Gig Reviews
Now It's Overhead / Beep Beep / Broken Spindles
@ Rescue Rooms, Nottingham - 12/08/04
Pictures this way...

The Saddle Creek label has some great bands. Cursive, Bright Eyes, the Faint, Desaparacidos. The three billed tonight aren't so well known, which is really the point of this sampler tour from the Omaha label. Let us investigate.


This is the best selection of badges I've ever seen. There must be 5,000 in this box, from all over the place. Belle and Sebastian rub badgey shoulders At The Drive-In, Spongebob Squarepants rubs square pants with Kyuss. For the last hour and a half we've been sat in the corner listening to the metallic, listless ocean sound of skinny indie kids in skinny dotty tops running their hands through an enormous cardboard box of badges. What we should be listening to is one of the three bands on the bill, but they're taking their time in coming onstage. Perhaps this is because this venue only has about thirty people in it.

Ok. I've bought my badges. I'm ready for the entertainment now. Come on, it's half past nine.

The Broken Spindles. One of these two guys plays bass in the Faint. I'm guessing it's the tall spaniel-haired guy who's standing with his legs very close together. That other guy, the guy playing guitar, he looks a little too itchy and twitchy to be in the Faint. He looks a little sick. He's just standing there, shining in oily sweat, smiling an ill kind of a smile; every now and then bursting into a flurry of string bashing, excellent string bashing. A much better aural experience than what the skinny guy's achieving with that synthesiser. But we're not supposed to be looking at them, we're supposed to be looking at the "multimedia extravaganza" in the middle. Apparently the Faint guy is a video artist too.

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