Hey All,
Hey All,
Yesterday morning there was still frost on some leaves, lawns and rooves at 10 AM here in Leytonstone. Hello Winter, glad you could join us.
Last night I was sent to cover the Cradle of Filth show at the Astoria. A friend of mine too up the +1, and we queue'd up for an hour and a half while waiting to be let in. We probably would have been queue'ing longer, but some old school Thrash fans let us into the the queue because they overheard me saying that I was excited to see Sabbat (reformed British Thrash band).
When we got to the front of the queue I discovered that if you are on the guest list you can go onto the Guest List Queue, byspassing the far larger main queue. Yep, I'm a NooB.
No matter. First support Deathstars were good, even if they did look like The Murderdolls and sound like Fields of the Nephilim jamming with Duran Duran at Rammstein's house.
Sabbat were far better, Andy Sneap demonstrating that despite being more famous as a producer these days, he is stilll anincredible guitarist. Extra points for having a bassist that looked like Hagrid The Giant. Though their set was blocked from brilliance by a drummer who occaisionally missed beats and singer Martin's obviously suffering vocal chords.
Between bands I talked to an Australian friend and her North London posse of occaisional Suicide Girls. I also saw the guitarist of a veteran crusty/anarcho-punk band excuse himself midconversation to answer a message on his Blackberry.
Eventually Cradle of Filth came on to a carefully set stage. And frankly they didn't really do much for me, though the fans did love it. Backing vocalist Sarah Jezebel Diva is horrendously fat and dresses wildly inappropriately for this fact (though friends do insist that she is a really nice person) Dani Filth is still a midget, something visually exacerbated by his decision to wear overlarge boots, the mix was a bit sketchy and that material from the last two albums was rather weak.
Granted the encore was pretty good (Cthulu Calls, Cradle to Enlave and some othe one) but I was still left with a feeling of 'Is that it?' when the show ended.
Afterwards I hung with my pal Richie, who ran into the editor of The Wire, an English magazine that deals with various kinds of avante garde music. I think I've got the latest issue lying around here somewhere. Next we went to Garlic and Shots, a bar deep in Soho that is open late (we passed on The Crobar). Interestingly I got to meet a tall, slim man with short, slightly grey hair and a soft brogue who turned out to be the reviews editor at a London extreme metal magazine (I'd say which one, but I'm trying to get out of the habit of making my Name Dropping so easily googled).
Chilled in a basement crypt of Garlic and shorts with Richie and a few beers until the staff turfed everyone out. After that we both decided that sleep was prefereable to negotiating the Cro-bar, so Richie headed off to Trafalgar Square and I headed in the opposite direction to see if I had missed the last tube (I had) so I had to wait for the night bus in the dropping temperatures and rolling fog.
By the time I got home the fog had blown all the way east, blanketing Leytonstone in an eerie mist that reduced visability to ten metres, if that.
Today I'm writing and stuff.
-J
Yesterday morning there was still frost on some leaves, lawns and rooves at 10 AM here in Leytonstone. Hello Winter, glad you could join us.
Last night I was sent to cover the Cradle of Filth show at the Astoria. A friend of mine too up the +1, and we queue'd up for an hour and a half while waiting to be let in. We probably would have been queue'ing longer, but some old school Thrash fans let us into the the queue because they overheard me saying that I was excited to see Sabbat (reformed British Thrash band).
When we got to the front of the queue I discovered that if you are on the guest list you can go onto the Guest List Queue, byspassing the far larger main queue. Yep, I'm a NooB.
No matter. First support Deathstars were good, even if they did look like The Murderdolls and sound like Fields of the Nephilim jamming with Duran Duran at Rammstein's house.
Sabbat were far better, Andy Sneap demonstrating that despite being more famous as a producer these days, he is stilll anincredible guitarist. Extra points for having a bassist that looked like Hagrid The Giant. Though their set was blocked from brilliance by a drummer who occaisionally missed beats and singer Martin's obviously suffering vocal chords.
Between bands I talked to an Australian friend and her North London posse of occaisional Suicide Girls. I also saw the guitarist of a veteran crusty/anarcho-punk band excuse himself midconversation to answer a message on his Blackberry.
Eventually Cradle of Filth came on to a carefully set stage. And frankly they didn't really do much for me, though the fans did love it. Backing vocalist Sarah Jezebel Diva is horrendously fat and dresses wildly inappropriately for this fact (though friends do insist that she is a really nice person) Dani Filth is still a midget, something visually exacerbated by his decision to wear overlarge boots, the mix was a bit sketchy and that material from the last two albums was rather weak.
Granted the encore was pretty good (Cthulu Calls, Cradle to Enlave and some othe one) but I was still left with a feeling of 'Is that it?' when the show ended.
Afterwards I hung with my pal Richie, who ran into the editor of The Wire, an English magazine that deals with various kinds of avante garde music. I think I've got the latest issue lying around here somewhere. Next we went to Garlic and Shots, a bar deep in Soho that is open late (we passed on The Crobar). Interestingly I got to meet a tall, slim man with short, slightly grey hair and a soft brogue who turned out to be the reviews editor at a London extreme metal magazine (I'd say which one, but I'm trying to get out of the habit of making my Name Dropping so easily googled).
Chilled in a basement crypt of Garlic and shorts with Richie and a few beers until the staff turfed everyone out. After that we both decided that sleep was prefereable to negotiating the Cro-bar, so Richie headed off to Trafalgar Square and I headed in the opposite direction to see if I had missed the last tube (I had) so I had to wait for the night bus in the dropping temperatures and rolling fog.
By the time I got home the fog had blown all the way east, blanketing Leytonstone in an eerie mist that reduced visability to ten metres, if that.
Today I'm writing and stuff.
-J
posted by the.exile at 1:30 pm
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