This banana could be you! Or me!

Nowwwwwwwwwwww...

As Crawdaddy filled up for Fight Like Apes, there was a definite sense of anticipation. It felt weird, like on of the landmark shows people talk about - The Smiths in the Hacienda or Radiohead at Glastonbury 97 or whatever. The room was heaving. They played at the same time as the Concretes, but I can't imagine even having given half a thought to seeing that. It was like a big fight or something. Like when Bernard Dunne fought Kiko. It wasn't the title fight, but if he fucked it up (which he did) it was back to square one. Luckily, Fight Like Apes were not knocked out by a Spaniard in the first round. The opposite, really. Gig of the weekend.

That was this time last year. "Elephant 6 on punk rock tablets" I said. "Like a wall" I said. Various other universally positive things I said. It was definitely gig of the weekend. It was probably gig of the year, being honest. But obviously things have changed between my ears and Fight Like Apes in the interim. I'm one year less wide-eyed about the fact that an Irish band can actually be GOOD. And they put out a single I really didn't like.

So how were they in Meeting House Square, the damp towel of venues?

Great, actually. Unlike SEBP and Bats, they were sufficiently loud to connect (possibly to do with the pseudo-scientific "synths=full wave walls of sound" theory I invented out of my arse last year) even though they kept giving out to the soundman, who was probably on a drawbridge over a pit of Dublin City Council alligators.

The high points were manifold. Either I'm starting to appreciate the lesser spotted (non-first EP or Do You Karate?) Fight Like Apes songs more, or I'm just listening harder because I don't know them as well, but some of them really shined. Knucklehead is an amazing song, and must be feeling very unfulfilled that it wasn't the A-side to its Photoshopped cousin Something Global. Accidental Wrong Hole is still one of the best premises for a song in existence. The new one that's a letter to a roadie called Samuel, dispensing with his services with a double-suplex followed by a backbreaker, is power pop in a good way.

The new one with the words "lovely noise" prominent was alright... suffered from a bit of lyrical Something Global-ism in that it was very "you do this, we hate you for it". But y'know... who am I to judge, that's pretty much what I do on this blog (except it's usually love). And I hope they weren't trying to imply that Yo La Tengo aren't deadly.

I need to stop rambling on so much in this blog, I used to have a kind of concise style and I avoided the word "I".

The middle-aged man who, last year, stood beside me and Bobby and laughed completely out of proportion to his increasingly piss-taking tennis jokes (they were wearing sweatbands) turned up again. Like, it started with "They must play tennis" "Ahahahaha!" but by the end it was just like "Racket!" "Ahahahahaha!"... "Andre Agassi!" "Ahahahaha!" He must be related to someone in the band, or work for HWCH. I hope he enjoyed it as much this year.

Did I? I suppose, in a different way. Some people I talked to didn't, but I thought it was really good. The way they play and act seems naturally more geared towards bigger stage and a bigger crowd now, and that helps in somewhere like Meeting House Square. They fought on the ground and threw a bass at each other. They played great noisy pop songs with intensity. Their album is streaming on entertainment.ie from tomorrow, and fickle as I am, I can't wait.

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Winged/Wicked Things

Science in the lyrics, in the music and in the spare time. Dublin's most precise prog-hardcore band were unfortunately set-up in Meeting House Square on Saturday, thus negating one of their most prominent traits (the loudness) and leaving them a little disconnected. Bats are a band who generally successfully peddle a bag of metal, hardcore and prog tricks in a conscientious manner to people who would never dream of listening to some of the bands the members probably listen to at home. Not being loud enough makes this a little impotent.

Still good though. These Ones Lay Eggs (from 2007's Cruel Sea Scientist) is a bit of a magnum opus, flicking between rhythms and tempos like my mother with a remote control. You just get enough of each part to be interested, then it moves on. It's like this with most Bats songs, These Ones Lay Eggs is just particularly excellent.

Apart from that one, my highlight of the set was the singer (who is always recognisable in public because of the Anticon t-shirt that appears to have fused to his torso) dedicating a song to "the people at CERN who are doing an amazing job". To break the universal silence, I may have shouted "yeah!". And then looked up what it actually did when I woke up the next morning.

So there you have it. Bats. Pedagogical progcore.

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AND WHEN IT'S TIME TO PARTY WE WILL ALWAYS PARTY HARD

I spent the winter (not on the verge of a total breakdown or in Norway) on the floor of my bedroom playing a second-hand copy of Madden 03 for PS2 to the strains of Mcluskyism, (awakeinwhitechapel) and a copy of the Super Extra Bonus Party LP I adopted from the Analogue post-bag.

Of the three, it was SEBP that I least expected to get into. But lo! through the magic of the extra effort an actual physical copy of an album elicits in me, I found myself throwing it on every other night. I jerked my head to Mushie Shake, imagined I knew the words to Spanik Sabotage and appreciated the excellent foray into traditionalism that was Everything Flows.

Friday in Meeting House Square was my first time seeing them live, apart from a few flashing lights behind a few hundred sweaty backs at the very end of their set last year. It was good, but I can't help but think that it could've been better in a few ways. Not that any of those ways are in any way Super Extra Bonus Party's fault.

First off - low volume? Come on sound man! Jesus! If they want the drums turned way up, turn them way up. If music is supposed to grab you and make you dance or jump or nod your head, play it at a volume that allows that to happen. Fuck city bye-laws.

Then, from second- and third-hand accounts, the lights and visuals are one of the best parts of the set. Outdoors, lights are ineffective unless you're putting Radiohead or Flaming Lips money into it. And the screen for the visuals required a full 90 degree turn to see. So it was a choice between the band or the visuals. Not a choice that should have to be made, especially for integrated visuals (as opposed to simply playing the Robotnik video in the background).

Still, they made the best of it. It was a party. Feet were tapped, heads nodded. The band jumped, I wished the music was loud enough and I was drunk enough to jump as well. It's actually ridiculous that I haven't seen them, now that I come to think of it. I was at Club NME when they played, but I was playing elsewhere and only made it there in time for Cadence Weapon. Friends have gone while I was saving money or going to something else. I even won a free guestlist off Nialler9 once, but I was either at another gig or I didn't check it in time.

I will see them again though. Indoors, preferably

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