Street Gigs Rock
The concept of the Street Gigs series is a novel and exciting one, then what happens is that a well known band will play a secret show on, as the name suggests, a street. This one by Audio Bullies, as with many previous ones have been in association with T-Mobile, and it is they who send out the invites to the gigs by text message with just an hour's notice about where the gig will be. It is then a race against time for fans to reach the venue before watching an act play for an hour in front of much smaller crowds than they're used to. Previous people to perform such shows include Hard-Fi, Kasabian, Subways, Nine Black Alps, Magic Numbers, Supergrass, Zutons and Editors.
The venue for this particular gig was a place called Spitalfields Market, an open ended covered shopping area to the East of Central London, not far from Liverpool Street Station. It could be argued that a gig such as this might have been better suited to a nice warm summer's evening but then you could also argue I'm just nit picking. As gig spots go though this one was a fine choice and it's nice to see bands play in unusual places.
As you might expect from this kind of show the stage setting was pretty low maintenance, a fairly simple stage in front of a van, which was parked by a café, which like the square pie shop opposite was disappointingly shut.
The most appealing thing about Audio Bullies is the variety that can be found on their most recent album; 'Generation' did get some mixed reviews but I rate it as one of the best of the past year. It wanders around through many different styles from the sort of dance music you'd associate with them, to the classic rave sound, urban, pop, rock, jazz and even a Madness style track, which features Suggs on vocals to give it the authentic touch. This live show was more one dimensional, sticking to the harder dance sound.
The set opened in the same way as the 'Generation' album does, with a brief spoken intro merging effortlessly into 'Shot You Down'. This is a track that remains one of the best dance anthems of the past year, from its time as a bootleg under the name Audio Booties, through to its peak in the top three of the singles chart, proving that it is every inch the crossover hit they've been threatening.
The next hour's worth of music was based on a mixture of reasonably well-known Audio Bullies tracks, mixed up with what can best be described as music of an experimental nature, this was as much a DJ set as a live performance.
The set was a heavy cocktail of the distinctive Audio Bullies vocals, keyboard and guitar samples and loops and hard pounding beats. The nice touch was the way they returned to 'Shot You Down' at the end of the hour, having left it half way through the track, they closed the gig with the second half and this was a great crowd pleaser to send the 200 or so present off into the freezing London air.
If you get the chance you should check out one of these street gigs, as they're a unique experience, even if you're not that into the band who's appearing. They bring the fan and the artist closer together as there's a feeling that they're playing a private show for a specially invited group of friends. Many people were turning up with booze in plastic bags, which if you've ever bought beer at major venues or festivals you'll know is an expensive option and the bring your own idea can often be tempting, I'm sure the Tescos up the road from Spitalfields would be more than happy for it to be used again.
To find out more about Street Gigs take a look at:
www.t-mobile.co.uk/street