"Our Liquid Lives... This is How We All Survive"

This is a blog I've been wanting to write for a long time, but i wanted to wait for the right moment! I've left this blog a couple of days longer than I wanted to, simply because I could not of wrote it during the weekend.
On Monday (Feb 18th) I went to see Hadouken! at the Camden Koko, London, as part of the NME Awards Tour shows. A night of bruised ribs, one crushed toe nail, a very good night on the town, a random trip to Enfield, a long train journey back home to university and two full days of recovery later, I've decided to now sit down at 5:25am on Thursday (Feb 21st), to write about it!

First and foremost I will do a short gig review and just about the crazy, surreal night that ensued after the gig, then I will do a review of the band as a whole, that doesn't include my physical pleasure and pain, but more my emotional and psychological exctacy for one band that has been running for almost a year now.

I left the jolly town of Farnham after a short trip to Sainsbury's with my course mate Mike (whose blog is in my cool blogs, I urge you to check it out, his music taste is very different from mine, but his content is just as exciting, and his take on bands explores a much larger range of musical tastes, beliefs and religion. I urge you to give him a read!), to stock up on chocolate and sweets to acompany my Magners for the train journey up to Camden. The journey itself was not anything too special, I shared a train to woking with some other course mates and compared funny stories in the papers, but from then on, it was me mainly listening to my iPod and munching on Sainsbury's double chocolate cookies and downing cider. However, upon the train pulling up into Clapham Junction (supposedly Britain's Busiest Railway Station! MY ARSE! If anyone has ever been a part of a Waterloo Station Rushhour, then you know what I'm talking about) the most wonderful sight bestowed my eyes. The most perfect example of the visual spectrum of light was projected onto dusk sky, looking out to the east of London, there was the most beautiful glowing red sky that made me take my earphones out just to apriciate it anymore. If anyone was at Clapham Junction at around 5:50pm on Monday 18th February, or walking across Vauxhall Bridge at the time, you will know what I am talking about. Anyway back to the story.
I got the tube as usual, Northern Line to Mornington Crescent, took a piss in the pub across the road, and made my way to the line for the gig, got inside and got a bit bored at the girl I was due to meet (a friend from Primary school I had not seen for almost 8 years had only just left Epsom) was not there yet, so I made my way to the front of the crowd to see the only act I bothered to see besides Hadouken! David E Sugar is a slightly funny man, with a taste for weirdly long fringes that have no point whatsoever, I think i got his set list, but I couldn't get any of the names of his songs from the groaning he put on thru the mic. Also before I go any further has one else noticed that in the last few months, roadies have resulted to groaning into mics for soundchecking. Finally, they've realised after 50 odd years that appearing as if you can't count past the number 3 in front of a large crowd makes you look like a complete dick!
Anyway to skipping that, Sugar played a varied set of electro goodness that was good enough to get my feet tapping, when I was interrupted by someone saying, yeh look thats Lee...

To my right stood a rather much taller boy with much longer hair than I remember called Chris. A boy whose probably in the upper sixth form at the moment as he was in the year below me at Primary school. I used to knock about with him and play football with him almost every day during the spring and summer months, I had a short chat with him, but lost him when I went to the bog so I need to search for him on Facebook, not that I can remember how to spell his surname!
That's just the first of the weird things that happened that night. Finally the girl I was due to meet showed up, and I used her coat to snag one of the NME posters of The Enemy to add to my collection of their stuff (that she seems to think shes now going to keep. cheeky cow!) We had a good chat had one of those awkward, but good yeah-ive-not-seen-you-for-8-years-fuck-me-your-hot-now sort of hugs, but we ended up getting separated after she managed to snag some back stage passes, again, cheeky cow!

I went outside to the Sainsburys local just a few buildings down to snag some Stella, as it is £3.80 for a single pint in the Koko, this is the one and only reason I hate London, other than that its the greatest place to live on Earth!
Then was about to go back inside, when I noticed more people from school, except who are still at secondary school, now in the lower sixth, yet more weirder!
They invited me back in to do some 'raving'; now this sounds all yeh come on 'lets rave, im pissed' but when your over 18 and you end up with a group of 16-17 year olds who have more glow sticks than the whole of Ibiza put together and you combine that with the most pathetic excuse for an indie-'rock' band i've ever heard, you tend to get bored. So I went back to the bar in hope of finding my old school mate, when I saw yet another blast from the past, yet not so long ago, a girl I'd met at one other Hadouken! gig I'd been to previously, who'd I'd planned to meet up with before, but never really got round to. She was quite a lot more fun and demanded we get more alcohol, which of course you agree on after the 8 pints you've already had! So making our way to the stage 5 minutes before Hadouken! are due on stage, and as you do, you push through scores of people to get pushed more, and get more sweaty.
James Smith comes out onto the stage and yells to the crowd something I can't remember as there was one great oaf in front of me, and another to the side with his elbow in my ear trying to see what was going on, typical!

As the band launched into the thumping song 'Bounce' I could not contain my excitement as I punched, kicked and elbowed as many annoying people I'd made a note of doing so earlier in my head, and jumped around and "Bounced My Balls" just as James had told me to. When a band like Hadouken! plays two of their best songs one after the other, many people get very excited, and one man launched himself upon the crowd, without his top on. This was of course very stupid, as he was quite a chubby so and so. So there he was having the time of his fucking life, crowd surfing to 'Liquid Lives' when around one hundred drunken teenagers are slapping his belly as hard as they can, me included, just to tell you how much of an arsehole you are for taking your top off.

As the songs were pumped into my system with a pnumatic drill, my heart thumping, every limb aching beyond all logical thought, and now just two rows of people from the front, I saw Sophie (my old school mate) out of the corner of my eye with her friend watching the gig from the side of the bloody stage, the lucky swines.
As Hadouken! came to the end of their set, I could tell that it was going to be very hard to get anything physical to savour from the midst of this ensuing mine field of bodies, sweat, blood and tears. However, all of the pain in the world, was lost amid the news that the set was coming to an end, and the thunderbolt of bass being syringed into my skeleton rang true to my brain and James yelled the most famous of his lyrics, "That Boy's a Hoxton Hero... That Girl's an Indie Cindy". This was the fifth time I had seen the band live, but never in that time have i been thrown in so many directions, actually never before in my entire life, have I been injured in so many places on my body in the space of a few seconds.

a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4RwZj4PXrU76Kh6X6RjmcYZd0kjnn6gABhqmKPliIEhkOcrReNO7VbVaH-n3Y9ruSZkWH9F7rTH6xF8fjrynn3sKCpVaJqCD3MBhBS3kygZtckTM2qZ1EVf1O16LWt7L8yfI1VO0cGbo/s1600-h/Hadouken+Crowd.jpg">

During the 3 and a half minutes of madness that ensues during this song, I could mentally count around 1million times I was punched and elbowed in the face by people around me. The best thing about this song was being right in the middle of the crowd, one row of people from the front, with my hands in the air out to the side, and yelling every single lyric as if it were the last words I would ever say in my life! You can pretty much tell, that after 10 pints and a Hadouken! gig later, I am possibly one of the happiest people alive!
I stood on the barrier for at least 20 minutes trying to get various bits of Hadouken glory as I hadnt at any gigs before, When a very nice roadie threw me the last set list on offer, and to him I am enternally great full.
The night was only beginning here however, as upon me getting outside of the gig to try and get my set list signed, two girls confronted me who wished to know how I had managed to get a set list, after doing this, these two girls got quite friendly with the Keyboardist of the band Alice, and I ended up being invited to The Lock Tavern with the band and a few other, to meet up with Barney, Murphy and the Legendary Doren of The Ghost Frequency! One of the band I have reviewed just a few weeks ago on this blog. Alice introduced me to Doren, and I immediately started to quiz him on the possibility of getting the band to play at my university's Student Union, which to a great success they would be thrilled to do, and all hoping that the meeting with my Vice President later today goes smoothly, they should be confirmed to play here after easter :D! I mean talk about all the luck in the world and multiply it by 50trillion and you are still not there on this one!

The two girls (whose flat in Enfield I was now crashing at, due to me completely forgetting about the last train from Waterloo), I was with had also just spotted another famous face, Jason from the legendary 5ive, was also in the same pub, and after many jokes and shouting lyrics in his face later, he repeatedly denied that these acts had ever occured in his past, and blamed it at the acute Amnesia he had just developed just 5 minutes prior to meeting us.
After making our way out of the pub after it had closed, we said goodbye to the bands and made our way to the N279 night bus stop on route to enfield. I'll skip most things as it's not really important, but we spent most of the night up chatting about shit and one of the girls drew me a map on how to get to the station. After no sleep and one of the most random nights of my life I left their university flat at the University of Middlesex, to get a morning 8am train from Southbury station back to Farnham, which cost £16.90. I did all of this travelling, a whole 2 and a half hours, just to attend my 11am Radio Journalism lecture, arn't I just a model student!
Possibly one of the most random blog 'beginnings' in world history but still worth a read, I think anyway!

Hadouken! - The Youth of Britain Finds It's Voice

Hadouken! were according to Wikipedia formed in September 2006, however, I'm pretty sure it was before this, as I'm pretty sure the band performed at the Reading Festival in 2006 unless im wrong, but anyway. Their a 5-piece setup, which is composed of James Smith on lead vocals, Dan Rice (Pilau) on Guitar, Chris I believe plays Bass and Nick plays Drums, but I could have them the wrong way round, I'm not really sure. Then the stunning blonde bombshell, who I found out on monday night is one of the nicest people you could ever meet, plays Keyboard and Synths.
They're one of the bands who've been thrust into the whole 'new rave' scene and branded as scene and all that jazz.
They're musick is a mixture of genres that stems from their love of Rock, Dance, Grime, UK Garage, Hip-Hop, RnB, House and other Urban/Dance genres. Personally I would create a new genre called 'Fucking-Ace', but thats not going to happen. So I guess we're stuck with calling them Grindie, as Wikipedia puts it.
With a string of releases to date, and the first band ever to be release an EP/Album on USB Memory Stick, Hadouken! are finally getting to critical acclaim that they deserve outside the relms of NME.
The composition that they comprise, with combining dance beats with James' Hip-Hop and Grime lyrics, makes them the most unique band I have ever listened to. There is no chance you could listen to a Hadouken! track, and mistake it for the work of any other band.
They have stated many times, they just like to be completely different and ahead of their time. Now wanting to be different from 'every other band' is an easy thing to say, and it's said by almost everyone these days. However, Hadouken! everything they do and say is different. It's as though they are reinventing the rule book about how music is listened to, released and generally accepted by people.
Their MySpace has some 4million plays worldwide, If every single time someone played a Hadouken! track in 2007 was scrobbled by LastFm we'd be looking at a 9 digit figure.
Hadouken!'s debut release 'That Boy That Girl' was hailed as an Internet Phenomenon in by the NME and cemented them as one of the defining acts of 2007; without a shadow of a doubt.
Just before they played 'That Boy That Girl' as the last song of the gig I attended on Monday, James exclaimed to the crowd, that this is the last time the band would be touring in their current state, and that their set would be completely transformed in the future to accomodate with the Spring 2008 album release.
One new track on the album is 'Get Smashed Gate Crash', which was just uploaded to the band MySpace recently. Its a gloopy, gigawatt of disco venom all packaged up and delivered to your nervous system like a herorin injection. A lyrical description of a house party you attended when you were 13, when you "got laid on the parents bed" and "get sick on the landing carpet". Their tracks are like a disease, and with no known cure to this mayhem, you are forced to hit the replay button over and over again, just to savour every last echoing rip of thaose contageous beats.
Something that I think could be possible is Hadouken! claiming a No.1 with this album. It would be tight, but seeing The Enemy being able to pull it off last summer, it could happen. Most fans are people under the age of 20, who mostly download music, so if enough people 'legally' download the album, I definately will be, then we could see something that would shut up the 'nu rave' haters right up. An act that on the gracing release of 'That Boy That Girl' showed the UK just how ahead of their time they were.
I've set up a Facebook group to try and get Hadouken! to No. 1, join the group and buy this album. Hadouken! off on the road on a European tour next month are going to just keep getting bigger and bigger this year. I will add that If before now you've not even heard of this MUSIC INSTITUTION, then fucking get on it!
http://www.myspace.com/hadoukenuk

Track of the Week
The Rascals - Suspicious Wit

My '"oh so holy" song of god this week comes from the northern showpiece known simple as The Rascals. Even though singer Miles Kane happens to be a mutual friend of Christ himself Alex Turner, they are not where they are now, simply because of their connections. Two full days with the Monkeys at their Old Trafford Cricket Ground gigs back last summer and a December 2007 UK Tour that included venues such as Alexandra Palace and the Men Arena, has not managed to mount the band a firm enough grasp to release many singles.
This week however, they launched their suposed finest piece of work 'Suspicious Wit' unto the masses of the United Kingdom and obviously I like it, or it would not be gracing this mammoth of earthly wonders 'weekly information superhighway slot'.
You can really see the similarities between Miles' and Alex's voice, the harmonious high notes and the clever lyrics acompanied by a poinent bass really kick off this song to a high note. It's a little on the short side, and personally for me it's also not the best song they've made. Listen to this song by all means, but if you really want to get a gist of The Rascals, check out 'Shades of Embarissment' and 'Is It Too Late'; the riffs on these piledrivers are so unique, even Mark Ronson would find it hard to cover them.
There is no video available for this song, so I suggest heading over to their MySpace.

http://www.myspace.com/rascalmusic

Video of the Week
Panic At The Disco - Nine in the Afternoon

Slightly off cue from my usual plugs. Something slightly interesting happened recently, Panic! At The Disco, have dropped the '!' from their name. Therefore they are now called Panic At The Disco. How very quaint. They've apparently grown up in musical terms, and after a listen to this recent song, the first single off of their new album 'Pretty. Odd', I agree. They've experimented with many new instruments that all apart from just a few they played themselves, and the album was recorded in Abbey Road, so expect wonderful things. It's also obvious from the video that, they still have their old wacky bahaviour and nack for weird videos, however for purely walking about in the middle of the street with a massive band at 'Nine in the Afternoon', and playing in their pajamas, it'll get their female fan base out in drobes, purely hoping they'll wear the same on stage. Let's hope not, and this new direction may just work.