sound of the suburbs

First up Thursday it was cold, we had lost between 10 and 15 degrees depending on the time of day, and to borrow some words from one of rocks better poets, Frank Zappa, my balls felt like a pair of maracas! Still we made the trip to Montpellier. Brian Jonestown Massacre were maybe not on the best of form, too much touring, too many drugs, too much booze, just couldn't be arsed who knows? One of their big problems is that they are such moody bastards and give the impression to be playing for themselves, one of the results is that their concerts are not well paced, for example an excellent song such as 'Who' is delivered with the gusto that it deserves, problem is that the song is both followed and preceded by 3 or 4 minutes of inactivity, which I must admit has it's good side as it allows the audience members to chat freely! Having said that on the rare occasions that they locked into one big mighty goove they were wonderful. A little warning they don't like stage divers, after one young chap clambered onto their stage only to promptly return into the arms of the masses, we were entertained to a good 10 minutes explanation of how one of the guitarists loves his pedals! This unfortunately was to be a recurring theme of on stage banter for the next 10 or so numbers.

The support act The Peoples Revolutionary Choir, have a name that would suit Patti Smith or any band from Detroit in the late 60's. The six piece are London based and have already made important friends, their early demos having being produced by Jim Reid and the band have cemented a working relationship with Primal Scream collaborator Brendan Lynch. They only played for 30 minutes but that was enough to see where they were coming from, Stooges/JAMC. The highlight of their set was their last number for which they were joined by 2 members of BJM giving us 4 guitarists on stage, and here the band gelled together perfectly with a monster riff which I was more than happy to lose myself in. Check out 'Elevate' the A side of their first single, hopefully there will be something new available soon.