david uk
12-02-2007, 09:14 AM
oh dear, oh dear, this was bloody awful....
I am a long term fan of Marc Almond and went to see him last night. It was terrible, absolutely awful, but through no fault of Marc's.
Since his remarkable recovery from his motorbike accident and coma Mr A has enjoyed a resurgence i popularity and sold out numerous shows.
In contrast to his younger days, he has now taken to playing largely seated venues apart from the few standing gigs he did last summer, culminating in the excellent Shepherd's Bush Empire birthday show in front of 2,500 fans and friends.
His upcoming shows are in really quite nice places, St.David's Hall in Cardiff, Buxton Opera House, Indig02 in the 02 arena etc....
BUT
Birmingham Academy 2 is the PITTS, a small, smelly, grotty room under a shopping mall, a room painted all in black with a small stage added as an afterthought.
When Marc came on stage to the opening bars of "Stardom Road", he edged his way around the instruments to his place wedged against the piano, looked out at the audience and gestured around the rooom mouthing the words "what the ****???"
After the opening song he chatted a bit, with a mixture of severe annoyance and laughter saying "After a career spanning 27 years, I find myself in the corner of a dingy room shoved into the corner by the bar." He said that heads will roll when he finds out who is responsible for the booking...
Indeed it was an awful place... no room at all for him to move on stage, or for any decent lighting, and if you were more than 2 rows from the front you couldn't see a thing. My friend Kate said she caught an occasional glimpse of his head, or his arm but apart from that, nada. Awful.
And they crammed 400 people into that small room- it was heaving, and so hot you could hardly breathe.
Add to this the fact that Marc was recovering from a heavy bout of flu which had led him to cancel a show in Sweden last week. He really didn't look that well... to add insult to injury he had asked for some tissues to blow his nose and everyone laughed as he brandished on high the toilet roll they'd given him.
He did his best to create a good atmosphere in spite of his health and the surroundings tho, at one point referring to the title of his recent album Stardom Road, saying "When I look around me I think I must be on the way back down Stardom Road now"
He stumbled through a few of the songs, clearly not at ease, but seemed so determined not to be got down by everything that he threw his heart into the second half of the set with tremendous energy, his voice soaring, less and less affected by his flu "I've decided to sweat this thing out tonight" he said, and he had the crowd singing along. His version of Dusty Springfield's "I close my eyes and count to ten" was storming, and his unreleased self-penned piano number "Lavender", about growing up gay in 60s/70s England was superb, and had people hanging on every syllable.
I moved to the back of the room near the end to escape the heat, and met Kate, who said she'd hardly caught a glimpse of him, but that he was "f****g good!" (first time she'd seen or rather "heard" him).
To cap it all, Marc had to finish the show early due to a curfew, so he had to cut a good few songs out of the set "cos there's a bloody disco downstairs afterwards!"
I've seen Marc 29 times now, and this was the first time I can say I did not enjoy a Marc Almond concert. But bravo Marc for pulling out all the stops and giving it your all in spite of illness and a terrible venue.
I'm sure the other venues are much more suitable.
I am a long term fan of Marc Almond and went to see him last night. It was terrible, absolutely awful, but through no fault of Marc's.
Since his remarkable recovery from his motorbike accident and coma Mr A has enjoyed a resurgence i popularity and sold out numerous shows.
In contrast to his younger days, he has now taken to playing largely seated venues apart from the few standing gigs he did last summer, culminating in the excellent Shepherd's Bush Empire birthday show in front of 2,500 fans and friends.
His upcoming shows are in really quite nice places, St.David's Hall in Cardiff, Buxton Opera House, Indig02 in the 02 arena etc....
BUT
Birmingham Academy 2 is the PITTS, a small, smelly, grotty room under a shopping mall, a room painted all in black with a small stage added as an afterthought.
When Marc came on stage to the opening bars of "Stardom Road", he edged his way around the instruments to his place wedged against the piano, looked out at the audience and gestured around the rooom mouthing the words "what the ****???"
After the opening song he chatted a bit, with a mixture of severe annoyance and laughter saying "After a career spanning 27 years, I find myself in the corner of a dingy room shoved into the corner by the bar." He said that heads will roll when he finds out who is responsible for the booking...
Indeed it was an awful place... no room at all for him to move on stage, or for any decent lighting, and if you were more than 2 rows from the front you couldn't see a thing. My friend Kate said she caught an occasional glimpse of his head, or his arm but apart from that, nada. Awful.
And they crammed 400 people into that small room- it was heaving, and so hot you could hardly breathe.
Add to this the fact that Marc was recovering from a heavy bout of flu which had led him to cancel a show in Sweden last week. He really didn't look that well... to add insult to injury he had asked for some tissues to blow his nose and everyone laughed as he brandished on high the toilet roll they'd given him.
He did his best to create a good atmosphere in spite of his health and the surroundings tho, at one point referring to the title of his recent album Stardom Road, saying "When I look around me I think I must be on the way back down Stardom Road now"
He stumbled through a few of the songs, clearly not at ease, but seemed so determined not to be got down by everything that he threw his heart into the second half of the set with tremendous energy, his voice soaring, less and less affected by his flu "I've decided to sweat this thing out tonight" he said, and he had the crowd singing along. His version of Dusty Springfield's "I close my eyes and count to ten" was storming, and his unreleased self-penned piano number "Lavender", about growing up gay in 60s/70s England was superb, and had people hanging on every syllable.
I moved to the back of the room near the end to escape the heat, and met Kate, who said she'd hardly caught a glimpse of him, but that he was "f****g good!" (first time she'd seen or rather "heard" him).
To cap it all, Marc had to finish the show early due to a curfew, so he had to cut a good few songs out of the set "cos there's a bloody disco downstairs afterwards!"
I've seen Marc 29 times now, and this was the first time I can say I did not enjoy a Marc Almond concert. But bravo Marc for pulling out all the stops and giving it your all in spite of illness and a terrible venue.
I'm sure the other venues are much more suitable.