The last time I saw Placebo was the Kerrang Big Day Out at the Milton Keynes Bowl in 1999, when Metallica headlined. I crewed that one.
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Category: Live
How many years of my life have I spent waiting for the band to start?
That fucking band.
For all the talentless fucks who are absolute in their certainty that the way out is the way through.
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Ride, The Forum, Melbourne, November 30
In times past your author would have expressed a positive indifference to most of the bands of these broad British genres of the early 90s, and that opinion largely still holds.
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Pop Will Eat Itself, Sept 10 Corner Hotel
It made perfect sense of course, that a thirtieth-anniversary tour would perform.
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Daniel Sloss, Hamer Hall, Melbourne, May 4th, 2021
Daniel Sloss is certainly deserving of the credits that are lauded in his direction.
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2019 in music: your comprehensive and reliable global guide.
The punishment of luxury is in the air for all to see. And it’s ugly now, and it’s getting worse every day. Hey! Hey! Hey!
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We Lost The Sea, Howler Bar, Melbourne, 30 November 2019.
The Howler Bar in Brunswick initially looks like a large open-plan bar but has an enclosed back-room which is just the right size for bands with a moderate following, and a brilliant second bar which provides a windowed view to the stage.
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Gang of Four, Croxton Bandroom, November 2019
After being a music reviewer for over 30 years, and being a Gang of Four fan for a similar period, it is about time I owned an electric guitar.
So I picked up Andy Gill’s from the Gang of Four concert last night.
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The Cure, Disintegration 30 Years Anniversary, Sydney Opera House, May 2019
Disintegration’s popularity is absolutely deserving of a 30th anniversary and real credit is given to the band for having the courage and principle to have the entire show live-streamed and added to YouTube.
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Underworld, June 1st, 2019 Sydney Opera House
Possibly one of the most iconic progressive house bands of the 1990s, Underworld’s appearance at Sydney’s Vivid light and sound festival was exceptionally appropriate.
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Cryptorave: Arpanet, M.E.S.H., Amnesia Scanner — Romantso, Athens, Saturday 16 February 2019
Excessive quantities of pseudish babble wrapped around a surprisingly good live techno gig.
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The The, October 5 2018, Melbourne
A long concert, though more amiable than epic.
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Blue Man Group, 20 July 2018, Berlin.
The BMG themselves in this particular incarnation are Martin Marion, Kuba Piezchalksia, and Stefan Ruh, supported by the band of Jan Burkamp, Tim Neuhaus, and Nils Westermann.
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The Chameleons, Corner Hotel, Melbourne, 2018-01-12
It was a good-sized crowd on the night with a surprising and pleasingly diverse audience, ranging from young post-punk revivalists who were born around the start of this century to those elder folk who had been there from the original days, now more than thirty-five years in the past.
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Snog and Severed Heads — Corner Hotel, Melbourne, 5 November 2017
Severed Heads, Snog, frogs and Ikea rats.
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Peter Hook & The Light — The Corner, Melbourne, Sat 14 Oct 2017.
The last of a series of concerts, this one performing Unknown Pleasures and Closer.
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Dave Graney and Clare Moore, Gabriel Moreno — Betsey Trotwood, Thu 12 Oct 2017.
In the 2010s, post-punks will tour forever.
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The Residents, Croxton Hotel, March 2016
Certain bands make an initial mark on the world with icons.
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Alixandrea Corvyn, Amongst Animals, Near Death Experience, Tangerinecat — Dublin Castle, Camden, Thu 4 May 2017.
I automatically staked out my life-long spot at stage right, leaning on the PA. I grabbed this spot in 1985 and shall not relinquish it.
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Patti Smith’s last Australian gig, Festival Hall, Melbourne, 20 April 2017.
Patti Smith is giving up long haul touring on medical advice. But at Festival Hall last night, which she called a “shitty little club” for all the right reasons, Smith looked anything but frail.
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Links: Selling yourself as a streaming artist, vacuum tubes, indie conspiracy theories.
BOTTOM VIEW: Basing diagram, JEDEC 9A.
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Wire: On The Box: Live on Rockpalast (1979, 2004); KEXP, 2013.
Two Wire live performances, because they’re good for you.
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Gary Clail’s Tackhead Sound System: Tackhead Tape Time (1987).
“Hard Left” remains chilling and apposite. The fascists and quasi-fascists haven’t changed in thirty years.
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Links: High-resolution consumer audio, London for music sales, the worst Beach Boys album.
Audio snake oil, London still the centre of the universe, Summer in Paradise.
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65daysofstatic, Barcelona, October 24, 2016
It was pure serendipity that I found myself on the other side of the planet from my usual home at the same time that 65daysofstatic graced Barcelona to promote their new soundtrack album, No Man’s Sky. The venue, Razzmatazz, has a good reputation and deservedly so. It’s rough and ready, but sensibly designed allowing for generous audio and viewing spaces, good ventilation, and even reasonable drink prices.
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Severed Heads, Boxcar, Single Gun Theory and the Volition Records package tour.
I’ve seen Severed Heads three times. First time was Perth in late ‘91 on the Volition Records “An Intro To Techno” package tour. At this point “techno” still specifically referred to original Detroit techno; the pounding four-on-the-floor stuff the KLF were topping the charts with was various hyphenations of “-house”. Volition almost certainly meant something a bit more like “industrial”, but for some reason people then seemed reluctant to say that word with a straight face.
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Scattered Order are alive and well.
Scattered Order are an Australian noise band who are probably “industrial”, but you never see them in any lists of industrial bands, and that’s just wrong. They have never been popular in any sense. They remain good and important, however, and have persisted. Modulo a decade’s break here and there.
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New Order and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Sydney Opera House, June 4, 2016
The concert hall of the Sydney Opera House is, of course, one of the world’s great venues. Filled to capacity of over two-and-half thousand the audience were displaying an enthusiasm that would continue throughout the night. Although older on average, there was a fair sprinkling of younger faces indicating that the reputation of one of the world’s great electronic and synth-pop bands was still continuing.
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I threw up on Lux Interior.
It was mid-1986, at the Red Parrot in Perth (name and logo blatantly nicked from the New York club of the same name) in Perth. I was nineteen and had been going out to see bands and drinking in earnest for six months. The Cramps had played (the Canterbury Court Friday 22 August 1986 show, I think) and went there for after-show drinks.
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Jesus and Mary Chain “Psychocandy” 30th Anniversary
It is rather frightening to think that it’s now over thirty years since Psychocandy by The Jesus and Mary Chain graced the airwaves. Well, frightening to people of a certain age such as this reviewer.
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