Death in Vegas -- 20.2.00 Brighton Concorde II

wow. I just got back from the show less than an hour ago, and I thought I'd get it down
 while it was fresh in my head. wow, wow, wow.

The opener, Ping Pong, were utter crappola. the worst opening act I've had to endure 
since.... since, well, Atari Teenage Riot. The music was just some bland breakbeat stuff
 going on in the background, and it was three girls posing by their mics while they 
sang/pouted to the audience. shockingly bad, especially since the only instrument they 
played between them was a single drumpad played by a Bernard Butler lookalike she-he, 
and that wasn't even keeping to the beat. If I can only say one thing more about them, 
it was that one of the girls slung nun-chucks around, while the other one did Charlie's
 Angels-style finger pistols. If your jaw isn't wide open by now, it should be.

But as bad as the opener was, it just made the crowd even more open for Death in Vegas. 
The guys walked on after a really short set change (prolly since the only "equipment" 
the girls had was a set of pink christmas lights), and I was amazed that there were 9 
of them on stage (I thought there were only 2 after seeing all the interviews with just 
two of them), including a saxophone player and a trumpeter. 

So they start into Dirge, with Dot Allison's dreamy vocals cast overtop of the live 
music, and it's as blindingly good as the rest of the album, but drawn out even longer 
for the live experience. the song ends, and who walks out, but BOBBY GILLESPIE!!!!!! I 
nearly shat myself with shock and joy. I never expected to get him, the man, at Brighton,
 at this tiny club. The night nearly peaked right there, but the rest of the set was just
 so tight, so intense, that it didn't even matter that I (or most of the crowd) didn't 
know any of the songs from Dead Elvis. DiV have this way of taking the album tracks and 
expanding them and making them even louder and harsher, but still making them sound 
familiar and even delicate. An absolute joy to watch, even so much that another friend 
commented afterwards how his head's all fucked up that he feels disoriented and drugged 
after the concert, and I feel exactly the same way. Something was in the air, and it was 
fucking electric.

For setlist trainspotters amoung us, I got me one:
Dirge
Soul Auctioneer
Death Threat
Aisha   [minus the vocals, save "Gods all suck"]
Lever St.
Rematerialize
Aladdins Story
Flying
Rekkit
Broken Little
Dirt
~~~~~~
Neptune City
One More Time

The tour's nearly over, but needless to sake, I hope for everyone's sake that they tour 
the States, and soon.

melissa, wary that even Gorky's and Bluetones this week can top tonight...