The Vines Live
Sunday, October 27, 2002
GIG REVIEW: The Vines Live - Bristol Academy 26th October 2002
Characteristically leaving things too late, PT and I arrived at the Bristol Academy just in time for the Vines coming on stage. We ordered a drink (after the barman had removed his earplugs) and stood as the boys from Sydney shrieked into their first song. And shriek is the word. Lead singer Craig Nicholls opens his mouth and utters an inhuman scream down the mike, sounding like some Antipodean Banshee. No wonder that the barstaff are worried about their eardrums. But the sheer energy of the band - and especially Nicholls - carries you away as the guitars blaze and Nicholls, his hair a wild mop, does his best impression of Tigger on acid, bouncing here, there and everywhere. One minute he is crashing a cymbal with his guitar, the next he is getting his feet tied up in the microphone stand.
Now, I admit fully that I've only heard the Album, Highly Evolved, once and so didn't know many of the songs, but this wasn't a gig where you found yourself looking at your watch and wondering if the person you came with would mind if you nipped to the loo and escaped out of the window. The 50-odd minutes they were on stage whizzed by as they burst their way through a fiery version of their first single Get Free and my favourite of the evening 1965. A big surprise was their cover of Outkast's Miss Jackson, both melancholic and hypnotic as Nicholls wrung his sweat-drenched hair in a towel and wailed his regret that he made her daughter cry. Blistering.
So now converted to another of my great mate PT's favourite bands and adding one more album to the list of hundreds I want to buy we left on a high. Damn him, why does he keep doing this to me?
But before I sign off I feel I must acknowledge one unsung hero of the night - the bald, grey-beard roadie who stood at the side of the stage, hands on hips and eyes rolling every time that Nicholls kicked over the mike or dropped his guitar. He sure wasn't amused but kept us so, and therefore I raise a drink to the grumpy roadie, whoever he is.
GIG REVIEW: The Vines Live - Bristol Academy 26th October 2002
Characteristically leaving things too late, PT and I arrived at the Bristol Academy just in time for the Vines coming on stage. We ordered a drink (after the barman had removed his earplugs) and stood as the boys from Sydney shrieked into their first song. And shriek is the word. Lead singer Craig Nicholls opens his mouth and utters an inhuman scream down the mike, sounding like some Antipodean Banshee. No wonder that the barstaff are worried about their eardrums. But the sheer energy of the band - and especially Nicholls - carries you away as the guitars blaze and Nicholls, his hair a wild mop, does his best impression of Tigger on acid, bouncing here, there and everywhere. One minute he is crashing a cymbal with his guitar, the next he is getting his feet tied up in the microphone stand.
Now, I admit fully that I've only heard the Album, Highly Evolved, once and so didn't know many of the songs, but this wasn't a gig where you found yourself looking at your watch and wondering if the person you came with would mind if you nipped to the loo and escaped out of the window. The 50-odd minutes they were on stage whizzed by as they burst their way through a fiery version of their first single Get Free and my favourite of the evening 1965. A big surprise was their cover of Outkast's Miss Jackson, both melancholic and hypnotic as Nicholls wrung his sweat-drenched hair in a towel and wailed his regret that he made her daughter cry. Blistering.
So now converted to another of my great mate PT's favourite bands and adding one more album to the list of hundreds I want to buy we left on a high. Damn him, why does he keep doing this to me?
But before I sign off I feel I must acknowledge one unsung hero of the night - the bald, grey-beard roadie who stood at the side of the stage, hands on hips and eyes rolling every time that Nicholls kicked over the mike or dropped his guitar. He sure wasn't amused but kept us so, and therefore I raise a drink to the grumpy roadie, whoever he is.
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