crazybobbles

Tonight I went out to see Noah and the Whale after work, they’re a LONDONium indie folk twee band (based in Twickenham). Not sure why I went to see them but I did, the only song I really knew and liked was 5 years time and 2 atoms in a molecule. The name of the band is derrived from the Squid and the Whale and Noah whatshisface, the director of the film because they’re huge fans of the film, I probably liked them because of that. I’ll keep this one short since so much is happening lately that writing full on reviews and stories is getting harder, besides nothing too interesting happened tonight so there’s not much to talk about!

I was talking to someone about how a typical gig would be, well, an idea typical gig anyway, here are the main components of things I “acquire” from the gig:

• A great memory of the gig
• Some pictors of the gig using my DSLR
• A movie or two on Eve
• A few frames of the gig in action for animated gifs (more on that some day)
• A setlist (you will be surprised at how often I get setlists)
• A crazy event occuring
• Seeing someone familiar

mmm soft skulls

Tonight was no exception, I pretty much nailed the ideal goods from the gig. I was able to enjoy Noah and the Whale play, I was able to smuggle my camera at koko and use it whilst the security guard man was watching, I took a video of “five years time” and did some awesome camera dancing, I did some cheeky continuous shots which I’ve used for an animated gif, a crazy event did occur and I also met the same security guard who stood by me during the of Montreal gig who at the end helped me get a setlist (because we’re like buds innit).

I arrived at the venue around 7pm odd, desperatingly needing to pee (damn doors never opening at the right time). I had my camera all nice and hidden away in my secret compartment, ready for some smuggling. Lately it’s been far too easy smuggling since I bring both my long coat and my jacket along and have my long coat stuffed in to the bag. The coat stuffing means that the security would need to go through a lot of effort just to get the coat out in order to see the other stuff. It’s the perfect setup! I instantly recognised the two guards in charge of the bag searches, one of which was the of Montreal security man, strangely it was nice seeing him, the other I wasn’t too keen on, he had a skinhead (I’ll call him SS for Skinhead Security) and always had that look security guards give you to make you feel guilty deep down inside (even if you’re not doing anything wrong). Anyway, he was in charge of searching my bag! Rats

Fortunately the bag did a great job in frustrating him silly from thoroughly searching through my bag, not only was the coat a nuisance to him, I had other bits and bobs inside the bag (books, handheld consoles etc). He commented on the amount of junk I had in my bag and then just gave up and let me pass through, simple as that. Got to love playing with their minds.

A thing worth noting is that koko is an over 18 venue, and during the queue kids were marked with big fat X’s on their hands with a permanent marker to ensure that the bar people won’t serve them alcohol (which is pretty fair, considering back in the old days, if you weren’t over 18, you were simply refushed entry). I chuckled at how cool it was to be over 18, anyway on with the show!

Most of the evening was spent sitting down and catching up on bits and bobs online on my mobile, I wasn’t too interested in seeing the supports and wasn’t that excited in seeing Noah and the Whale themselves. I kept it relaxed and took a few shots of the support bands for fun. For the first support band I literally took my DSLR camera out, aimed at the singer, clicked, and put the camera back in my bag, surprisingly the photos came out pretty awesome, the lady on my left kept peering at my camera and mobile which was slightly annoying, not sure what she was interested in but meh. Granted none of this compares to how annoying the rest of the fans were, theres more on this later but for now, lets just say my ears have been through a lot this evening (I’m typing this at 3.52 for crying out loud! ).

Anyway, after the support bands left, in came Noah and the Whale, the security guard I saw at Of Montreal was once again in charge of the front and slowly we noticed a project screen slowly descending down in front of us, it was quite annoying since people at the front couldn’t see a damn thing of what was projected, it was part of their introduction or something and eventually the band came out to the stage to greet the crazy screaming (mostly prepubescent female) fans. The projector screen luckily went back up and we were ready to see some twee indie folk action. Yeee harr (no idea).

Now back to why the fans were annoying, *shudders*, one of them kept screaming the drummer or singer’s name THROUGHOUT the entire set, it got irrititing pretty quickly and to a point where the rest of the audience kept telling her to shut the f**k up. The surprising thing is that these girls were over 18 and were behaving like 15 year olds (since it was a bunch of girls with marked hands who told them to shut up). The shouting was bearable if you think hard enough and squint your eyes a wee bit, fortunately for photographers, squinting is essential to the job .

The show was pretty cool (crazy screaming fans aside), I was able to use my DSLR camera throughout the gig and use eve to film one song from the setlist. Though the fans were rabid and hyper, they were well aware of how soft their skulls are as well as knowing not to get too close from me without suffering a spontaneous piledriver. But yeah, it was quite a short set I might say, probably because they only have one album so there’s a limited number of songs you can play at the gig. Here’s a video of them doing 5 years time. I do not apologise for the camera dancing!

The photo condition was a lot better than of Montreal and CSS, I was able to shoot in iso200 this time which was pretty nice, I occasionally when all out with iso100 but iso200 was safe. For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, iso is the gain of the camera sensor, the higher the iso, the grainier the photo, simple as that. It was nice shooting at those levels since you can produce some pretty decent photography material when the quality is top notch. I was getting more and more proud of eve tonight since it was able to take a few shots that were worth uploading onto flickr, the one in particular with the support band joining along with Noah and the Whale too, it was all good.

The band finished off with First Days, left for a bit and played 2 Bodies as an encore (hardly see one song encores). They invited the support bands to come on stage to singalong to the last song which was nice, I enjoyed taking photos of that bit with eve. It reminded me of the time when Tilly and the Wall got all the support bands out and to dance around on stage.

13 songs tonight, nice and simple. After the gig I spoke to the security guard and asked for the setlist, he made sure he stole one for me and I thanked him kindly and made my way back home. So yeah, that’s about it, please enjoy the photos and whatnot.