The future of rock’n’roll is safe in the hands of the Therapy? boys. The gig last night was the most amazing thing I have ever seen in the Empire - an’ I’ve seen a few. Admittedly Andy is a fat bastard and he came out looking like a confused wino but as soon as the first few chords ripped through the sweaty Empire air -the sold-out crowd went absolutely ape-shit. Even the notoriously nasty Empire security were put in their place right from the start when Andy told them to back off as we were all his friends and would do the band no harm - cue…bloody mayhem. Jesus the kids can rock these days - body surfing and bar-diving, yes you read that correctly, dear reader, bar-diving - its the lesser known cousin of stage diving and only rarely seen on mentalis nocturnal maximus. T there were people jumping from the bar of the Empire in to the crowd and the whole time the band were standing there completely shell shocked from the reaction they were getting.
Andy must be the laziest man in rock - he kept on throwing the microphone - stand an’ all - into the crowd so they could sing the songs for him - at one point he even jumped into the crowd and although this may have been a couragous attempt at stage diving - the kids - mental an’ all as they are - haven’t developed the strength to hold a 20 stone flying Andy Cairnes. Mr Cairnes meet the floor - floor meet Mr Cairnes - kept on singing though - true professional. The next attempt at stage diving by one of the band - the guitarist - was more successful although after he was thrown back on stage there was a plea to get his shoes back - the Belfast Tinkers had whipped his footwear off in no time. Me smells a whiff of Spinal Tap. Speaking of Spinal Tap - Andy said the drummer was on the run from the Gardi as he had been caught shagging animals - so it wasn’t so much a bizzare gardening accident as a bizzare farmyard accident.
Michael was throwing all sorts of rock’n’roll shapes my favourite being the ‘blow-a-kiss-point-at-someone-and-wink’ shape which was closely followed by Andy’s impression of a monkey getting its knackers caught in a vice - wide-eyed, hands in the air, open mouthed goon. Michael was also trying to get people to jump from the balcony - the high balcony at the back - into the crowd. There was no takers and he seem disappointed.
As for the music it was a great mix of old - very old and new - and when they played stuff from babyteeth and then the potato junkie medley - I did bangeth my head. At the end - they turned their backs to the crowd and stood for about 10 minutes bathed in glorious feedback - it was just sooooooooo fuckin rock’n’roll.
If they play whereever you are GO!! - for fuck sake GO!!!! - go because it really did have that out of control excitement and intensity that the band had when they first started. They’re no longer reluctant pop stars or pretend metal - they just fuckin’ rock like a mutha’fucker.
As Mickey kept saying the whole night ‘fan-fucking-tastic’.
Yours
Steve
Bigstevemc@hotmail.com
Posted on Thu, 16 March 2000 at 13:06
