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After a long
week at work what more could a Goth/Rock fan ask for than to have
Paradise Lost perform on a Saturday night at the local Uni? Well maybe a
larger stage for them to perform on would have been nice!
Lead singer Nick Holmes joked that he has been playing onstage since he
was 16 and has always tried to find the smallest stage on which to
perform, well tonight he told us he had finally found it. Any one who
has been to a gig in the upstairs room of the University will know
exactly how small, small really is. I've seen bigger postage stamps than
the size of this stage! The size of the stage had already been a problem
for support band Cortizone, but with Paradise Lost you had even more
band members to squash onstage.
Whether the band are normally as static as they were tonight, or whether
it was the fear of falling into the seething mass of bodies in front of
them I'm not sure. They did give us a jolly good show though musically!
Over the years Paradise Lost have been held up at the forefront of most
Goth fans. Quite why I have never been sure as they are as much a Rock
band as they are a Goth band.
Tonight's crowd was largely mixed and dressed down so it was hard to
tell. Glad to see it was over 18's though as the all ages shows are
horrendous in this venue.
The younger more energetic members of the crowd soon took over most of
the room in front of the stage and turned it into a mosh pit, complete
with stage divers. We even saw local Goth fan Kevin strip off his
impressive shirt and surf the crowd topless for most of the night! The
older fans stayed well back and let them get on with it, content to
still be able to see the band over the top off all this commotion.
I think the band were genuinely surprised as just how frantic some of
the younger fans were getting to the songs and could be heard telling
them to settle down a bit. Lets face it is one of them had fallen into
the crowd tonight they wouldn't have stood a chance. They would have
been surfed twice around the room before they could stop for breath.
When the band played their new single off the album they made the
comment that Kerrang! had only given them one 'K' as a rating and that
they were not happy at all about this. They said it was a f**king joke,
which everybody at the gig agreed with.
It seems that certain magazines have their own little favourites and
anybody established and with talent such as these lads don't get the
lickings of a dog from them. Shame on them! Don't they know good music
when they hear it?
It was good to see that Paradise Lost have got over their darker sounds
that dominated them a few years ago and have changed back to their more
pleasing to the ear Depeche Mode type songs. Hey guys this is what we
prefer so lets keep it more like this huh?
With songs like 'Look at me Now' and 'Something Real' there really is no
excuse for the clubs not to play them. The night was a good mixture of
songs off the new album 'Believe in Nothing' and old favourites, many of
which rolled off the tongue's of the fans the moment the band played the
opening chords.
As the show went on the temperatures rose dramatically and the room soon
resembled an oven. In between a couple of the songs the lead singer was
ribbed by the audience, all be it in good fun, but he could give as good
as he got, and gave them back just as fast as just as funny. Just before
launching into the song 'Mercy' he even invited the audience to make
some clever comments from the North East! The comments came fast and
furious at this stage.
The crowd turnout may have been a bit on the poor side tonight, I think
the ticket price had a lot to do with that mind. We aren't used to
paying quite as much to see bands in this broom cupboard.
It has to be said though that although we might have twisted a bit
before the gig at the price it had cost us to see them, by the end of
the night we were all agreeing that they were all well worth every penny
of it.
I don't think anyone could say they were anything other than value for
money. They may have cost a lot, but they made sure they gave a lot back
in return. We even had an encore!
The end of the night came all too soon and the band thanked everyone for
coming and for being even more Northern than what they were, and that's
Northern!
Setlist: Mouth,
So much is Lost, I see your Face, Something Real, Mercy, Say just Words,
Look at me Now, True Belief, Permanent Solution, I am Nothing, Fader,
Made the Same, Forever Failure, Sell it to the World, World
Pretending. Encore: As I Die, One Second
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