Evil Noodle's blog - Columbia and RCA

I love music that transports me to a specific era in my life. Pearl Jam are prime examples.

At Wembley last night, I felt like I was 13 again wearing really dodgy clothes and worshipping anything which came out of Eddie Vedder's mouth. He looks exactly the same as I remember him and I tried to suppress my teenage crush from resurging again. I even forgave him for the over-use of scissor kicks.

I must admit that I haven't really stayed true to the Seattle gods and pretty much stopped listening after album 3. They played a handful of classics which stirred me somewhere deep inside but I really enjoyed the rest of the set as well.

I did chuckle to myself a little when the guitarist fell into a couple of rock cliches, including the classic 80's stance of 'eyes shut and face pointed at the ceiling whilst rocking out to sound of own guitar' and the ambitious-yet-cheesey 'guitar playing behind the head' stance. But fuck it, they're old rockers and they totally rocked.

I may have to dust of my DM Boots and stock up on the last few albums I been missing out on.

OHMYGOD - I love Jack White so much.

It was the first day of Wireless yesterday and apart from the (very sweet) Chelsea Pensioners gig, it was The White Stripes' first UK gig for a long while. And they were tremendous. They are without a doubt still my favourite live act. They just look so cool on stage. Meg plays the drums likes she's in a marching band and she always has an aura of being from another era. I can't work out if it is past or future though. And they played my two favourites 'Hotel Yorba' and 'I Can Tell That We Are Going To Be Friends'. They just filled me with joy.

I also caught some of Epic's new signing, Scouting for Girls, who put on a great show for an early afternoon slot. Lots of audience participation, which is brave and to be commended.

My surprise other favourites of the day were Alberta Cross. Not because I had previously thought they were shit, but rather I had sadly never heard of them before. Which probably means I'm 'like sooooo 5 minutes ago' or something. But anyway, they seriously blew me away and I've already ordered the album from their site today.

I caught a little bit of The Bees and Perry Farrall's Satellite Party. Both of which were great. As were the mighty Queen's of the Stoneage. Never before have I seen so many girls swooning over a ginger man. But swoon they were. And they received the obligatory girls on shoulders breast-flashing which went down a storm with the boys. Everyone's a winner.

It was the Manics at the Forum last night and if I'm totally honest, I wasn't massively looking forward to it. I've always thought they were a good solid band but I've never been that excited by them. I've seen them at festivals a few times and never really been blown away. But last night I was really surprised. They played a really strong, empassioned set and I realised for the first time how impressive their repetoire is. Also their new songs stood up really well against the old classics.

The crowd had clearly grown up with the Manics and so aside from a bit of drink-chucking at the front, the crowd were well behaved and the gig had an overall sense of unpretentiousness. The stage looked great and the lighting was awesome - best I've seen in ages. The boys just looked comfortable on stage - proper musicians who know what they're doing. Nicky still looks a bit like a lanky teenager, not helped by changing into a small white tennis skirt half way through. James changed guitars about 18 times and when he spoke in between songs, I must confess that (in a horribly middle-England way) I couldn't understand I word he said.

I did spot one minor celeb in the crowd - one of the non-Borrell Razorlight boys. Not as good as Jude Law so we didn't stick around this time. But I did leave with a new sense of admiration for the Manics and I'd recommend that people check them out at one of their shows, if they haven't seen them before. They're definitely on top form.

So in the end I didn't actually take flowers for the Editors boys on Wednesday to test my Il Divo theorising. I did go to the gig and it was the first time I'd been to the Roundhouse since it's been done up. It's a great venue. The last time I went there was rather embarrassingly to see the Bluetones about 15 years ago. Christ that makes me feel old.

So I've been told off for saying 'The' Editors, although it feels deeply ungrammatical to just say Editors, but I shall endeavour to stick with it.

Editors performed well with that Joy Division-esque quality that transfixes you. Some of the hand movements were a little semi-religious/80s pop-promo in style and some of the songs did sound a bit samey to the untrained ear, but they came across as a cool band that were on top of their game.

Anyway I can't believe I've got to the 4th paragraph without mentioning that JUDE LAW AND JOHNNY LEE MILLER were at the aftershow party at the Lock Tavern. In fact it took everything I have in me not to blurt that out in the top line. I feel slightly like I have to maintain an air of cool working in the music industry, but it was JUDE LAW and he was stood 2 feet away. I think I came over a little bit Il Divo then. Ew that sounded wrong. Oh god, once again I feel violated by those Il Divo boys!

Time to sign off and have a bank holiday.

Now I must start by admitting that Il Divo really are not my personal cuppa tea. However I had the 'pleasure' of going to see them at Wembley last Thursday and it truly was an experience like no other.

I got to meet the band before the show and I have never seen a more polished looking group of young men in my life. They almost didn't look real. Anyone who's read my blog before (cf Kings of Leon - 'HOT' comments) will know that they really are not my cuppa tea in the 'looks' stakes either, but I did find myself staring at them in a 'are they actually human?' way.

The audience was considerably older than your average gig and the venue was packed. The stage show was pretty phenomenal with the full orchestra set against their bellowing vocals. Boy, they can belt them out. They performed a mixture of English spoken ballads that I hadn't heard, and foreign language versions of the classic love tunes you might find on any Mothers Day compilation (Unchained Melody etc). It was cheesey as hell and the 30 plus women were lapping it up. What was truly a sight to behold though, was towards the end when the audience began to flow like an amoeba to fill the space between the stage and the seats. Woman after woman armed with an array of gifts, moved in to pay homage to the boys. Teddies, cards, flowers (someone even gave her son to the boys on the stage!). It was madness. Confetti streamed down from the ceiling and the whole event seems to turn into an 80s slo-mo movie.

Despite feeling slightly violated by their cheesey crooning at times ('Are you ready to be serenaaaaaaaaaaaaaaded?' etc), I cannot fail to be impressed by the total power these boys weilded over their audience. I haven't seen anything like it bar footage of Beatle-mania. No joke.

Seeing Editors on Wednesday at the Roundhouse. I'll bring them some flowers and see how they react.

Popped to my local, The White Hart in Stoke Newington to support a friend's new band who were having their first gig.

Was really impressed by one of the acts on the bill - they're called the Tall Poppies and their myspace is myspace.com/tallpoppies 

They looked like identical Karen O's or Olive Oils. They were wearing 'very pretty little shoes' according to my slightly pervy male friend, which made me laugh. I really liked their sound - kind of unusual, sassy, synchronished, 60s melodies. Poor description - have a listen and see what you think yourselves!

I went to ULU last night to see Mumm-ra and their support act, Ripchord. It was the last night of their tour and you could feel that spirits were high.

Ripchord put on a good show but they didn't sound too memorable to me. They performed solidly though and reminded me slightly of the Coral at times.

I saw Mumm-ra at the 100 Club about 6 months ago and they seemed very novice back then. Last night I was blown away by the difference in their confidence, stage presence, production values and general sense of pride that they're on our label.

The singer's voice cuts through suberbly both when he's competing with the other 5 musicians on stage and when they suddenly drop to silence and let his voice do the work. They really have a 'sound'. I can't articulate what that is exaclty, but I liked it and it sounded fresh. I hear they got a shit write up in Time Out. I guess that journalist might have seen them 6 months ago and not bothered to do his homework and catch up with them more recently.

Who knows if they'll make it big, but I hope they do. And I hope people give them the chance to get blown away like I was last night. I did notice a couple of people stealing the Mumm-ra flyers off the wall for prosperity. That's got to be a good sign.

E.N.

I played a minor part in organising the exclusive Calvin Harris gig sponsored by Sony Walkman which happened at Neighbourhood last night and was filmed to be streamed on Yahoo - it'll be up in about a week.

It went really well and even had a couple of celebrities turn up - Jade Jagger (apparently, I never actually saw her though) and Heath Ledger who was trying to look incognito in a hoody. Although clearly everyone was still rubber-necking really badly. I know I was.

I bailed out of going to see Holy Ghost Revival the night before which was a shame in hindsight as everyone said they were amazing live. I'll try and catch them next time. I'm also going to miss the Groove Armada album launch party tonight. I've been listening to the album and given that's not really my kind of music, I think it's very good. Plus the party is officially the last ever show at the Hammersmith Palais (even though The Good, The Bad and the Queen thought they had it). The bulldozers go in tomorrow, so this really should be the last!

Looking forward to a nice quiet (and hopefully sunny) bank holiday now. Mmmmm.

Hello

I went to the 'Kill All Hippies' club night in Islington on Friday. I was worried that I would be far to old for this clubbing malarkey but actually it was a pretty grown up audience. That said, the DJ's leading up to Calvin's performance didn't really seem to be getting the crowd going. It was more standing around and chatting, than crazy dancing yoof.

When Calvin came on, the mood lifted immediately. His incessant jumping up and down and hoodie-clad bopping over his laptop, was infectious. He was liked by everyone and I kind of believed him when he chanted that he gets 'all the girls'. Even though he's pretty geeky looking.

The band reminded me of a cross between LCD Soundsystem and Hot Chip. Whilst the set was quite short, the crowd seemed pretty satisfied and when 'Acceptable in the 80s' came on, the room exploded.

My fear of being too old for all this, was verified when I was unable to get up all Saturday and totally missed the allegedly gorgeous weather. Must remember not to get too hammered before a 12.30 gig next time.

EVIL N.

OK so now I am fully initiated as a generation 2.0 kid and am ready to blog.

So what's happened since I first signed in? Well I saw the View on Monday which was hectic. Saw some people I used to work dancing in the aisles really badly though, which was sort of off-putting.

I do eternally suffer from being a bit of a short-stuff and when the band themselves are even shorter than me, it did make the show slightly visually restricted. They sounded blinding though. And the crowd seemed to be digging it "The View, The View, The View are on Fire!" and all that.

The show didn't quite compare to the Kings of Leon show last week though for me. I think it helps that they are all hot as hell. And frankly you'd be hard pushed to find a group of men that can pull of such cliched 'rock' attire and still be cool as hell. And did I mention how hot they are?

Off to see Calvin Harris for the first time tonight at the Kill all Hippies Night. Was shocked to find out his stage time is not til 12.30am. Realised I was getting old and had to snap out of it and pretend that it's not waaaaaay past my old-age bedtime.