So I'm finally back from the industrial town of my dreams, with the certainty that it -is- in fact the industrial town of my dreams and that I wish to move there, ASAP, preferably right this moment; planting myself, perhaps, next to a train station to hear the trains as they come in and/or pass. After being told by countless people how Manchester is not worth a visit, how it's a place maybe relevant for soccer fans and not much else, I've gone there properly (lured effectively by both its smothering aura of creativity and what I'll report shortly). Firstly, I was blown away by the intensity of the sky's blue (in the places you could see it, clouds are an "issue"). Maybe I was just there on a lucky day, but the colous radiated at me like I've not seem them glow since South Africa. Wedel now seems like a dull sketch of dirty gray: Disgusting and irrelevant. Get your colour shock here So, just why was I in Manchester in the first place? Surely not only to see how right I am about its beauty and to defy all claims otherwise? *grin* Yeah, that's right, I didn't go to Manchester for Manchester's sakes, though my curiosity in the matter did it's part to aid. I went to The Bridgewater Hall (click) to see this 'ere gig. It's the first concert of anyone I've ever been to, so that this happens to be one of the only gigs that 50% of Luxuria and 50% of ShelleyDevoto (read: Howard Devoto) is doing lately just makes it that much more special. Another plus is Pete Shelley's appearance - as his name suggests, yes, he, too, is 50% of ShelleyDevoto. One could now draw a very simple conclusion from these two facts... and one would be correct. But I'll get to that in a bit. ^_^ Firstly, I don't know anything about Mark E Smith and John Cooper Clarke (or most music that isn't related to @440, in fact), so asking me questions about what they performed is probably a bad idea. What I can say is that John was very humourous and focussed mostly on the "Words" aspect of the evening; same with Mark E Smith, though the chap (regrettably not at best physical health - it was a surprise he was able to come at all, I assume, he was brought in with a wheelchair :( ) put quite a lot more effort into it, and juggled with often neglected background noise effects. The static in the speakers was a bit disheartening, though, since it made him hard (and in parts impossible) to understand. But then, that's not what I was there for. Shelley bounced onto the stage as the second to perform, just after Mark. He recalled, for the audience, the songs of Buzzcocks - and, apparently far less popular than him who performed before him, taunted the crowd by going a bit further into the "Words" aspect than he had originally intended (note subtext of the poster photograph). Not a happy Shelley. Clarke, third to perform, wasn't my cup of tea, so I'll skip that. When Devoto came onto the stage, though, the evening turned from a punk rock reminiscing style of an event into an electronica evening instantly. His first track was his interpretation of "Hound Dog" - ending with the proud question of "Isn't that the sexiest version of Hound Dog you've ever heard?". Hello, Devoto, we see you're back, as humble as ever. :D Of course, there is little seriousness behind it. From what I could tell, and have heard, Devoto has long since been disappointed by music and paticularily audiences. He performs aloofly, distanced, with a passion that describes the joy he takes out of singing and neglects to include the audience at all. I fell most violently in love with that very egoism the second he started. Shelley joined him towards the end, to help perform Buzzkunst, the ShelleyDevoto album. It was their evening, without the crowd, without the audience. A very happy Neike sat with "Luxuria - Unanswerable Lust", "Luxuria - Beast Box" and "ShelleyDevoto - Buzzkunst" on her lap, fingers wrapped eagerly around a digital camera - wary of the staff, who had said photography was disallowed. Neike, of course, being the evil criminal she is, didn't care - she did have the decency to turn off the flash, though, as not to disturb either audience or artists. </third person self-reference> "I used to have a band back in the 80s with a very good friend of mine, Noko, called Luxuria. We made two albums, of which I paticularily liked the outcome of the second one, Beast Box. (scowl) Just that only about three people bought it." (paraphrased, 'xcept for the last sentence; I protested loudly, by the way) I'm surprised the top of my head remained in place, I was grinning so broadly at the fact that my two favorite Devoto-including bands (his two most recent) were given this exposure - there was ShelleyDevoto in full, live, energetic splendor, making me question their age of 50+ and filing them instead in the category of 30-40; and then there was Luxuria, as spoken word, Devoto's interpretation of "Words and Music", turning what used to be sung into an emotional storytelling, reading out of his notes as if telling a bed time story to a child. The absolutely exhilerating, captivating show was far, far too short. I fled the seat I had as soon as it was over to seek out Devoto off-stage to harrass him, but... no luck. My CDs have come back unmarked. Pity - I'm strangely sure he would've been delighted to meet a fan of his that isn't even 20 yet; I'm sure it would've pleasantly surprised him. The evening was saved when my violent waving around of an A4 paper reading "SBBS.com (www.shotbybothsides.com) Neike =>" reaped results and I met her who calls herself S-G, followed closely (after another attempt to hunt down Devoto) by me bumping into the swedish "kafkas_unfulfilling_muse" (kafkasa). I left Manchester this morning, heartbroken. Both my new found love (Devoto) and my new found home (Manchester) I'd be leaving behind. Woe. But right now, I'm drifting in the bliss of the acidjazz that is Buzzkunst, and remembering oh so well how very real it all was less than 50 hours ago. Neike Happy Now. =)