This post is going to be an amalgam of two gigs that I attended over the weekend(ish). The first gig I went to was to see Ist Ist at The Caves in Edinburgh last Thursday. It’s a venue I hadn’t been to before. Easy to get to from Waverley station. The Caves is located towards the bottom end of Niddry Street where it intersects with Cowgate. It’s a bit of a small venue hot spot for Edinburgh around there. Its name describes exactly what it’s like inside – you’re within a cave basically. Acoustically it sounded great. I’d say the place would comfortably hold around 300-400 people.
I got chatting to a few fans outside: Dom, who like me was experiencing seeing Ist Ist for the first time. He’d made his way from South Queensferry to see them. There was young goth Chloe and her mum Amanda. Chloe had previously been to three Ist Ist shows. Then there was a couple of pals. Two older guys, one retired, one very much burning the candle at both ends. They’d been travelling around together, following Ist Ist round Europe and Edinburgh was the first of a run of shows for them following the guys around in the UK. Edinburgh was the first night of the UK leg of the band’s tour. A great bunch of people I got chatting to. A great sign that a band will be good if the fans are friendly and chatty, I think.
Support came from Oliver Marson. Dressed in an old Ducati-badged leather jacket and leather trousers, he came on also wearing shades and trying to exude “rock star” cool. Erm… god bless him, he was quite cringe. He was making moves, twirling the mic stand around and just trying to give the air of the rock star, you know, in a kind of “fake it til you make it” kind of way but it just wasn’t coming across right. The songs were a bit…I dunno. He was a bit too 80’s parody. The first song that had me thinking it was all a bit too skin-crawly was called ‘Death of a P*rnstar.’ Some lyrics as follows: ‘Death of a p*rnstar / I saw it on my iPhone / Found in the morning / At the age of twenty-three,’ ‘It’s the death of a p*rnstar / Now she lives in a digital graveyard / It’s the death of a p*rnstar / And you’ve already forgotten her’ – then a kind of a chorus: ‘Every day / I was watching you on a screen / I never knew you were dead / I never knew you were real.’ Yeah. It might have worked had he not been trying to project himself so earnestly. It was just not working. And whenever he tried to engage the crowd it just fell flat. He was taking the disinterest a bit bad as well. If he could have been more self-deprecating or hadn’t been taking himself so seriously, it might have gone better. I felt bad for him. It was a shame, really.
The contrast couldn’t have been more stark when it came to Ist Ist – they just rocked it so effortlessly. Fantastic sound, great musicianship, Adam is a great (although seemingly quite uncomfortable) singer and the bass player, Andy, almost takes care of all the banter and engagement with the crowd for Adam. That’s not to say Adam wasn’t engaging…it just took a while for him to come out of his shell. It’s an incredible thing to see actually. Someone who is very obviously not self-assured in a “performance” kind of way but still manages to project and perform. I really, REALLY want to see them again, they were so great. I do hope I get to catch them again very soon. In the mean time I’ll be investing in their back catalogue when finances allows.
They were on stage early – their set started at 8.30, and with an encore they were finished by 10pm. I could have come home – but instead I spent the night in a twin room with Birdy who’d come up to see The Flaming Lips at the Usher Hall that same night.
On Saturday it was the Stag and Dagger. I headed into the city early so I’d be there for the first of the bands performing for the day at 2pm – Mickey 9s. I wanted to see as many acts as I possibly could. So my list was: Mickey 9s, The Zebecks, The Era, Sex Mask, M90, Kai Bosch – all at the Renfield Centre on Bath Street, then Saint Sappho at Nice N Sleazy, and then Bandit and The Clause at G2 with maybe the chance of seeing a bit of Big Special at The Garage before heading home.
Technical issues hampered some of the acts at Renfield. The Era were having such issues that they didn’t get to perform at all. The stage time was entirely swallowed up by the technical issues they were having, which was a shame. Sex Mask still suffered issues too but tried to carry on regardless. I should have had time to see all of Kai Bosch’s set and then head to Nice N Sleazy to watch Saint Sappho but all the timings at Renfield went out of whack, so I only saw part of Kai Bosch’s and Saint Sappho’s sets. I then headed to G2 to see all of Bandit’s and The Clause’s sets. The Clause finished around 9.20pm so I could have gone upstairs to the main hall in The Garage to see some of Big Special but they were popular and I knew the place would be rammed and by this time my legs had given up.
I will definitely do it again next year. What a great event the Stag and Dagger is. All that music and all those bands for just over £20 for an early bird ticket. Cannae argue with that! I recommend you check out all the acts I went and saw. There were others I wanted to see on top of that too but you need to be able to clone yourself to see all the acts – it’s both the blessing and the curse of an event like this. I filmed a little bit of everyone except for Saint Sappho – I was too far back and couldn’t get a clear view of them.
I was back home by 10.45pm – legs absolutely throbbing and aching to fark!
I have a wee break now until Saturday night when The Anchoress finally returns to Glasgow to perform at the CCA. It’s going to be fantastic!
