Sunday, October 17, 2010

Marry me Strickland...again!

Listening to: 'This Love (Will Be Your Downfall)' by Ellie Goulding [Lights]

You may recall that I've proposed to Mr Banks before. You may also recall that I got myself a ticket to his gig at the Cambridge Corn Exchange a while back. When I booked the ticket, I thought that by now I'd be living in London with some new letters at the end of my name, searching for jobs. I'm still here, though, rocking the 'PseudoRandom is an epic fail' vibe...so all I had to do was walk around the back of my department to the concert venue.

After some initial hassle with seetickets (seriously, Ticketmaster is so much better), I made my way into the hall. I'll admit it was a bit weird...not because I was alone or 'cos I had literally just walked out of my lab...but 'cos I'd only been to the Corn Exchange twice before, and one of those visits was for the university-wide Health and Safety briefing *groan*. Can someone say 'major buzz kill'?

But back to the gig. The support act was Clare Maguire. I'd heard her single Ain't Nobody (check out the amazing Breakage remix too), so I was looking forward to her set. I have to say her other songs weren't as memorable (maybe I need a few more listens) but OH MY GOD her voice. So powerful, so rich, so...oh I dunno. It just grabbed my insides and didn't let go until the end of each song. And I could definitely sense that she was channelling Florence with the flowing dress and the wavy hands, which is definitely not a bad thing (although I'm not sure what the writhing on the floor bit was about).
Clare Maguire and her cape-y dress
Anyhoo, her set finished at around 8.30 and then by about 10 past 9, the lights went back down. Everyone thought it would be Plan B himself, but it wasn't. Instead, it was the absolutely fabulous FaithSFX. WOW. Anyone who can beatbox tracks by Chris Brown, Lil' Wayne and Tinie Tempah, and then freestyle with helicopter and explosion noises and Arnie impersonations gets my vote. He kept the crowd entertained for a good few minutes, and then introduced Plan B and the band.
FaithSFX beatboxing his way to my heart
The brilliant band
Now the problem with this 'review' is that I've only just got to the main act, and I've already run out of superlatives. I shall have to resort to OMGWTFBBQ...'cos there really isn't any other way to express how 'out of this world' Plan B's set was. 10 out of the 13 album tracks, including a reggae version of Prayin'; an unreleased track; a revamped version one of the more popular tracks from his first album, Charmaine; a complete reworking of Paolo Nutini's Coming Up Easy...and a phenomenal soul medley with stuff like Tracks of My Tears, My Girl and Stand By Me. It doesn't stop there though, 'cos half way through Stand By Me, FaithSFX came back on stage and the set went into dubstep mode. I had never heard Stand By Me or Ain't No Sunshine done in a dubstep style, but now I wanna hear them again. The soul medley was followed by a dubstep remix of Seal's Kiss From a Rose, and then Eminem's Forgot About Dre. As predicted, he finished with Stay Too Long...and while the crowd was moshing away in the pit, Plan B and FaithSFX were having their own moshing session on stage...while still performing, mind you! The atmosphere was incredible.
*hubba hubba*
So yes, I have now fallen even more in love with Plan B, if that was at all possible. As I announced on twitter soon afterwards, that was officially the best gig I have ever been to. And to top it all off, Plan B retweeted me! Oh don't look at me like that...how many famous people have retweeted your tweets, eh? :P

1 comment:

  1. I am so jelaous! The fact that he retweeted you and the fact you went to this amazing gig! (But to be fair, I am not a tweeter so I'll probably just fall off the bandwagon!)

    I <3 dubstep btw! :)

    ReplyDelete

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