petronia

Usage of the gallery-posting function in lj photohosting! Click on images for 512x384 versions if you care. Or, if you really care, 1024x768 versions of these (the presentable ones) and more in this directory: http://www.kekkai.org/sabina/photos/ffconcert/ Mostly uploaded them because a bunch of girls at the concert asked. I feel like an akchul fan omg. >_>

	Metropolis interior Venue interior for reference purposes. This was taken from the balcony during the set-up for the Delays; I'd arrived too late for an attentive hearing of the Evaporators, apart from an impression of energetic cacaphony as I trekked to coat-check and back. Now, I tend to go see electronica/easy-listening acts where the crowd sort of sways and soaks up the pretty melodies, so you could say FF was my first bona fide "rock concert" - the energy last night was radically different from the moment one walked in the room. People were throwing their hands up and crowd-surfing near the front of the stage for the first opening act.
	Mosh pit crowd And it was crowded - so very crowded - and hot. :O It was like taking a non-air-conditioned bus during rush hour in summer, in Shanghai, only (when the moshing started) more violent. I actually went wearing a long-sleeved flannel top, a mid-length denim skirt and ankle boots. The boots were a great idea: they look like leather boots but feel more like ballet slippers with plastic soles, being really a sort of soft nylon cloth, very fitted, with decorative laces in front and a zipper up the back and odd buckles and trim in the colours of, er, the FF album cover. It's not too much to say that I bought them in Shanghai for this concert. The top OTOH was the worst idea of all time: I cooked like a lobster in a bain-marie.
	The Delays Last picture taken from the balcony, before I moseyed down to where the action was. The Delays (they said) are from Southampton; I didn't know anything about them apart from an impression of wussy melodic indieness garnered from some review, fairly correct as impressions go. XD The vocalist has this high, anthemic, soaring voice, and the songs are very pretty in that singularly British indiepop way.
	The Delays II No one danced, though, at least not at the mid-back-end of the crowd where I was standing. One song they played had a real funky groove to it - purportedly their next UK single - so there was some movement, but mostly it was about as danceable as, say, the Postal Service. As evidenced by the fact that I (to my surprise) recognized one of their songs from the "rainy day" mix I downloaded and was listening to in Shanghai, which also had the Postal Service and Sufjan Stevens and whatnot on it.
	Auf Achse Then the Delays left the stage, and we waited. And ran with sweat. And waited. And wondered if we'd die of dehydration before getting to see FF at all (well, I did). And waited. "You'll forget about the wait the minute the damned 'vedettes' come on stage," said a guy behind me to his complaining mate, and he was right of course. It probably wasn't an inordinately long time, even; only seemed like it. ('Auf Achse' was the second song after 'Cheatin On You', and then there was no more photography, as lighting was not ideal during '40"' and the moshing started in earnest for 'Take Me Out', upon which I had to concentrate on immediate survival. XD)
	Tell Her Tonight Terrible picture (though not as bad as many other attempts of the night - lighting made it a total crapshoot), which I upload to demonstrate where I was after 'Take Me Out' as opposed to before. During those three minutes I was thrown about and buffeted by a sea of humanity until I washed up a few meters away from Alex Kapranos' no-doubt spiffy but invisible shoes. It wasn't so much dance as jump! up and down! with the rest of the crowd, or have the rest of the crowd jump up and down on you. At one point Alex looked out at the first few rows being tossed forward and smooshed against the stage by the people behind, and actually made this "oh dear lord" moue. XD;;
	Shopping For Blood I I sound grumpy but really thinking about it makes me XD. I mean I always figure one attends gigs in fannish mode, not being the sort who'd go to a concert just to see what the band was about, but this was FANNISH MODE to a degree commonly associated in my mind only with bishounen cosplay at anime conventions. >_> The crowd was screaming with glee and jostling and reaching out like, well, rabid fans. The band seemed to enjoy the adoration, even Bob who never quite smiled and appeared to be doing a Saturnine Bassist With Ironic Eye-Gleam turn. My photos are sedate on the whole, but FF's "gig behaviour" really is a lot of fun. Nick plays spastic post-punk robot-dance guitar - I'm sorry I didn't get more decent pictures of him - and Alex has quite a sense for, um, dramatic gesture. (OKAY AM OBV. REPRESSING FANGIRLING, SHUT UP)
	Shopping For Blood II Concerts increase my appreciation for recordings, I find, and no exception here. Of course the FF album sounds as if it would be amazing live, louder and rocked-out and rhythms less consciously wound tight - and is - but now I pay more attention to the lyrics. ^^; And hearing the "everything that I hate" bits in 'Matinee' yelled out instead of sung, or the moment in 'Jacqueline' where Nick and Alex gave each other a sardonic meaningful look and played a simultaneously emphasized down chord. (These photos were taken during the encore, when I got my camera out again, and as such bear no relation to my captions. XD)
	This Fire I Setlist after 'Take Me Out' (cribbed from post on FF.org forum, as we have already established with the Bebel concert that I have no memory for such things): Tell Her Tonight, Jacqueline, Your Diary [what's this, eh?], Dark of the Matinee, Love and Destroy, Michael, Darts of Pleasure. Each single featured fearsome stompage and singalongs, or rather roaralongs.
	This Fire II Alex chose to do the band intros during 'Michael' - in French. Actually he introed the song in French, all the greater crackitude for your pleasure and edification - what was it - "dans Glasgow il y a un petit-petit-petit garçon qui s'appelle Michael"? XD Is this a good or a bad thing about Montreal, that bands who play here all feel obliged to speak in French? I don't remember FF talking in French in bootlegs of their concerts in actual France. (Photography, I have realised, is all about wasting rolls/card space looking for one accidentally effective composition. I mean he was making that kind of pose constantly, the cleverpants sexay wanker, the trick is to get the shot. XD)
	This Fire III They segued 'Michael' right into 'Love And Destroy', and then they left the stage, and we uhh made hockey chants until they came back for the encore (with the other drummer dude from whatwasit? had trouble understanding those wacky Scots all night): 'Shopping For Blood' and 'This Fire'. If there's anything I regret a little about this concert, it's that there was no way of really losing myself in the music - not with the trying not to get trampled and trying to take photos without losing my purse and camera and trying to see above the heads of the stupid tall people and OMG HEATSTROKE. But is it really music for "losing oneself in" anyway?
	Hanging around bar Waiting for the coat-check crush to clear, and wishing I had a beer.
	Metropolis exterior Exterior shot of the venue for reference purposes, and to give you an idea of how cold it was outside. I like this picture because you can't tell what year it is at all by looking at it.