mogwai at leicester uni. a more relaxed crowd this one, relaxed to the point that there was absolutely no one queuing outside 'the venue' (which is of course the...venue of the gig) until like 1/2hr before opening time...lazy buggers. anyway leicester was a totally different experience to the next-day london gig, set in the massive royal albert hall. the venue was pretty small, meaning not only was it fairly simple to get to the front, but the sound was extremely tight (imagine sitting in a cupboard and blasting out your 100w hi fi system, same effect here).
the support act, kid 606, a one-man slacker show, with an impressive equipment lineup consisting of a laptop, some effects hooked up to it and what seemed like a mini turntable. in fact when he came onstage everyone thought it was the roadie doing some final adjustments, and we werent to far off either, he was roadie-ing for himself as well. but the moment he flicked on his laptop a deafening, and i mean well and truly deafening, wall of feedback came crashing through the soundsystem. kid 606 did one hell of a mindf**k of a set, loads of variations involving samples, bass beats and weird electronic rhythms that sound mostly like a computer having a seizure, but by the end of it you feel like the dna in your head has been rearranged.
mogwai played an incredibly loud set in leicester, probably due to the small size of the venue and the excellent soundsystem. they opened with the ultimate mogger tune, 'xmas steps', which was a welcome surprise, though the heavy bit could have been a wee bit more heavier. 'friend of the night' followed, played at an incredible volume which did the song loads more justice than the album version. during 'helicon 1' stuart seemed displeased with the tuning of the bass and made some comical expressions to barry and dominic, '2 rights make 1 wrong' was just mindblowing, the electronic beats were bursting out of the speakers at the heavy end bit of the song, and the whole light show, distorted guitars, everything just came together at that moment. 'glasgow megasnake' sounded a bit light for some reason, like some kind of libertines-style distortion, but it was all good. 'cody' was a welcome break from the deafening tunes in between, 'mogwai fear satan' was just absolutely brilliant, the second bit was just pure bliss, as was 'we're no here' which was, as it always has been, a monster of a closer.
videos of xmas steps, 2 rights make 1 wrong, part of fear stn at:
www.youtube.com/user/injektilo06
