Metamatic Forums John Foxx John Foxx And The Maths The Haunt, Brighton 24th February 2012

OK - who's going to this gig then?

I'll be along (I knnow - shock!!) so it would be good to meet up if aanyone's around before the show

Mx

Definitely going - it just dependes on trains/connections etc on whether I get there on time!

Easy. just leave Paris in the morning with T-E-E ..

Meet Iggy Pop and David Bowie
Have Fish n Chips
In the Beach-side cafe

I'll be there Martin! Don't know the area so whatever anyone suggests. The pub we went to before Tiny Colour Movies was OK but is that miles from the venue?
Cheers

Turns out this is one 'one of those days' when my family is split in many different directions

I'll be going straight to the venue now as its unlikely that I can be in Brighton before half seven...

I've decided that unfortunately - the gig is going to upset my work/life/travel balance just far too much.

So I've ditched work and taken the day off! T'ra Work!

So I'll be in Brighton most of the day - eating chips, buying second hand books and working my way through record shops and looking at pubs to meet up in... well, somebody has to do it

Being as I live about 5 minutes walk away from the venue,
I shall be there

Well, well - that's TODAY!

Setting off from here at four. Plenty of time to share a beer and a bag of chips before the gig.

See you all in Brighton later this afternoon.

top tip: best chips are the ones at the end of the pier

The Sussex seems to be OK and only a five minute walk away; 33-34 East Street, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 1HL. about 7pm?

If anyone has any better ideas, I'm happy to change.

Update: Meeting Lt.030 in The Sussex from 5ish if anyone's about

Hi,will be at the Sussex around six-ish. See you all there
Cheers

Good luck and safe journey to the crew travelling to Belgium tomorrow (later today in fact) for the gig there, and thanks for the show in Brighton tonight.

Setlist was as the October tour and for me the stand-out tracks were Summerland, The Running Man and Burning Car.

Hannah was on especially good form I thought, playing her key role well and superbly holding it all together.

They didn't play TIDES! Foolish people

But yeah, it was a good set, and I thoroughly enjoy seeing people on a stage playing real instruments with their fingers rather than just twatting around with laptops! Much preposterous sonic mayhems ensued and assaulted the PA! :-D
Wish I was a bit taller so I could've seen more that the girls were playing! (I know Benge does have the backbone of the track going on his Mac, but it is usually in a way that doesn't detract from the 'liveness'.... of course, it would still be better if they got me on stage too to replace the Mac


Not entirely sure I approved 100% of their new arrangement of Hiroshima Mon Amour, but Just For A Moment was excellent - the violin and ARP Omni chord/bass swells were beautiful, if also gargantuan and completely off-kilter

I was a bit pushed for time so only just made it there about 5 minutes before John started - were Gazelle Twin OK? I haven't actually been in that venue before - I wish they'd let me sit upstairs so I could see better

I was very lucky on the night and was invited upstairs by Rob & Steve which meant I could watch from a brilliant viewpoint. While removed from the atmosphere a little (quite a lot...) I could see exactly what the girls were doing.
Seems Hannah plays most of the melody/lead bits and generally holds the set together.
Sefa was really giving it some on the bass notes etc during Burning Car.
Not sure who played them - I guess John - but there was some wonderful fizzes and crackles at the end of Interplay!

Sorry for my complete lack of technical whatsits...

I also enjoyed the opportunity to see how the band worked 'together'. Although I think there were some nerves early on - especially Shatterproof which for me lacked its venom and grittiness - there were more winks, nods and giggles to make it feel warm and - as you implied - very "live"



Gazelle Twin was superb. Every bit as good as I hoped and had expected. Ok, from your point of view there were two guys on stage behind Elizabeth 'twatting about with laptops' but she is such an enigmatic and absorbing presence it didn't detract one bit. They were dressed up too - kind of monk/druid black gowns andhoods with head-lamps. Elizabeth has a uniquely engaging voice and pulled off the set well accompanied by lovely visuals of deep-sea skeletal fish, creatures etc.
Perhaps a little 'WTF??' for some of the audience and a bit wacky for the setting, but I found her inspiring and would like to see more in a bigger venue

Here's Underpass from The Haunt In Brighton

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C66lNqqGCpo

lol, yeah, Shamblesproof was anything but!
John came in about 2 bars out, so he'd get to the chorus before the string melody happened lol
And the bass slams were about to destroy the PA.

Mind you, at that point, pretty much all I could see were twats in the audience recording stuff on their phones. I really hate that at gigs. I'm trying to watch the real live thing, and everyone else is ignoring it and trying to record it on a phone so they can watch it later on a tiny screen /facepalms/

Thoroughly enjoyable gig – sadly didn’t get to meet anyone in the end as it was just too rammed in there! Did get to meet Stephen Mallinder though! Result!

Shatterproof was a mess but vocally Foxx was on form – really belting it out and there was no FX on his vocals at that point – which was good. I can’t get enough of Burning Car with violin either.

The only downside for me was Simon Price’s ‘Alternate 80s’ DJ Set – great music, just wrong time, wrong place, wrong artist for it.

Yeah, I kinda expected I'd "see all you guys in there", but it was totally rammed inside (funny venue that - massive high ceiling, but not actually much space between the stage and the bar!)

I know Simon Price fairly well... lol the past 2 times John played in Brighton, I got in for free cos Lisa Lout the promoter let me DJ This year Simon blagged it instead and I had to buy a ticket Simon was just playing his usual 'slightly-alt-80s' set

Yeah, the was singing it well - what snookered him was that the arrangement of that song is a bit of a collage over the bloopy sequence, with the chords not very explicitly voiced or pinned down ... combine that with him being about 2 bars out of sync with what top-line synth parts *were* happening, and it was mildly hilarious But very live, and that's the whole point. You would never ever plan something like that in advance

The violin sounds brilliant, I wonder what she was playing it through to get that tone? Some of these 'electric violin' type sounds people use are actually rather bland, but hers was awesome - probably I think cos she had a good pickup capturing the sound of her acoustic violin to begin with (all that wood and resonating air)... it had some really gritty edges to it without every suffering the dreaded acoustic feedback that you might expect when you put distortion on a violin at loud volume levels!