Heart Cooks Brain

See, the thing about going to see Modest Mouse was that I only purchased my ticket 24 hours in advance. I ended up in a seat that was in line with the stage on a swivel chair about 20 meters from Johnny Marr. Oh yes, this was the luck of the disorganized. Marianne (De Leo) convinced me that I should go and I felt a bit guilty when I ended up having better seats than her and Lods.

Royal Albert Hall is pretty amazing. There are flying saucer shaped disks suspended from the roof for acoustics, but the place is huge and ornate.

To be honest, my only though once I was seated was – why do bands even bother going to Perth? You sell out a venue like RAH and I hate to think how much money you would make. It is ridiculous. And it isn’t like London is that far from anything else. A European tour would make so much more money than anything you could do in Australia. I have decided that bands that both to make the trip to the southern hemisphere must really love their fans.

But, that wasn’t the case for me. So I sat and watched Billy childish support (funny, weird, dressed like they escaped the First World War) and then the blistering Modest Mouse set. Acoustically, things were a bit off and I swear to God I couldn’t make out a single lyric the entire night. Or anything that they said when Isaac Brock or Johnny Marr decided on a bit of crowd interaction. As silly as it sounds, it didn’t really matter that much. The level of intensity was high and

Highlights included Float On (of course). Are You Dead Or Are You Sleeping?, Missed the Boat and Dashboard. I was also very enthused about seeing 2 drummers drum perfectly in sync. Nutty.

It was strange looking down on the crowd and seeing those with standing tickets jump up and down, smoke cigarettes seeing only the glowing orange ends and realizing that indie kids in Perth have WAY better dress sense. I’m not joking. The cool kids in Perth seem cooler than the cool kids in London. Or maybe the cool kids in London don’t go to Modest Mouse concerts. If that’s the case, they can’t be that cool.

Anyway, one of things I liked most about the evening was at the end when a couple of kids who were crowd surfing got dumped over the barrier. The bouncers got a bit rough with them and Isaac (while continuing to sing and play) yelled at and grabbed the bouncers to stop them from beating up the kids who clearly just wanted to be nearer the band. He had another go at the bouncers at the end of the concert as well. Very cool given the bouncers were just being unnecessarily rough and ridiculous. I hate it when bouncers turn nasty for no other reason than the fact that they can generally get away with manhandling whoever they want without any repercussions.

As the title would suggest, this was a pretty damned cool experience even though it wasn't perfect. Despite the sound issues being at RAH and seeing Johnny Marr from THE SMITHS and listening to a kick arse band rock out was pretty much as cool as it sounds.

And apparently, according tothe late night news, this is the week that celebrates the 30th Anniversary of the Sex Pistols singing 'God Save The Queen'.

Excellent.