Tuesday, March 13, 2012

The Nightmare Before Christmas 2011 – Slight Return

I realise now that in my previous post I forgot to mention a few things about the Nightmare Before Christmas thing I went to (before Christmas). And OK, maybe the things I forgot were not actually worth remembering, but they are back in my mind now so I had better put them in yours. So let me tell you about two more bands.
Bitch Magnet play somewhat rocktastic movement, but the name is rather offset by their looking like they work for Google (my beloved came up with this quip, I think, unless you find it offensive in which case I suppose I had better take responsibility for it). So they end up being a bit comedic. Wild Flag, meanwhile, are the band Carrie Brownstein formed after she left Sleater-Kinney. I gather they include a load of people from various other bands. Wild Flag maybe do not break the most amazing new ground, but they do their indie punk rock thing well. And Brownstein is always entertaining as a rock animal guitarist – and as someone who is not intimidated by strong women rocking out I feel obliged to lend this band a degree of support.

We also saw Gary Numan who was surprisingly entertaining. He seems now to be playing up the Goth side of his persona. He seems very comfortable on stage and was able to bathe us in sinister electronic and guitar sound. Those of us who perhaps expected some sad washed-up has-been were pleasantly surprised. He also was able to do that non-tarty older artist thing of playing his big hit ('Are "friends" electric?', obv.) but in a radically different way to its original recorded appearance. So top marks to Gary Numan.

The most fun thing I saw on TV and forgot to mention last time was a documentary about Chuck Berry. The film-makers largely ignored the various perv allegations that have been levelled against Mr Berry, but we didn't – we basically took it for granted when watching that whenever we could not see him below the waist he was "having a sandwich", there and then, as it were. This was hilarious, in a you-had-to-be-there kind of way.

Panda Magnet

An inuit panda production

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