Meltdown was another of those annual things, and a friend who worked for the media partner got us free tickets.
This was when the Observer was still doing its short lived monthly music supplement – I’d even done a writing thing for one of the first issues.
These were good years for knowing people who could get me free tickets.
I’d already seen Television on their 00s reunion trail, and this was somehow less exciting. Not a venue for real rock and roll, and there was a lack of edge. But still, those songs…
This would have been about the time that All Tomorrow’s Parties was getting cult bands from previous decades to reform, and Television obviously ticked the cult box in spades.
In those pre-Spotify days, they were the type of band I knew about, and could tell you the name of the ‘classic’ album, but I didn’t hear them till my final year at college when the guy who I’d go on to be in a band with lent me a tape with Marquee Moon on the one side, and Adventure on the other.
And obviously, I fell right into the arms of the Venus de Milo.
It was with the guys from the band – broken up by then – that I went to see this show.
And unlike now, when those cult bands who reform know what’s on the table and just play that ‘classic’ album, they though that their strategy was to pretend to still be something of a going concern.
So, they played the record from the 90s that for the life of me I couldn’t remember then, and I really can’t remember now.
But they did Marquee Moon, they did Venus, the guitar work was amazing, but the whole thing was a little bit sedate. For the nostalgia circuit, as for NYC punk, they were very much ahead of their time.
High:
Marquee Moon.
Drinking:
Loads. In 2001 we were basically all immortal and nothing could hurt us.
Thinking:
Why are you playing this stuff? Who wants to hear this stuff?
My Old Gig Tickets 