Stop Making Sense

I have been aware of Everything Everything for a while. Dimly via my older daughters but more recently after I spent an evening with my friend Ric and he played a lot of their music while we had late night drinks at his house. In fact, it was after that evening that I bought the tickets for tonight's gig at the Manchester Apollo.

There was a lot to like about the band: they are all great musicians and their songs are interestingly constructed and incredibly well-played. I was even willing to accept their uncredited homage to Talking Heads' 'Stop Making Sense' stage design. What was a bit more difficult to swallow, though, was the fact that when they play live the lack of decent underlying songs and - particularly, for me - goal melodies becomes very apparent. 

So while I did enjoy the first few tracks, after a while it all wore a bit thin. That combined with a very, very chatty audience (some of whom actually had their backs to the band) meant that when the Minx offered to go to the bar after three-quarters of an hour - never a good sign - I suggested that we go home instead. She readily agreed, only the second time we've every left a gig early. (The first was Wild Beasts.)

One other notable fact about this evening was the body search that we were subjected to on the way into the venue. I totally get the fact that, post-Paris, venues need to be seen to be vigilant, but I can't help feeling this is all getting out of hand. Statistically, we had far more likelihood of being one of the couple of thousand road casualties that occur each year. Shouldn't there have been someone seeing us over the road after the gig?