Gig Review: The Cardigans

Not many bands can, or should, get away with ignoring their most successful records in concert. But, last night, the Cardigans did exactly that. The set list for their gig at the Shepherd's Bush Empire was comprised almost entirely from their last two albums, neither of which have so much as tickled the UK Charts.

For the legions of fans, however, it didn't really seem to matter. In fact, it was the album tracks that became sing-a-longs. And, to be fair, the earlier material would have sounded incongruous. The Cardigans are a much more mature band than the kitsch retro-poppers who scored hits with Lovefool and Carnival.

Singer Nina Persson claims most of her songs are about 'love and how it messes you up', and bittersweet ballads like "For What It's Worth" and "You're The Storm" certainly suggest a turbulent love-life for the Swedish chanteuse.

But the band also has some serious rock muscle. On Hanging Around and My Favourite Game, guitarist Peter Svensson let rip with some blistering solos - and the bands penchant for metal (their first two albums contain Black Sabbath covers) allows them to give their more saccharine songs a sinister edge.

The only downside to the gig was the lack of keyboardist Lasse Johansson, who'd come down with a nasty bug. He was replaced by what appeared to be a roadie, and while I was impressed that they could draft in someone who could play all the songs, the harmonies were often unsubtle and off-key.

All in all, though, a great gig from a band at the top of their (favourite) game. As Nina said at the end of the night, "Now thats real music".

Setlist:
Drip Drop Teardrop
You’re The Storm
Little Black Cloud
Don’t Blame Your Daughter
For What Its Worth
Live And Learn
A Good Horse
And Then You Kissed Me I
And Then You Kissed Me II
Paralyzed
Erase/Rewind
Hanging Around
Holy Love
I Need Some Fine Wine And You, You Need To Be Nicer
Good Morning Joan

Losing A Friend
Godspell
My Favourite Game

Communication

Photo from Marcink's blog

Tweet

Tabloid watch

What's happening in the world of celebrity gossip today? Let us find out:

Take That exclusive!!!! The Mirror's 3am Girls reveal that the band might be "back for good" (geddit?!), because they've been enjoying tour rehearsal so goddamn much.

"You heard it hear first," the column proudly exclaims. And how did the girls get this fantastic scoop? Erm, they heard it on Radio 1.

The Sun is letting you download (bits of) Embrace's World Cup anthem in their podcast!!!!!! Don't bother, though. It's a dreary load of jizz. Think Coldplay B-side. Then, when you've stopped screaming in abject horror, have a quiet sit-down and a cup of tea.

Girls Aloud are having a massive scrap over who's boyfriend is bestest, says Digital Spy!!!! Apparently Nadine wants her current squeeze, Jesse Metcalfe out of Desperate Housewives, to be in their new video.

But!!!! The other girls are against it. How do we know? Because "reports" say so. In the tabloid hierarchy of unsourced nonsense, reports are slightly more made up than quotes from 'friends', which themselves are a little less reliable than 'my mate sez'.

Even Daniel Powter hates Bad Day, and he wrote the blasted thing!!!!!!!!! But that hardly explains why he unleashed the song onto an unsuspecting general public. The humane thing to do would have been to bury it deep underground in a shielded concrete bunker, where the contents could never be broken out. Not even by a special laser gun from the future. What a twat.

In other showbiz news, Tom Cruise had a baby, Pete Doherty got arrested, blah, blah, blah.

Tweet

Diversionary tactics

As tomorrow is Friday, you'll no doubt be looking for some distractions to pass the hours 'til the weekend (that's why you're here, right?). May I recommend this website, where you can create your very own South Park lookey-likey.

That's mine on the right. His name is Spanky.

If that doesn't get you through the rest of the day, you can exercise your inner pyromaniac by playing this game. It's called Consumed by Flame and in it you take on the role of a fire trying to spread itself around an entire town. A bit like Jordan, except here you're actually hot.

Consumed By Flame is just one of the many (free) games created as part of the Experimental Gameplay competition. The winner gets to work as a real game designer for a year (Doritos and Clearsil not included). You can play all the competition entries, and vote for your favourite on the official competition website.

And if you're still looking for something to do, you could pop over to the Shepherd's Bush Empire and keep me a place in the queue for tonight's Cardigans concert. There's a Kit-Kat in it for you if you're lucky.

Tweet

Video of the week: Star Guitar

Dance music videos. Oh, the awful pain they inflict on our tiny eyes.

Do you remember the early days of acid house? Back then, Altern8 and Guru Josh used their videos to replicate the effect of staring directly into a strobe light for ten hours. Often, a silhouetted chanteuse would warble against a backdrop of self-perpetuating fractal computer graphics - ie a screensaver. The videos generally induced bigger headaches than the music.

That style is still the dominant dance music video form, although Ministry of Sound have carved out a niche in making their videos look like tired 80s porn. (Someone really needs to tell them, and Madonna, that leotards are just not going to make a comeback.)

Luckily, there are a few dance music acts that have major label contracts some money to spend on videos. Chemical Brothers, in particular, have made several stunning videos with big-name directors.

Star Guitar is a prime example. Video directors often talk about marrying visuals to the music, but here the two are inseparable. Michel Gondry has constructed this video in the same way the Chemicals construct the song - using samples. The camera remains fixed, looking out a train window at the passing landscape. But every element of that landscape is a direct representation of a sampled instrument in the song. When a power station passes you in the video, a kick drum plays in the song. When a hand claps, you see a telegraph pole.

Like many people, I didn't get this video first time round. You really do have to pay attention to see how intricately all the images are sewn together. Watch it several times and you'll keep on spotting new things. But it'll still inflict pain on your tiny eyes. Some things never change.

Buy the Chemical Brothers Greatest Hits on DVD

Tweet

Musitellywibble

So, where have I been for the past week? Well... nowhere really. I've been hiding in a darkened room, mourning the loss of pop TV as we know it.

My reasons are twofold: Simon and Miquita have left Popworld, and E4's terrible Girls Aloud documentary.

Let's deal with these awful events in reverse order:

1) If your very best footage is 'Cheryl and Ashley get followed by photographers sometimes', you don't really have enough material for a six-part series.

"Cheryl's taking Ashley out for a meal," the voiceover deadpans as the camera shows us Cheryl and Ashley going out for a meal. Minutes later, we learn that "Cheryl and Ashley have finished their meal" and are "going home", as the couple walk out of a restaurant and get into a car and drive home. When we get to episode four of this fly-on-the-wall documentary, you can expect to see actual flies on a wall. For the full half hour.

Actually, that's not a bad idea. They might have more personality than Nicola (you know, the ginger one? Looks a bit moody?.. oh, it doesn't matter).

2) Popworld, right, was the best pop show ever made. And that includes Cheggers Plays Pop.

Simon Amstell and Miquita Oliver were ruthlessly silly, and refused to fawn over their ridiculously pampered guests. "Has a fruit ever come right in your face?," they asked Steadman out of Five Star. To Pete Doherty, "Do you ever get the feeling you're in a car crash?". Of Britney, they inquired "Have you ever licked the top of a battery?"

One time, Simon Amstell offered Gwen Stefani some cheese.

Their irreverence and wit has only ever been equalled by the ebullient mid-80s peak period of Smash Hits, of which we've heard quite enough already. In TV terms, the only presenter who's come close is Jayne Middlemiss when she was on the O-Zone. Her interview technique was simply to flirt with a popstar to the point where she got either (a) an exclusive quote or (b) a shag.

Enough rambling, though. In memory of a fine British telly institution, here is a video of Popworld's first interview with the Sugababes (v3), earlier this year.

Popworld hasn't been axed, by the way. It continues next week with new presenters Alex Zane and Alexa Chung. They have some big boots to fill - but if the trail for the new show (which features the pair dancing to Junior Senior) is anything to go by, pop TV might be saved after all. Yay!!!

A nice interview with Miquita and Amstell is here.

A better interview with Miquita and Amstell is over there

Popworld have an awful website that's full of commercials for ringtones back over here again.

Tweet

Sugababes live: What we learnt

1) The Sugababes have a lot of great songs. Even that one with Sting in it isn't too bad.

2) In fact, even pensioners know the words to Push The Button.

3) Keisha cannot sing without pressing a secret button directly above her head.

4) If we could be styled in the, erm, style of the Sugababes, we'd have Heidi's bottom, Keisha's top, and we'd drown Amelle's stylist (puffball skirts? really?).

5) The Sugababes next single will be Follow Me Home, and they are filming the video in Prague.

6) Six-year-old girls have camera phones, which they bring to concerts. It wasn't like that in our day, etc.

7) We miss Mutya's hotpants

8) Radio One's Aled left before the encore. Perhaps he isn't aware of the convention.

9) Amelle's voice isn't as deep as Mutyas, so she struggles with some of the old songs.

10) But when she gets to sing something in her range, she can really belt it out.

11) Their cover of the Artic Monkeys I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor is exceptionally good - and seemed to be the girls' favourite part of the concert. A new direction beckons? Sugababes rock!

12) Erm...

13) That's it.

Tweet