I am currently sitting in Birmingham Symphony Hall at a Texas gig. Invited by friends and have had a nice evening, quite a few drinks and dinner. Until now. Texas are not my cup of tea but I don’t find them offensive. Thought it would be a pleasant evening. I was wrong. They, or more accurately her, are absolute ****.
I beg your ****ing pardon? We'll have none of that blasphemy on here. Any more of this fake news and you can have a couple of weeks break sunshine. * Nines rocks back and forth and quietly sings to himself ... 'She has a halo.' *
She has stuffed her halo up her arse and shat it out as what feels like a weak episode of Seaside Special from the 1970s. Bland songs, a truly horrible mix, no soul whatsoever ( even ruined the one thing I thought she used to do brilliantly, Al Green’s Tired of Being Alone). Five minutes of witless Glaswegian between every song. I think the assumption is that everyone in the room is familiar with and loves everthing Texas has ever done, and with the exception of me she may be right, though a couple of blokes have just walked out. To be fair it’s not a great venue for pop and I’m in the gods, but you can tell by the length of this post I’m hardly riveted. For most of it she has been telling a story about her daughter or something. Next to Ed Byrne, the worst thing I have ever paid to see.
**** knows they have between 2 and 4 guitars going and two sets of keyboards at any one time, all contributing to the aural sludge. Sorry if they are your mates, but I really am hating this experience, and I came in with a very open mind.
It's alright mate, if you don't like it then you don't. We can't all like and dislike the same stuff. Shame though, there's not a lot worse than sitting through a gig that you're not enjoying. I did it with Prince at the O2, It was bloody awful. He didn't play his songs properly and got all self indulgent. Folk left in their droves. Maybe you should do what I did when I took the missus and her mate to see Madonna at Earls Court. Other than the first three songs I spent the gig in the bar.
Tricky to get out now, stuck in the middle of a row. She’s got a decent pub singer voice, a stripped version of this in a pub might be quite fun. Even in a place like this drop one of the guitarists and a keyboard player and get a non deaf sound engineer in and it would have been a much crisper, cleaner experience.
They sounded good when I went to see them at the Roundhouse in Camden. I'm guessing your ordeal must be nearly over now?
Done and I am being castigated by wife and Leicester thug and his wife for my attitude. Just think she would be much better in a smaller venue with fewer musicians and a decent sound person, singing covers.
What's the capacity of the BSH? Texas only seem to play at venues in the 1 - 2000 (relatively small) bracket nowadays. Oh, and what was that film you recommended that you watched on a flight that you mentioned last time I saw you? I can't remember at all, I'm getting bloody old. I know it was some sort of superhero kinda thing.
Home now, capacity about 2,200, we were right up in the gods. I may have been a little harsh in my live, real time review. Frustratingly they played Suspicious Minds towards the end, and in a quiet bit with just her voice and a single instrument it showed how good they could be without the dense wall of fuzzy sound effect. I suspect she may be a little nervous about her voice and wants the noise to back her up, wrongly in my view. The film was Logan. I really do rate it. Ignore the superhero stuff, it’s about family, ageing and loyalty. It’s also hyper violent, with proper swearing. Also really enjoyed Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and 2, also seen on planes. Way too much CGI but very funny dialogue. Especially Drax, played by the wrestler Dave Bautista. And wonderful soundtracks.
She has/had a great voice but the lack of confidence in it may well be an aged related issue. I doubt that she can do the high pitched crescendo on 'Inner Smile' without some vocal assistance anymore. The problem is, is that in the old days performers recorded and did the gig and went off into the sunset. Nowadays they keep on going and going. Who would want to pay top dollar to see the Rolling Stones now? Only the diehards I'd imagine. I've just found Logan on Sky but they want me to pay £5.49 to watch it. They can **** off, I'm not giving them anymore of my pension. They take a huge chunk of it as it is. I'll wait until it's free to watch. Can't be long now. Has anyone watched 'Tin Star' on Sky starring Tim Roth? I can't get into it, it's like 'Fortitude' but set in Canada.
Having read a few reviews of Texas on this tour, including one of last night’s performance, it seems that I am the only person in the universe that didn’t like them. Clearly I have no taste and a tin ear, feel free to ignore my previously stated views. I agree with your comments about bands going on and on. Saw Fleetwood Mac a couple of years ago. Superbly professional (a completely different league than Texas) but just nostalgia, and if you weren’t into it the first time round (like me, though I love the Peter Green Mac) utterly pointless. However, I saw the Damned last year and they were jaw droppingly brilliant. With no need to exhort the audience to ‘have a party’ between every song. So it’s not a hard and fast rule. But I am learning. Was invited to see Belinda Carlisle sometime soon somewhere local, and my immediate response was ‘why the **** would I want to do that?’ And my friends and family should know by now that if I don’t rate something I very probably will say so.
I have seen NC over 20 times live now and he has to be one of the greatest living artists ... wonderful man and in fact met him once in solutions the old Apple store in Brighton as we had both pre ordered 17 inch Mac Book Pro on their launch. A really normal human being
Very good series on the Vietnam War (available on iPlayer) being shown on Mondays. I must say that I am utterly ignorant of so much of it (despite all the feature films I've seen on the topic) so whether it is any good to the more educated is open for debate. I find it utterly compelling with interviews from both sides, archive footage and what seems like an honest appraisal and good insight into the background politics.
I saw this last Monday by chance (flicking) and wished I'd known about it before. Compelling stuff. Not sure how many I've missed, but I'll be watching the rest of the series.
I don't actually know how many there are. They seem to be showing them in double episodes. It was 3 & 4 in the series last Monday. I only found the week before's on catch up.
