Well, Robin's already given us the set list so you all know what treats we got to hear!
I made the matinée show. The Lumiere is a nice venue, takes it's music seriously ("The is a music venue, not a pub! If you talk during the bands, we will tell you to shut up!" say the notices
)
I do think tickets would've been simpler than all this T-shirt caper, but never mind - I got in anyways
As usual, John had his full stadium light show and massive PA, and tried to let that provide the atmosphere for the show rather than engaging in any between-song on-stage banter.... given that the audience was only a hundred or so hard core fans, I'm not sure this was quite the best way to vibe up the occasion and get us excited, but never mind
Frequently the lights were so bright and the stobes flashing so much that I quite literally couldn't see John or Louis despite them being only a few yards in front of me, and I just had to shut my eyes!
I really enjoyed the choice of songs - when you have ALL of someone's albums, and know all the tunes well, it's a delight to hear a broad selection rather than just the same old "hits" setlist. CAMERA and UPTOWN/DOWNTOWN are particular faves of mine.
I could tell that this was the first outing for most of these, and things were a little rough round the edges at time (some of the vocoding went a little haywire, and John always manages to come in singing in the wrong place in at least one song ;-) but I actuallY LIKE this as it is what live music is all about
Moreover considering the amount of never-b4-played stuff in this setlist, the arrangements were actually remarkably polished and detailed. "Swimmer 2" was pretty much unchanged; Dancing Like a Gun and Europe After the Rain had just the right degree of pimping up to make them fit in the set without spoiling the feel of the originals... shame no Ultravox or Cathedral Oceans material, but that's democracy for you ;-)
John was in fine voice (all those high notes on Europe, for instance) and seemed well game for extra silly vocoding
My main eyebrow raising with these gigs is still the old "what's played and what's on the backing?" chestnut? ... cos, right, look: in MILES AWAY, you know the snaggerty snappy bass riff (or clavinet riff it was, on the original, perhaps)... for example when it goes "...i'm looking back from miiiiiles awaaaayyyy..." and there's that's snappy bass line under the soaring vocals and Odyssey? Well I watched Louis' fingers on his bottom Yamaha, and he was "playing" that with great panache... and then he moved his fingers off the keyboard to do something else for the last bit of the riff, but it kept playing without him!! :-) I couldn't work out if he was just miming playing it, or was he playing along with it on a much quieter lead sound that I couldn't hear, or.... ?
Me and my Miss Pain friends at the Metamatic show were beginning to cheekily suspect that John and Louis tend to just mime playing certain exciting-looking riffs and lines in places, when they're actually on the backing, cos it'll look cool... cos we'd keep seeing those parts continue on after in the next bit when their fingers were no longer on the keyboard
... but maybe Louis' just programmed sthg really elaborate so that the parts punch in and out all the time between live and backing (bloody seamless submixing of levels if so!)
Yours in all good humoured skepticism in Brighton
Feline1
PS John "giving it loads" on his "odyssey" sound in Swimmer2 was a joy to behold...