What a way to end it all – 2008 in gigs

As the shackles of essays are untied and the end of the autumn term sentence arrives i find myself drinking earlier, watching vintage cinema and seemingly updating this blog. As a slight diversion I’ve decided to muse and reminisce on the year past, the cultural peaks and troughs of a misspent time.

Most of mes temps libres was passes with the help of Gin. Probably the best party was a friend’s Cluedo do in St Maur Creteil which was Gin Martini’s, Monocles and Charles Trenet; my 21st was spent with 52 playing cards, tonic, lime and predictably, Gin; music festivals were fuelled on it; films were blurred by it. If my outlook on 2008 could have been influenced by one thing, it would be Mothers Ruin.

On a wild hangover, soothed by Catalonian chorizos (thanks to Amy y Guillaume) I saw Scout Niblett play the  Edifici Fòrum, Barcelona as part of Primavera Sound. There’s something revered about this venue, but anyway, it’s huge. Its size allowed the sound to reverberate for an instance and then disappear. Emma played guitar so articulately I cried for the majority of the show. She could float from undercurrent to ocean spray, from dark to light with the deftest touch. The abundance of style and familiar aesthete that trickled through each song destroyed the preconceptions built up over the years of watching the band in sticky haunts. Instead I watched on  from the cheap seats up top (‘Scout’ is taken from To Kill a Mockingbird, which in hindsight makes my experience quite ironic. No…? Just me then).

After some serious investigative journalism (which can be quickly corrected with long sentences, self-conscious inserts and som por spelling), it turns out that they were exhausted and nervous during the show, having real trouble with the stage monitors to the extent that they couldn’t hear the guitar and had no idea how it sounded – so they get a prize for perseverance or something.

The live nadir of 2008 has to be Silver Apples @ The Roadhouse, Manchester – which I wrote an appauling article about in September due to a fuck-em-all mindset induced by the gig and which I couldn’t escape before the deadline. The article makes my case clear enough and needs little introduction, all that could be said is that I do like Silver Apples (a lot) it’s just how I felt at the time, written in objective prose.