25.02.00 The Bluetones, Shepherd's Bush Empire ...and so continues my massive concert week... I was incredibly excited about this one for months, and since I'm also a member of the (in)famous Blue Army, I got to meet up with some really fun people befre the gig and down a few pints at the same time. The Lazybirds opened, and having seen them open for the Bluetones in September, I must say that they were pretty much the same as before. Sixties-style indie pop, and a lead singer complete with tamborine. I spoke to the bassist Ed in the cloakroom queue after the show, and he said that they'll be selling their singles off the www.superiorqualityrecordings.co.uk site very soon if US folks wanted to get involved... The next opener were The Webb Brothers, and I thought I'd die laughing at their massive bowl cuts. I mean STRAIGHT out of the 60s. Their sound pretty much matched their hair, and I really can't remember too much else about them because I was distracted by their odd do's (that, and all the pints I had previously consumed). Finally, The Bluetones came out in suits and ties with all these faux-streetlamp lights all over the stage, and a huge screen in back of Eds. I was half-expecting them to be in costume, since earlier in the week, they'd been butchers (with fake blood, knives, and aprons), and (supposedly) giant teddy bears! But the suits were sharp, and I suppose most industry folk would be at the London show for them to impress. Scott was in a sling due to a broken collarbone, which says a bit about his playing if he can still manage to rock with an injury like that. They played pretty much the same mix of A-sides and new songs that they did in Portsmouth, minus a few of the new ones (Emily's Pine, The Basement Song). All of the A-sides turned into a huge sing-a-long, and even though I was only about 4 feet from the stage, I couldn't hear Mark Morriss one bit over the crowd (they really should have turned up his mic more). A few of the new ones also became singalongs for us obssessives in the crowd, like Zorro, Autophilia, and One Speed Gearbox, that have been played live for a few months. During a few of the songs, they also made use of the video screen, showing lyrics for Cut Some Rug ('follow the bouncing ball'-style), footage of 60s astronauts during The Last of the Great Navigators, and an old film with dancing ballerinas (one of whom looked curiously like Saffie from Absolutely Fabulous) during Pretty Ballerina. They admitted that this was the first tour they used the visuals for, and apologised that they were still a bit rough around the edges. (side note: I think this was said in the Melody Maker interview this week. Muse is on the cover, and the Bluetones interview is one of the funniest I've ever read. They put one member at a time into a soundproof booth, and let the others spill the dark, juicy gossip on the deaf one! It actually revealed some very odd things about the "nice Hounslow boys", like Mark's huge dildo, Adam's aversion to sandals and bugs, Scott's klepto leanings, and Eds' inventor side) I didn't get a setlist (damn those other rabid fans at the front!), but here's roughly how it went: Zorro Bluetonic Solomon Bites The Worm Cut Some Rug The Last of the Great Navigators Pretty Ballerina Slight Return Keep the Home Fires Burning Autophilia 4 Day Weekend Sleazy Bed Track Are You Blue Or Are You Blind? --- Blood Bubble One Speed Gearbox If... The encore break took an awfully long time, and the crowd was getting really restless and (obviously) sick of clapping, even complaining about "massaging their egos", until they finally stepped out -- In FULL FIREMEN GEAR! It was really cute, and since the costumes were really hot, they each shed different parts of the costume, like the hat or the jackets, revealing their matching Bluetones shirts underneath. =) A word about merchandise: they had some new Keep the Home Fires Burning shirts, blah, blah, but they also had (much to our delight!) Blue Army scarves! We knew the band loved us and mention us in every interview, but we finally got official merchandise of our very own... =) They're blue and white "football" scarves with The Bluetones on one side, and Blue Army on the other. But those weren't even the best things on sale! They had blue coffee mugs with the Keep The Home Fires Burning bear, and my personal favourite -- lighters and Rizlas with The Bluetones on them!! really slick stuff. ;) All in all, I don't think the show was quite as good as the small Portsmouth one, but I think that was mainly the crowd and venue's fault: it was just too crowded to really fully enjoy what was going on. Which is another reason I'm so lookin forward to the invitation- only Radio One performance on Monday... =) (I'll keep you all posted!) melissa, really freaked out that the Bcc line of this email reads "scott, adam, mark", and it wasn't on purpose. now if she only knew an eds....)