One night in Cambridge . . .
A mate told me of some electronic music night in town. He could vouch for several of the main acts but hadn't heard of the ones lower down the bill.

Fuck it, I thought. Why not.

The first act saw two blokes hidden behind a mountain of equipment. All sorts of pads, soundboards and important-looking gear. Basically nothing I recognised, despite dabbling in the odd bit of guitar muck myself. Obviously with that amount of gear you knew they had to have something unique up their sleeves.

Unique was one word for it. Their sound was simply this:
No beat or drum sound, just an audio recording of someone carrying a bin liner full of empty bottles up some stairs. On a loop. Over and fucking over. Each time the ten second clip was looped it became slightly distorted. As though the speaker was in the middle of breaking down. And it somehow took two blokes and a shitload of equipment to do this.

At first I thought this was merely the build-up to some sort of audio explosion that would render all in awe of their digital mastery. But after twelve minutes of distorted bottle rattling they suddenly stopped dead, waited a second, and waved at the crowd as if to signify "the end", before thanking everyone and leaving the stage.

I figured it couldn't get much worse so it'd be worth sticking around for.

However when the next act took the stage my mate turned away in disgust and whispered: "Christ it's him! He's so far up his own arse I'm surprised he hasn't got shit on his glasses."

The new act sat down on the stage, like the Milky-Bar Kid with a bumfluff moustache, bristling with self-importance. And in a nasal tone of John Major's accountant, he said: "I shall improvise for approximately 10 minutes. . . ." He pushed his glasses up his nose and added: ". . .Perhaps 12 if the moment takes me."

He then scratched an electric guitar aggresively with a screwdriver for quarter of an hour until the compere politely stopped him.

Easily the worst two acts I've had the misfortune to witness in one night. And I've seen Oasis*

Having said that though, the main two acts later on were decent. Anyone seen Om, or The Man From Uranus?


*Not through choice
(Barry Subchimp, Thu 30 Dec 2010, 13:10, 1 reply)

I have seen some utter shite in Cambridge
just like you described. It's the other side of the coin of the nice, polite audiences you get: no-one will stand up and tell a band they suck.
( djtrialprice, Fri 31 Dec 2010, 13:05, closed)