This was from someone else at the gig, and after listening to the new album, review here plug :) I tend to agree. Naked ... was the song that Roddy tried to play guitar on, I'm fairly certain of that now.
Well, had the pleasure of seeing them live last night in Nottingham, and I'm pleased to say that they are alive and well.
Firstly though, lets deal with support band 'A'. Janes Addiction. That's the immediate reaction as soon as the singer opens his mouth. However, musically they don't sound to like them, which is probably a good thing in terms of begin accepted as a band in their own right. Unfortunately, they don't quite have the songs to match up to JA. What could be their strongest asset could work against them. There again maybe not. Good luck to them, hope the voice doesn't hold them back.
But it was Faith No More that I, and everyone else, was really there to see. It's been too long an absence. I don't tend to agree with people much when they talk of an air of expectancy, but I think I might agree if it was said about this gig.
Anyway, they came on in their black suits and white shirts, except John Hudson in black and Puffy. then they did :
first encore
second encore
I'm pretty sure that was it. the first half of the set running order is accurate, the second half may be a little unordered, but not much.
What can i say. It was excellent, although I'm sure they crammed more into the venue than they should again. The band seemed on fine form. Roddy did a lot of talking (well relatively speaking) between songs, albeit in French for the first half of the gig.
Patton seemed to have fun with the fact that the place is called 'rock city', and mentioned rock city quite often. 'more new faith no more in rock city' etc. He also asked if everyone still wore cloggs and had cardboard guitars, cos they wanted cardboard guitars, cos it's rock city. That sort of thing.
At the end of introduce yourself, they started up something, just guitar noise, which Patton said he liked and to keep going, and he went into his noises sort of routine, swallowing the microphone almost. That sort of stuff. I haven't heard his adult themes cd, but from what people have said, it may have been something akin to that.
It was kind of strange hearing we care a lot again, with the 'nasa shuttle falling in the see', and all those lines. Patton introduced it by saying, 'where were you all in 1986', And as much as I like the song, the lyrics feel dated now.
Before doing surprise you're dead, Patton went on about new being good, so what did that make old, which Billy figured meant classic. And then they start up surprise ... nice.
I didn't get to see them on the kfad tour. they did a mini tour like this, which I couldn't get to, were due to tour later, which I had a ticket for, then cancelled, so it's been a few years since I saw them. Patton seemed to be more interested than before, almost back to the days on the Real Thing tour (which was a tour that changed a few of my perceptions of how rock music should be done). So it all seemed ok there. But they didn't play 'what a day'. which I *really* would've like to have heard. And no Chinese Arithmetic, one of my fave fnm songs. Still, can't have everything. Oh, and no digging the grave, which surprised me.
The new stuff sounds good. A few songs had a definite metallic feel to them, strong riff running through, and one was probably the fastest fnm i've heard. On first listen, at least one song had a Bungle feel. Off the wall, not your usual sort of song. probably got the quietest reception of the night as well :) The other new stuff I guess harked back to Angel Dust, but not overly strongly. Probably change my mind on all that when the album is released and be proven to have been completely off the mark :)
John Hudson played guitar. Little more to say. He played well enough.For the first encore, Patton introduced him as the new guitar player, and that the next song featured his songwriting. At this point Billy pointed out that he was 'rebelling' forgot the exact words, by wearing black, and Patton said to crucify him :) Course it was a joke, but that element is still there that Faith No More these days are Mike, Puffy, Billy, Roddy and 'a guitar player'. I hope that they manage to stick with Hudson and get more of a band feel back together. Whatever's best for them though I guess, but I think the world needs Faith No More as a musical force.
So, it was great to see them back. In fine form. Hope they stick with it. That gig, combined with the new LARD cd has almost managed to wipe away the misery of turning a year older a few days before, and has almost put a smile back on my face. But not quite. I'm made of more miserable stuff than that.
A PS thing. The new songs played would appear to have been
This was from someone else at the gig, and after listening to the new album, review here plug :) I tend to agree. Naked ... was the song that Roddy tried to play guitar on, I'm fairly certain of that now.