The Chapman Zone Dave’s Blog

OK, it’s Tuesday now, I’m back at work after taking Monday off to recover from an intense weekend. Probably not very intense by many’s standards, but I felt absolutely drained. F*ck me though, was it an awsome one!

So, after Friday’s trip to see Roger Waters, I had a slobbing day on Saturday. If I’d thought about it, I should have packed my kit for the weekend camp coming up, but I really couldn’t be arsed. I spent the day on the PC and watching DVDs. Open Season is a total Shrek rip-off by the way…

Sunday afternoon, John, Limpet, Mr Kyle and I went up to London to see Spock’s Beard.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned them on the blog before, but they are a progressive rock band, and a superb one at that. They are not crusty relics from the seventies, recycling old numbers. They have been going since 1992, and have just released their ninth studio album, and are currently touring Europe. Sure they are all in their forties (not so sure about the singer/drummer), but they still got it!

I discovered them about six-eight months ago, and have hardly listened to anything else in all that time! Their later stuff has become a little more mainstream (though still high quality) rock, but their earlier stuff is pure, unadulterated Prog. Not the overly pretentious, experimental stuff, but accessible, melodic prog, with the emphasis often placed firmly on the rock. I love ‘em. I usually hate to use superlatives for a band that I haven’t listened to for too long, as the novelty often wears off, but this band are currently up there as my favourite, and could very well stay there. If you like prog (or even if you don’t), give them a go.

So I picked up the three from their homes at about three o’clock. Actually I was a little late, but since Rob and I were so early on Friday, I wasn’t really worried about being late. We drove up to London by exactly the same route we took on Friday, except for a quick fag break at the (Basingstoke?) services. Dad kindly loaned me the car again (cheers Dad!), so we could not smoke in it.

Got to Richmond at about 5, and walked onto the wrong platform for the tube. Well, actually, it was the right platform, but the other one had a train going to Hammersmith (which is where we wanted to go) on it, and as soon as I discovered that we ran around to it, to miss it by about ten seconds. The other three gave me this look as if to say “I thought you knew what you were doing?”……..don’t know how they got that idea.

No problem, a tube turned up at the platform we were originally on about ten minutes later. We changed at Hammersmith for the Piccadilly line, at which time Limpet had a bit of an episode when he discovered the name of the northernmost station on this line:

Cockfosters.

Limpet was crying with laughter.

Juvenile!

Anyway, that was the main topic of conversation for the trip to Tottenham Court Road, which we got to at about 6 o’clock. I phoned Mark as soon as we got out of the station, and he was on the opposite corner of the crossroads at that precise moment, so I waved over to him and he came to us. Doors opened at 7 o’clock, so we went to a chicken place and grabbed a bite and then got in the queue.

The Mean Fiddler is a venue of a similar size to the Wedgewood Rooms, but with a balcony area surrounding the main floor. It is actually the basement of the Astoria Theatre (I think). It was quite full, but with space to move quite easily, so we got a drink, took up a space about halfway back on the right hand side, and waited. Mr Kyle had a quick peek round the other side, and came back to tell us that we could get closer to the stage on that side, so off we went. It was an exceptionally good call, as we managed to get up on the step, within spitting distance of the keyboards on the stage.

The tickets said “plus Special Guests” so we were expecting support, but at just after 20:00 they came on and immediately came over to the audience and started shaking hands with everybody, before jumping into the set with “On A Perfect Day” off their new album.

Holy sh*t! They were perfect! You recall my earlier rant about some live bands being too loud? Well, this was loud. Loud enough that you could feel it through every part of your body, but you could still actually hear what was going on - you could differentiate between the instruments.

It was an awesome gig. And I mean awesome in the true sense of the word - I stood for parts with my mouth open or my eyes closed, and at one point I feared I may pass out, so good was the music, so intense, so rich and complex. Alan Morse is a god on the guitar. Dave Meros just stood back and did his job without fuss, and there were some tasty bass parts in there for him. The tour drummer (Jimmy Keegan) was awesome, and he sang some mean backing vocals as well. Nick DiVirgilio sings lead vocals. And he plays backing guiitar. And backing keyboards. Oh yeah, and he’s the bands actual drummer. And he’s f*cking brilliant at all four. He had his own kit that he jumped on during instumentals, and he and Jimmy had a drum battle for about five-ten minutes which was totally amazing. His vocals were perfect all night too - not one bum note. Ryo Okumoto (the keyboard player, who as I mentioned was within spitting distance of us) is not only a total genius on the keyboards, but he’s also a total loon to boot! He messed around all night, playing to the cameras that people had snuck in, shaking hands, kissing (the girls) and generally interacting with the crowd all night, and he got so stuck into his solos, I was surprised that the instruments survived the night! At several points he used his hands, knees, feet, virtually every part of his body to play the Hammond. They all joked around with each other all night too and really enjoyed themselves on stage.

It was a fantatic gig, and I do hereby swear to go and see them every time they come over to play in this country, as long as it is humanly possible to get tickets. They really were the dogs bollocks. Honestly, they were so good, even the fact that they didn’t play most of the songs I was hoping they would didn’t reduce my enjoyment one little bit - every note that they produced gave me goosebumps. I really cannot find words to do justice to how good they were!

So, two mind-blowing gigs in three days? No wonder I’m so spent!!!

I took a trip to London yesterday.

My eldest brother, Rob, suggested a few months ago that we ought to go see Roger Waters at Earls Court. I was a bit iffy about it to begin with, because Roger Waters’ solo stuff is a bit, well…..not my cup of tea really. But when he said that he was performing the whole of ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ at this gig, it took me all of 30 milliseconds to agree to go.

For those young ‘uns among you, Roger Waters was the main songwriter for Pink Floyd. If that does not mean much to you, you are in serious need of education in real music, because Pink Floyd are easily in the top five bands of all time. Not MY top bands of all time (although they are) - but THE top bands of all time.

Period.

No arguments.

End of story.

There is no debate.

If you disagree, you are wrong.

Just plain wrong.

Don’t even try to argue with me - you are wrong.

Anyway…..after seeing the four members of Floyd reform for Live8 a couple of years ago (1 year? 2?), but only on TV. I have dreamed of seeing them live. Unfortunately, it looks like that may never happen, so to see either Roger or Dave Gilmour perform Pink Floyd songs live is an opportunity not to be missed.

Rob came round just before 14:00, and we pretty much headed straight up there. I drove to Richmond, and we caught the tube in to Earls Court. We thought the traffic would be pretty heavy going, which is why we left so early. As it happened, it was pretty smooth sailing all the way up, and there was no waiting around for the tube (it was on the platform when we walked in), so we got to Earls Court about two hours before the doors opened. We took a stroll to see what was around while we waited for Mark (my next oldest brother) to arrive from Kent.

In a word…..sod all.

OK, that was two words. There was nothing for a mile in one direction, and when we walked back and tried the other way, all we found was a Tesco’s. This was quite handy, as we both needed a pee by this time. You would have thought that Earls Court, attracting the amount of people that it does, would have had a few more bars or things in the immediate vicinity. Oh well, just find a place to sit and wait for Mark. Half an hour went by and it started to rain, so we hung around inside the Tube Station.

Mark arrived about half past six, which still left us loads of time, as the show did not start until half past seven. We got inside, and Mark and Rob had something to eat. I couldn’t, because everything on sale either had dairy or pork in it. My tea consisted of a packet of hula hoops from the station shop…

Our seats were quite a way back from the stage, right at the back of the stalls area in fact, just before the seats at the back start to slope upwards. This actually worked to our advantage, as had we been a few rows forward we wouldn’t have been able to see bugger all for the people in front of us. Being at the back row of our section, we were able to sit up on the backs of our seats without obscuring the view of the people behind us.

So on to the show.

OH. MY. GOD!!!!!!!

It was absolutely amazing. Not only did they play ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’, they also played a long selection of other classic Floyd. They kicked off with ‘In the Flesh’. The backdrop of the stage was one big back projected screen, and they had a movie running with images perfectly sychronised to the music. The hammers were marching across the screen during the first song, which gave me goosebumps (they always creeped me out when I was little!). They played ‘Mother’, ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’, ‘Set Your Controls for the Heart of the Sun’ (a total audio-visual psychedelic mind f*ck!), and loads of others, before taking a short break, and then coming back with the full, uninterrupted performance of ‘Dark Side of the Moon’, and that was unbelievable. It defied description truth be told. ‘On The Run’ was a total assault on the senses. Mark filmed some of it on his phone, so hopefully I will get some clips on this site soon. They encored with ‘Another Brick In The Wall’, ‘Vera’, ‘Bring The Boys Back Home’ (I had a feeling he’d play this one!), and (saving the best for last) ‘Comfortably Numb’. There were lasers, fireworks, explosions, flying pigs….it was just a totally awesome experience. Even the total prick that stood behind me for the last half of ‘DSotM’, trying to vocally embellish the music (he was ‘aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh’ing and ‘whooooooooaaaaaaaaaa’ing along, and you could tell that he had a very high (misguided) opinion of his own singing abilities) couldn’t spoil it! By the way, if you’re reading this blog, and you happened to be at this gig (11th May 2007), standing behind section E1 singing really loudly….just stop doing it - you really suck. In fact, don’t ever sing another note in your life. Even if you’re alone. Even if you’re the only man on a desert island in the middle of the pacific, thousands of miles from anywhere - just don’t. Honestly, stop - you’d be doing the world a favour…

Ahem…

Enough about that prick anyway. Like I said, he didn’t remotely spoil it for me, it was that good a concert. I’m so glad Rob suggested this one (and got the tickets of course!) as I almost certainly wouldn’t have done it off my own back. And thanks to my Dad for lending me his car (I’ll explain why later).

My head hurts this afternoon, but it was totally worth it. Gotta drive back up to Richmond again tomorrow afternoon, because me, Mark, John, Mr Kyle and Limpet are going further into the middle of London to the Mean Fiddler, to see Spocks Beard.

Two gigs in one weekend? Oh my god, what have I become?!?!?!?