Its All About The Venue

I’ve been to a fair few gigs in my time (seriously) and some venues really accentuate every artist playing there, they have great acoustics, a great atmosphere, and generally provide a really enjoyable evening. London venues are famed for this, the London Underworld, the Metro, the Electric Ballroom, the Astoria, and of course we couldnt forget about the Camden Barfly.

A few miles south however, its rather a different story. Brighton is always famed for being a ‘music city’ with the likes of the Brighton Institute of Modern Music being established there along with big names who have come out of Brighton in the past like Fatboy Slim, and The Kooks – but Brighton venues really don’t live up to the acts that have come from them. The Pressure point for example, is dark, cramped, never fills up, has a tiny stage, and terrible acoustics, which is also true for The Engine Room, the PavTav (if you can call that a venue), and the Beach. The only one which redeems itself slightly is the Concorde2, which is a 700 capacity venue… so its really only a head above the rest because it has the budget for a decent sound system, other than that its not great, curtains cover the windows like some sort of corporate events venue that been turned into a goth palace.

And make no mistake about it, the goths do come in their hundreds. Now the modern word for goth is emo, perhaps you’ve heard of it, a couple of years ago I used to get to a lot more gigs than I do these days and there were always a few emo’s but they were relatively convervative and kept themselves to themselves.

Last week though, I went to see a band who I’ve been listening to for some years now, but they were supporting Aidan… which I didnt realise until I got there, meant that there would be 700 hardcore emo’s there. These kids behave like absolute chavs, and generally were just there to drink, push eachother around, and throw stuff at the performers. The only distinguishment that I could make between them and your bog standard run of the mill chav was that they didnt have common accents, or wear tracksuits. You see emo’s are generally middle-class kids who are sick of getting everything they want from mummy and daddy, so they rebel, and thus the posh-emo is born. Who are angry and very well spoken.

When I used to go to gigs 2-3 times a week I remember there being ’scene’ people, but they either kept to themselves, or just had a really good time and enjoyed the music. Now it seems like booze-britain has just spread down yet another avenue… brilliant.