Saturday, June 12, 2010

Live Music Corner

All I have been to recently seems to be Crystal Antlers, supported by local band The Cast From Cheers. The support act seemed to be a bunch of good-looking young lads in tight trousers who played music that maybe bears some similarities to that jangly Congolese music you hear about. They also did this neat thing of occasionally sampling themselves playing guitars, so that they could play back the recording and dance around onstage. Lovely young lads, as I was saying.

Because Crystal Antlers were playing downstairs in Whelans (as opposed to in the suckass upstairs) I was able to see the entire band – and discover that not merely do they have a keyboardist but that said keyboardist is a young lady. Well I never. The rest of the band seemed to be all present and correct, including the guy on extra percussion. It was a bit hot in therrre so he took off his t-shirt (eventually throwing the sweaty clothing item into the crowd, for my beloved to pick up and now insist on making me wear, unwashed). But then, oh dear, slight rear-end trouser malfunction.

This did not stop the band rocking out, though maybe they took a while to get into their stride. The concert was perhaps a bit under-attended, and maybe it was my immediate pals who were the ones really going for it with the interpretative dance up the front, but I did manage to further my reputation as that weird old guy you see at gigs.

Crystal Antlers are one of those neo-psych freak out bands you hear about.

image source

An inuit panda production

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think Congolese music would be a bit of a stretch for Cast of Cheers...I would have said they were somewhere between Foals and Battles, maybe

ian said...

Save it for the mailcoms, Mr Hat! In this context, I was using "Congolese" as a synonym for "jangly guitars".