A spin thing

An article in Slate about live albums that don't suck got me thinking (so, thanks to Jen Rasmussen for finding it, but no thanks to her for her ludicrous claim that U2's Under a blood red sky did not suck. I repeat my comment here:

"You're joking?
U2 suck more than a Dyson factory.
They suck more than Mr Wong's We Suck'Em Fuck'Em Whooerhouse for The Guy Who Reeeeaaallly Likes to Get Sucked.
The only thing that sucks more than U2 is Sting.
I read the article. The Pixies definedly did not suck. They rawked. They rawked it double plus live. You didn't see them? Well, you suck. I did. They double plus rawked the house and then some. I'd have paid double on the way out if they'd asked. I'd have sucked. They rawked that much."

Yes, the Pixies. They excited me. I try really hard, but nothing much excites me the same way these days. I've never heard the live album the Slate writer mentions precisely because I wouldn't want to ruin the memory of watching them (I think it was at the Top Rank in Brighton). It was one of the best gigs I ever went to (the time I dropped brown acid at the Brixton Academy when I went with my friend D to watch, erm, fucked if I can remember, but they did that Three kings song, for a birthday treat must be the best -- it was fantastic, at one point I was hearing a fifteen-minute bass solo and then a deconstructed drum (it wasn't until the next day that I realised there had been no solos of any kind when the people I went with denied all knowledge). Underworld at the same place also ranks pretty high (the *entire* crowd did an E, so did the singing guy -- he gave up halfway through the gig and just danced for the rest of the playlist). New Order's comeback at the Reading Festival (the first few songs were from Republic, uninspired, the crowd muted and I thought, yet another gig where they fuck it, but then wham! they did Temptation and the crowd went off like nothing I've been part of before or since. Happy Mondays at the Hummingbird in Birmingham (one of those bands who could just occasionally hit a groove that no one could match -- I saw them four or five times but they never were again the mad fucking brilliant stew of nonsense that they were that night). Stone Roses at Spike Island (if you were there, you know. If you weren't you don't. You definitely wouldn't want to hear a record of it but if you could bottle it...).

The Spin Doctors. I looked it up. I bet the record didn't sound the same!

posted by Dr Zen @ 6:18 pm