Being a law geek who ventures outside the house only to go to occasional classes and to buy DVDs, it may come as some surprise to say that I’ve never been to a gig before. I told this to my fellow PartB people and most of them nearly had a heart attack or a stroke with shock – the music editors nearly spontaneously combusted right there in the office, quite the fire hazard. This was all a big preface to the news that I was in fact going to my first gig sometime next week, to see Los Campesinos! at KOKO, of which I was almost compelled to write an article to get a newbie’s take on gigging.
The night started off on a sombre note, with one of my friends reminding me of how shit LC! are and how I was going to have a horrible time and that I would regret going and other such put-me-downs. He quickly shut up when we changed the subject to his own deficiencies in musical taste. S Club 7 was mentioned…
And with that, me and my guides in ‘gigging initiation’ were on our way to KOKO. Upon arriving – two hours late, which is apparently normal, and missing both support acts – I was slightly surprised to find that my conservative attire of a shirt and jeans was not completely out of the ordinary. Having expected the cast of Skins to have procreated with the cast of Misfits in a gigantic Topman orgy and release their spawn in KOKO, it was pleasantly surprising to see at least one pair of normal jeans for every five/six pairs of skinny jeans. Take that, me, for relying on ignorant stereotypes!
Before the gig started, I kept asking inane questions like: “How will we know when they come on?”, “Will there be something telling me to turn my phone off”, “What about photos, aren’t there copyright restrictions?” Suffice to say, these didn’t go down well, and the groupies and fans alike kept glaring at me to shut the fuck up. But before I could be lynched and have my decapitated head placed on a spike outside the Tower of London, the band themselves came on to a deafening cacophony of cheers.
So, to the gig, which was, contrary to the expectations my disgruntled friend had put in my head, really very excellent. Despite my concerns that he’d be too shouty, Gareth Campesinos! kept his vocal chords remarkably in check, taking care only to vocally explode when the emotion of the song deemed it strictly necessary To make up for this, he proved his flexibility by occasionally gyrating quite provocatively around the stage. On top of this, the song selection was really good, managing to get a mixture of hits from their previous albums and most of the hits from their new album. The only slight niggle on my part was that they replaced the sublime “We’ve Got Your Back” with the less sublime “I Just Sighed. I Just Sighed, Just So You Know.” This was simply a minor blip in an otherwise flawless set.
The only thing that slightly marred the whole experience was the lesbian couple standing in front of me who had obviously no desire to be there, and decided to drown in their disappointment by eating each other’s faces off via every orifice. Upon being accidentally touched by one of them – who proceeded to not apologise and not make any movement, thinking that my leg was some body part of her partner – I quickly moved away, gaining some irrational homophobic stare for not submitting to their disillusioned foreplay.
But, apart from that, the whole experience was really very good. On being chided by the nameless S Club 7 friend when I returned, I simply retorted with the best retort one can retort with: Fuck off!
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