Paperjam

The Aliens at Birmingham Academy 2

Gigs // Jim // 14th June 2007

I could have this wrong, but I think it is in the under rated black comedy, Mad Dog and Glory, De Niro’s down-trodden character responds testily to someone “I am alone – I’m not lonely”. It is a great bit of acting – clearly he is a very lonely man. The reason I mention is that the although I do a lot of things on my own (insert any number of jokes here) I don’t really like going to gigs on my own. I had two tickets for The Aliens, but no-one was able to go and I wasn’t sure about shuffling over on my own.

The day before the gig, I sauntered down to the Haywood Gallery to the Blind Light exhibition and very good it was too. The centrepiece as you probably know is the glass room full of mist. Steve had already informed me in his Cov ghetto lingo that this “shat him up good” and he had to be led out by his kind lady wife. After looking round the rest of the exhibits, queuing up and walking boldly into the white haze I saw what he meant – it is total stuffy whiteness, although I was aware that there were other people about I had no real idea of where they were or who they were. The mist got thicker and I noticed that I couldn’t even see my legs.

Suddenly I was overcome by a complete and terrifying sense of absolute isolation and rather than just feeling alone, felt profound and scary loneliness - I could feel my heart rate going up a bit too much and I started laughing a bit maniacally. I managed to sort myself out, found one of the walls and worked my way around to the entrance. Walked out, left the exhibition and tried to compose myself by looking round the bookstall out the front of the NFT.

Headed back to Leamington, watched the footy, read a bit, knocked one out, had a couple of Leffe’s and eventually dropped off to sleep, still felt a bit shaky about the whole mist thing to be honest.

Wake up the next day in the present tense for some reason, pop round to a mates house to help him construct some kind of intelligence test flat-pack furniture. Hmmm, doesn’t look like mensa are going to be beating a path to our respective front doors in the near future.

Abandon the whole enterprise and plonk myself in Jephson Gardens with the paper and a book. Try as hard as I can to not look like I’m perving at the girls who have parked themselves in pockets around me, especially the one right in front of me who is making a massive show of re-arranging her tits inside her bikini every few minutes. When she bounces off to get a drink her mates denounce her as “just like SUCH a total slapper”, I turn my ipod right up and internally debate as to whether to drag myself over to Birmingham for the gig. Weigh up the general feeling of being a bit of a sad twat on his own at a gig against the near-death loneliness horror of the Blind Light exhibit and realise that I quite possibly need to worry about things less.

The bird in the bikini is now slowly rubbing some sort of oil into herself, but I’ve no time for this, I’ve got to get home for a (cold) shower and catch a train. I get up to leave and notice that all the lads nearby (and to be fair most of the girls) are also trying not to look at bikini girl and failing badly.

Birmingham is fairly quiet and I hatch a plan to get rid of my spare ticket by standing amoung the touts and shouting “Who wants a free ticket?”. There is absolutely no-one outside the front of the Academy, so that revolutionary plan will have to be saved for another day. Stroll in behind a bloke who says to the bouncers “I’m in The Crimea, we’re playing next door, my name’s Joe” they let him straight in. Well, I suppose you wouldn’t tell people that you were in The Crimea unless it was actually true, would you?

Dash inside the bijou delight that is the Academy 2 and feel pleased that a decent sized crowd has turned up. Saw The Aliens at the Barfly last year and the crowd was around sixty people at the most.

Hearing a recent story about my not all that exciting personal life, Steve described me as “A dog returning to its own vomit”, which was a bit harsh at the time, but in fact is the perfect analogy for choosing to buy two pints of ropey Carling which I already know are going to have a faint smell of vinegar and cost far too much. In my defence at least they are cold and chasing down a couple of pints quickly takes the edge off my vague awkwardness.

There is a lively bunch in front of me who have clearly been at the pre-match refreshments for some time, They are all puffing away on entertaining cigarettes in a manic which suggests that a few more substances are already rolling around their over excited systems. I walk forward into the smog surrounding them and breathe deeply.

All of a sudden it’s Blind Light time again except the smoke isn’t quite so thick and is certainly more amenable. Any flashback feelings of death anxiety or loneliness are swept to one side though as The Aliens appear at an amazingly civil half-past eight and after asking for some of the lights to be turned down, get things going with the strident boy-meets-girl, boy-gets-dumped, boy-writes-ace-song-about-the-whole-thing blast through Setting Sun. Without a pause for even the shortest of breaths they go straight into Only Waiting which even features Gordon Anderson (who seems to be wearing at least three different outfits all at once) whipping out a loudhailer and somehow reeling off the improbably speedy bit at the end.

So far so fucking good and then they launch into my favourite track of the album, the bitter yet jaunty Glover which bounces about like a slinky on a pogo stick before a downbeat ending during which Gordon encourages us to sing along like they did in Newcastle. Then he gets the crowd to put on a Geordie accent too.

This is great, the lads near me think so too and have been lighting even more spliffs in celebration while breaking out some dance moves that could best be described as post-rhythmic.

Time for a segue into huge epic prog-ness, set the controls for the heart of the sun, it’s time for Ionas (Look For Space). I am starting feel a little stoned by proxy, which sort of fits to be honest. There is a humourous Elvis monologue thing going on and I am now in a really good mood, all anxieties completely lifted.

Time for a slow one we are told before uber crowd-pleaser Robot Man kicks off and I spot at least five people trying to give it the big Peter Crouch and failing as dismally as I did in my attempt to jump that car on my Raleigh Striker when I was eight (ask to see the scars sometime). Next we get a new song that I don’t get the name of but it is long, changes direction a few times and is fairly fucking heavy. Things get so pounding by the end that I am suspicious that drummer Robin Jones may have more than two arms. Still by the end we are all loving it although one of the lads near me may have over done things and is looking a touch pale. Just don’t get it on my shoes mate.

The band jaunt through The Happy Song, making the audience well happy and then after what seems like no time at all they are off. Boo.
Swiftly returning it is explained that there is a club night on so they can only do one more. Fortunately the one more is one of the best encores I can honestly say I have ever experienced. They stumble into Rox (which I have previously said sounds a bit Primal Scream), this then combined with a bit of Higher Than The Sun and then descends into the slightly scary but totally ace Helter Skelter. It’s a big finish and the crowd are baying for more, but the Da-Di-Da-Di-Daaaaa communication tune from Close Encounters is on a loop and the lights have come on. Ah fucksticks.

All over by a frightening early quarter to ten I have time to be harassed by the most glamorous homeless person I have ever set eyes on as I stroll outside and then go on to nearly get knifed in KFC during a nasty territorial confrontation that I somehow find myself in the middle of.

Still none of this can dampen my mood, despite only being about an hour and a bit it was a great gig. The band were good when we saw them last year but now they seem really formidable and as good as Astronomy For Dogs is, it isn’t a patch on catching The Aliens live.

Some links from outer space...

Load of photos from the Birmingham gig

Off someone called Lucy Masters Facebook pages an absolute shedload of pictures of the gig. Very good.

Aliens Web Site

All sorts of stuff and links to their forum and MySpace page

Antony Gormley / Blind Light

The mist scared the total shite out of me, but the wire sculptures are just amazing.