Living For The Weekend
Posted on 4th September 2007
On Saturday Nicole and I went to see Hard-Fi at The Irish Centre in Digbeth, Birmingham. Except it's now "The Irish Club" and thus confusing everybody, especially Brummies it would seem on some of the forums. It's been a while since I've been to the venue, and it was certainly one I always enjoyed attending. In fact I've seen some fantastic gigs by Melissa Etheridge, IQ, Indigo Girls and Ghost Dance among many others over the years, and Hard-Fi have only added to the list.
The gig was a high octane blast from start to finish. Opening with the new single, Surburban Nights, they gave us a tour of both albums before ending with Living For The Weekend some 90 minutes later. They demand a lot of audience participation throughout the gig and got it every time. In fact I was surprised to see such enthusiasm for even the newer songs that were being officially released until Monday. They are the kind of band that are hard to resist in my opinion. They have some great songs that you can't help but bounce to.
One thing that did surprise me was the rough age of the audience. I had expected most to be around the early to mid 20s, but I would have said the majority were around 30. The band themselves are all around the 30 mark, so perhaps it shouldn't be surprising, but I had expected there to much more of a younger following. It was a very mixed audience though, both in terms of age and sex, which made for a much less intensive and aggressive atmosphere than I've seen at indie/pop gigs before. Maybe the audience are just growing up to realise you can have fun and jump around without the need for "moshing".
If you can't get to see Hard-Fi on this short tour, I suspect they'll be back for more later in the year, but in the meantime check out their new album, Once Upon A Time In The West, and their first, Stars Of CCTV, if you haven't already heard it.
Speaking of the new album, apparently the album cover has caused some controversy due to it's minimal artwork. Personally I think the album cover, along with the single cover and the website are excellent. Shows they have a great sense of humour.
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File Under:
gigs
/ hardfi
/ music
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