venta

So.. I do listen to music released this century, honest. Even this decade. However... somewhere in my head, it's always the 90s.

The annual Carter USM reunion gig kicked off this year with support from Cud. Whom I know by name, but couldn't remember much about.

Even after listening to a double album kindly streamable online, I couldn't remember much about them. They're fine. I watched them. They are, however, fantastically generic-sounding and I don't have a lot to say. Except I'm not sure I'd wear skin-tight tartan trousers with a pink frilly shirt, but each to their own.

I passed the time by playing my favourite game of spotting the least appropriate band t-shirt at a gig, and awarded it to the guy in the Foals t-shirt[*]. Current and credible? We don't want any of that there here. The game was harder than usual: looking behind me, the shirts went Carter, Carter, Neds, Carter, Carter, Carter, Carter, Neds, Carter... clearly the Carter fan-base is a very t-shirt-purchasing demographic.

I had, however, been looking forward to the other support, Ned's Atomic Dustbin. Even more so once I learned from Wikipedia that they're named after an episode of The Goon Show (an episode I obviously have never heard).

I was mostly in it to hear Kill Your Television - and indeed they kicked off with it. Sadly, they did a piss-poor job of it, with the singer omitting to sing most of the actual words. On the plus side, it's not often you get to be part of a large crowd yelling "Kill!" without it ending badly.

Despite inauspicious beginnings, their set blistered along nicely and by the time they got to Grey Cell Green I was dancing like a loon.

It also became apparent that I've never worked out before what makes Neds sound so distinctive. At one point I was looking confusedly at the bassist. Well, it sounds like a bass solo, but he's not moving his fingers. Weird. Then ChrisC asked whether I thought the guy on the far side was playing bass... it is, in fact, simple. They have two bassists. A lead bass, and a rhythm bass. This now seems totally obvious :)

A few minutes into the gap between bands, the Academy's DJ suddenly seemed to find his feet, playing PWEI and the Wonderstuff and James... to a crowd that could and would sing along to every word. While I'm always wary of such out and out nostalgiafests, there's something hugely enjoyable about being in the middle of, and part of, a crowd like that.

And to the Monty Python theme, Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine gambolled onstage. Fruitbat looks barely any different, slightly older, and JimBob seems rather weirdly to have turned into alien8. I think it's highly likely that Carter aren't really much cop live; just two blokes with guitars, yelling crazily at low-quality electro backing tracks.

And do you know what? I don't care. They're fun. And they're having fun, and so was I. I yelled along with them. I'm a 90s child who loves bad puns and daft cover versions, of course I like Carter :)

Surreal moment of the evening: four muscled blokes, in black jeans and dog-tags, appearing onstage to pull off a surprisingly-polished synchronised dance routine to Let's Get Tattoos. I never did work out quite what that was all about.

[*] In the interests of disclosing editorial bias: I was actually wearing a Manuskript t-shirt.