My thoughts on these are going to be given chronologically backwards. Just because that is how I feel. Yes, backwards.
Having had a lengthy drive home, which involved a wrong turn at Leeds and a tour of the city, I got home from London, picked up my man and got ready for a casual night at Empire to see Calvin Harris, the super-new pop-electro sensation.
A few tipples were consumed and then it was to Empire. Which was £10 in. I wasn't impressed, infact I think I exclaimed rather loudly "Fuck me! Ten pounds! Jesus Christ!" before being pushed into the club.
SebastiAn - Walkman was played before 11:30pm. How incredibly silly.
Calvin Harris appeared and, like, about 4 other people, which to me seemed excessive, you know, its not like he is reproducing a big sound. They looked a bit bewildered at first and then kind of fell into what seemed to be something that was very run-of-the-mill to them, i.e. performing.
Having had my image of Calvin Harris's live performance shattered on TV and then listening to the album (admittedly on MySpace, the worst way to listen to an album) I was genuinely hoping that the gig would reaffirm any reason I'd liked him.
But it was just as formulaic live as I thought it would be.
The only songs standing out at all being the obvious Acceptable In The 80's and The Girls, probably because they are used to getting a good response for those and they actually react to the crowd. But also what I am assuming will be the next single Vegas. And that only really stood out as it was the final song of the set and you could quite comfortably sing the lyrics for Acceptable In The 80's, same formula, same hook, same rehashed idea.
I was willing it to be good and it just didn't seem to happen.
Streetlife DJ's were fun though. Played some great tracks. And I've stayed for that if it wasn't for the odd and frankly quite unsettling mix of people in Empire.
They seriously need to think about how they handle these Friday nights. It's such a fucking beautiful venue. It'd be a shame to fuck it up.