we once interviewed the OAE's horn section down in Bristol, and it turned out they spent much of their time on eBay, which was the only way to source half the gear they needed. And that the earlier composers were a particular nightmare for them because in those days they hadn't even got round to drilling tuning-holes in trumpets or whatever, so you had to get every note purely through contorting your lips, a bit like we would now with a kazoo.

Yes, the plot was as daft as ever, but (a) what did you expect and (b) who really cares: at least it isn't as overly melodramatic (and therefore as curiously uninvolving) as modern-day soap precursors like La Boheme. Plus, there was a bat flying around the roof of the auditorium, which was pretty cool. Unlike our Bolt-Thrower outing, no fights broke out amongst the audience, although that nearly changed when we espied Norman Lamont across a crowded tearoom. And outside, the last wasps of summer buzzed arias of their own.

6. Would-be-Goods at Buffalo Bars

The Would-be-Goods just get better and better, as they go from being in your top 100 bands of all time to your top 50 to your top 20 to your top 10... there's certainly no more rewarding band on the UK gig "circuit", we reckon. As blissful as the first time we saw them at this very venue, with the added bonus that this time we didn't have to cab it back to the office afterwards. And no less than the ace Tender Trap in support.

7. Bristol Rovers at Dagenham & Redbridge

Collusion between the Vatican and Transport for London dictated that there would be no tube service connecting central London (where the Pope was responding to a royal wedding-style mass media deference O.D. by accusing the nation of being rife with aggressive secularism) to Dagenham East, home of newly-promoted Dagenham & Redbridge FC (celebrity fan: one Bob Crow) for Bristol Rovers' first ever visit to this particular patch (although actually, it was technically the second, for we were there a few years back when Rovers lost 1-0 in the Women's FA Cup semi-final).

This time, when we eventually arrived - via a magical upper-deck bus replacement tour through pre-Olympic Stratford, West and East Ham, Barking and leafier Upney, Becontree and Heathway - at what was then Victoria Road, but is now christened the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham Stadium, we enjoyed once more the thrill of being in a proper football ground, not even the old-style lower league set up of a stadium surrounded by terraced houses, but a non-league environment of a ground on parkland at the end of a cul-de-sac, which had clearly once been only the very unassuming home of Dagenham FC but had rapidly been expanded, with new blocks, stands and outbuildings appearing as the merged D&R (Redbridge Forest were themselves borne by a merger between Leytonstone / Ilford FC who in turn were unsurprisingly a merger of Ilford FC and Leytonstone FC, both proud amateur clubs founded in the 19th century) and the equally grand old non-league name of Walthamstow Avenue, meaning that as the biggest Russian doll left, D&R now effectively rep for half of east London) completed their ascent from the old Isthmian League to the new pinnacle of the third division (a workmanlike place known in this particular year as "N-Power League One"). Indeed, D&R are so new to the gang of 92 that, instead of making away fans cower in some uncovered stand to the side of the pitch, they give us the best stand in the ground, right behind the goal, affording fine views of both the pitch and the cloud-dimpled blue sky and Essex flatlands beyond. We are one-quarter of the total gate of 2,000 odd.

What followed seemed improbable and surreal: Rovers played well. In the first half, we offered an attacking threat (we've seen whole seasons where this particular dish wasn't on the menu). In the second, we defended solidly, with the back four powerfully heading crosses away from danger, just like real footballers. In both halves, we even took our chances: Jeff Hughes netting a hat-trick with a sweet cross-'keeper finish, a perfectly-executed lob past onrushing 'keeper and even a superbly taken left-footed penalty kick, waiting to send the Daggers' no.1 the wrong way before sliding the ball into the opposite corner. We probably weren't 3-0 better on the balance of play, but we avoided any stupid mistakes. Moreover, we never looked in danger. It was, in every sense, the antithesis of the rancid collapse witnessed on the quarters' last trip to London only months before. D&R, for their part, kindly took the role usually inhabited by Rovers: huffing and puffing, a bit unlucky, but leaving too many gaps, failing to concentrate, ultimately frustrating their fans. It was an intriguing role reversal, for the very novelty of which we were grateful.

Real football quotient (RFQ) = number of times ball cleared out of stadium (7), divided by number of backheels (2) = a very impressive 3.5. Undermined only by the fact that we didn't have a terrace to stand on.

Postscript: by December, of course, Rovers were in the relegation places, and the gaffer had been sacked. The beautiful game can also be the cruellest.

8. Echo and the Bunnymen at Brixton Academy

Two words: THE CUTTER. Actually, two more: dry ice.

9. Obituary at Islington Academy

As past inhabitants of the Essex heartland we feel qualified to observe that the N1 Centre feels like a little piece of Basildon transported to the hub of the Angel, Islington, an architecturally bleak mall where locals can shop, lurk, drink, and, as the nights draw on, get into fights as if they weren't in reality denizens of the cappuccino-cradling capital of evil elitist metropolitan liberal London. And it's within the N1 Centre's walls that the Academy, originally and blink-of-an-eye briefly Dave Stewart's rather ill-fated pet entertainment venue, weekly services a broad sweep of emo kids (the bands), students (the club nights) and... well, nobody else, really.

The last time we hung out in the Academy for any length of time was for these four fantastic summer nights, but little has changed. Little can change when your venue is a Subbuteo scale model of an aircraft hangar, a sticky floor surrounded by 92 shades of grey and hemmed in by a low ceiling up to a few rows back from the stage, where a cavernous, higher but equally lego-brick roof suddenly looms above. You can just make out a silvered balcony that looks ripe for a futuristic James Bond set: you know, for a single-attribute villain to parascend down to the moshpit, where on most nights they would surely then be crushed by the musk underneath a hundred regulation black (insert emo /metal band name) T-shirts.

When we saw Slayer play last, the build-up alone was worth the admission: pentangles and upside-down crosses projected on to a huge white sheet that shut out the whole stage, before said sheet was torn down, in tandem with the opening power chords, to reveal the band, a hectare of speaker stacks and the most brilliant neon light show hanging above their heads, always threatening to fall and make it their last ever gig. When Obituary stride onstage, though, there's a remarkable lack of posery. No intro music, no fanfare, no messing about with the house lights. Like their gig at ULU a year or two back, it's remarkably modest for a band of their calibre and catalogue. The four of them (to be joined shortly by singer John Tardy, who does that M.E.S. thing of sauntering on late when the vocal bit is needed, and then for much of the set taking the odd stroll offstage whenever there's a reasonable instrumental stretch to navigate) plug in their instruments, stand there for a bit staring straight at us and then just get on with playing the opening bars.

The first two tracks are "List Of Dead" and "Blood To Give", briefly raising the daunting but delicious prospect that they're going to play the whole of their recent and fabulously solid "Darkest Day" album in order, but instead they stick at those two, respectively the fastest and quirkiest tunes on it, and the rest of the night will be dedicated to selections from the earlier discography. (It would be unduly anorakish to list the rest of the setlist... um, the rest of the setlist was "Forces Realign", "Dethroned Emperor", "Slowly We Rot", "Left to Die", "Threatening Skies", "Chopped in Half / Turned Inside Out", "Dying", "The End Complete", "On the Floor", "Slow Death", "Final Thoughts", "Face Your God", "Evil Ways" and "Contrast the Dead"). And the show is great, not in a technically overpowering way or a singalong way, just in a "good old rock band playing fine songs that often sound a bit similar" kind of way: always a joy and never a chore, like watching the Wedding Present or something. The Academy crew have obviously been doing something clever with the mics, too, because Tardy's vocal even has that patented echo effect from the records, although without the equally trademark pre-echo that often leads into his vocals on wax.

Unlike Slayer, there's not too much banter between songs, or wholly obvious showmanship: the four impressive manes of hair arrayed at front stage are shaken with great vigour and purpose, but then we guess the guys are just enjoying themselves. There are quite a few between-track instances of them downing tools and faffing around in an impressively unprofessional way: it's not quite Pipas, but it's nearer that than the ultra-slick Slayer approach. So despite the unpromising environs, by evening's end we're thoroughly grateful that Obituary have descended on north London to give us organic-soya obsessed media luvvies a dose of Floridian death metal.

10. Thee Single Spy at the Library, Islington

Two of us, plus eight hipsters (we may be hipsters at heart, but we just haven't got the wardrobe) made a grand total of 10 in the "crowd" for this one, although the tiny, bright "front room" still felt reasonably full. Five songs from the bashful quartet, the newest the best, proved worth the entry.

11. David McAlmont at the Pigalle Club

What ?