or like how you would expect a band to look who have had to cancel half of their
tour and been thrown out on their ear. They did look very young though. I was
watching Euros before he came on stage and he looked ever so wee and slight, Megan
too, but Euros especially. He looked a tad pissed off as well to start with, but
not as pissed off as he'd looked earlier in the evening when my friend nearly
tripped him up when were causing an obstruction by sitting on the floor. John
had his Broadcast T- shirt on, just for a change, and yes, someone yelled Peanut
Dispenser to which Euros replied "no sorry I can't do that one" in a mildly amused
and When Are You Going To Stop Asking For That Bloody Song type way. The set seemed
exceedingly short, probably because I wasn't being squashed to death and having
trouble breathing due to the distinct lack of any kind of moshpit. Merched got
a few heads snapping back and forth, as did Meirion Wyllt and parts of Heart Of
Kentucky but on the whole the crowd were fairly demure. I had to restrain myself
from singing along (all of the time) because I looked a twat, but it was a very
difficult thing to do. After Not Yet Euros introduced the band with his usual
mutterings that you can only really hear if you concentrate as "we are Gorky's
Zygotic Mynci" as though everyone had infact bought their tickets by mistake,
or possibly for Olivia Tremor Control (who by the way were not good, a little
boring except for when they filtered in funny sound effect things but they didn't
do that very much.) Yes, anyway. He seemed to be in a bit of a dither saying this
first song is called The Tidal Wave, oh that was the first one, that was not yet,
but this is now - you get the picture and then muddling up the set order later
on with Heywood Lanes and The Poor Ditching Boy, a beautiful cover of a Richard
Thompson song which he seemed quite sheepish about and apologised for playing.
John got through a large number of different guitars over the course of the
evening, and even the other Euros had two different drum kits, welt aright,
one was a solitary steel drum. Out of a set of 1 2 songs six were from Gorky
5 (Not Yet, Hush The Warmth, Let's Get Together, Sweet Johnny, The Tidal Wave,
and Catrin) and the rest from Barafundle (Diamond Dew, Meirion Wyilt, and Heywood
Lanes) bar Heart of Kent, as it says on my set list (yeay finally got one. Tenth
time lucky), Merched... and the aforementioned Poor Ditching Boy. Sweet Johnny
was fantastic and had Euros clicking his fingers into his mic at the start and
removing both feet from the ground for large bits of it. I was trying to take
some photos of them but they all move around a lot in either a sort of swayey
way (Megan, and sometimes John) or a frenzied jumping and disjointed, but perfectly
in time way (Euros), hence why these aren't great. I'm not going to take pictures
again, I say now, but possibly I will, as Euros looked SO pissed off when I
did one at the start. The spazz out section for Sweet Johnny certainly spazzed
out with the band going mental making noise and banging on their respective
instruments as hard as they possibly could without breaking them and then back
into it's lovely tune. Olivia TC had sort of tried something similar earlier
but it didn't work. Sweet Johnny really worked last night. Really worked. The
highlight of the evening had to be Hush The Warmth though.
Maybe.
Oh I don't know, Poor Ditching Boy was pretty amazing too, infact it was all incredible, but Hush The Warmth is such a great song, easily my favourite on Gorky 5. Euros sang the words in a different order to the album version (NB. I have restrained myself from saying he got the words wrong, because blatantly he can do what he likes with them because they are his) and exchanged grins with John in a conspiratorial manner, but it really kicked ass.
I fucking hate Mercury- Hush The Warmth was going to be the next single, AND
to make it even worse they were thinking of backing it with Poor Ditching Boy.
The night came to an end all too soon with Heart of Kentucky and they didn't
play an encore which I have rather come to expect of Gorky's, which isn't just
me taking them for granted as I have seen John stash his trombone by his side
of the stage, follow the set list meticulously, then play an encore with a song
that demands it's usage. Whether they were tired or the Fleece were being stringent
I don't know. People were clapping for ages, but alas it was not to be.
If you don't do anything else with the rest of your life go and see Gorky's live when they next go on tour because they are just incredible.
(WARNING: pyschophantism doesn't end here).
