After figuring out where the hell we were meant to go we managed to get into our seats, 2nd row on the upper level looking down on the crowd and the stage. The view was fantastic and there was no need to stand up. We arrived about a third into "Alex Lloyd"'s set.
I like Alex, his CD is very well produced and the songs are great. However Alex chose that night to playing solo acoustic with a tape deck for backing. No band, no nothing. I've heard him play live on the free live CD I got with the album, and it was great. But this was shit. He can play guitar, he can sing his style very well... but it was just dull. It really showed how little there are to his songs without the production. And he chose to slow most of this songs down to droan level. Not very impressed I must say.
I didn't know much about Gomez except for the stuff I'd heard from the radio. The stage was covered in instruments with a very full drumkit, another kit the same size of gongs, cymbals and bongost, three mics out the front, lots of guitars, two keyboards and a little drum machine in the corner. I knew this had to be good with all that hardware on stage.
Gomez came on and dived right into it and I really don't much more to say except I loved it. I don't know the song names, I don't know the band members but it doesn't matter. I was majorly impressed. They were having a great time and were loving every minute of being on stage. Last time they were here they played a much smaller venue and the huge Palais freaked them out a little.
They ended the gig with a 3 to 4 song encore, the last of which going for 20 mins, ending with two members of the band sitting on the stage singing and playing with distortion pedals. It was great!
Heath and Bowie's first gig
Heath and I played our first real gig with a crowd on Saturday. At a party with about 20 people watching Heath and I played Glory, Lego Woman, Lovers Lane, Monkey, Ego, City Loop, Right Again and a cover of Powderfinger's Passenger. The crowd was very accepting and asked for an encore. We played a bit of Radiohead's "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" and a bit of Powderfinger's "Hindley Street". We then played an acoustic version of Lego Woman. LW seemed to go off. Gloat.