Hunting at The Metro

I have a little selfish indulgence, Gomez, they are just one of the many bands that I like. I usually don’t share this little passion with anybody as there is something about this band that doesnt fit well with my indie music loving cool gig going music snob persona. So as a result I tend to go to their live shows on my own, mainly because I'm a snob so I dont tell many people I like this band and nobody else I know likes them.

Last time I saw them play was on their last trip here in 2007 at the Palace, the real one, not to long before it burnt down. Now this band have two fantastic albums, Get in On and Liquid Skin, I love them both, thinking that Liquid Skin is one of my top 10 albums of the 1990s (it came out at the right time and got me out of a nasty funk). The later albums are well below par, samey same, dull and middle of the road mainstream (watch it Augie March – you are on this path, please get off it), the set list was starting to get heavy with the newer stuff and less of the older but better quality songs, so I said to myself after the last show that next time they come I wasn’t going to be buying a ticket.

I spent the next 12 months or so doing the normal living things, moving cities, changing jobs, getting your heart broken etc, then saw an announcement that Gomez would be coming out here again for Falls or one of the millions of festivals that are flooding the east coast festival going bogannivilla market, I saw the ad and thought, remember last time, lets not, lets end it whilst still on a relative high and so I decided not to get a ticket.

Life continued to potter on, then this little advert came up - Gomez will perform their mind blowing debut effort BRING IT ON in it’s entirety. To celebrate 10 years since their first effort won the UK’s prestigious Mercury Music Prize, the 5 lads from ports all over the globe will hit the stage at The Metro - okie dokie, so I thought – first album, hmmmm, got to have myself a bit of this so went and got a little ticket. Life pottered on some more, Christmas came and went, Santa gave me the obligatory cheque (Santa gives cheques in my house). Two weeks before the gig I had a moment of panic urgh, seems that the date of the show co-incides with the start of the Sydney Festival, so not only will I be dealing with getting a cab on a Saturday night in George St but also dealing with the extra 250k people that will be in town for the free shit – I hate crowds. I had to put that little prejudice aside and force myself to still go. I ran into my cousin and his wife whilst I was loitering around the front – it was my cousins Christmas present – go see Gomez. I know Gomez do attract a lot of the bogan yob crowd, that’s one of the reasons I keep my little indulgence to myself but if my lovely cousin, and he is a really nice bloke, just a real big surfer bogan boy (I doubt he has ever read a book in his life), then the sold out Metro crowd would be pretty much full of bogans – a Gomez experience in Sydney is also new to me as I’m still new to this town, even though its second time round.

Gig – great singalong, rowdy fun crowd, nice to hear those old songs, then they squeezed in a little Rhythm and Blues Albi and I was a happy gig goer. They also played a couple of new songs and they really pale in comparison – give it up boys, the new stuff is really not great. But I have and will always adore Ben Ottewells vocals.

I wanted to talk about the people in front of me at this gig, but I spent so long setting the scene I’m bored now with typing. I spend a lot of time at gigs on my own these days – new town, not a lot of gig going new friends, I have no choice unless I want to stay home so I go. I saw Fleet Foxes and The Dodos the week before at the same venue, both shows have something in common, and that is there seemed to be a lot of people at the gig who do not go to gigs much, gig virgins, or retired gig goers. Fleet Foxes had a lot more of the almost blue rinse brigade with a few virgin gig goers muddled in – how can you tell, by the clothes/shoes they wear, the way they carry themselves, trust me us regulars know, you stand out a mile. I spend a lot of time at gigs watching people, listening in on their conversations and watching people as they get drunk – hey what else am I supposed to do, its too dark to read & people are just so entertaining.

At Gomez, I was up the back, just down from the top bar – I’ve seen them so many times I didn’t need to be up the front, just in a handy spot for the bar and the bathrooms with little hassle of squeezing through people to get to either – one for in-take, one for out-take. I suffered through Old Man Rivers yawn-fest, just before he finished a boganvillia midget slapper (BMS) in her finest faux silk grecian knee length gown with beading around the chest (whops, young lassie must of got muddled, the RSL is on the next block down), arrived with her two friends and parked herself near me.

Anyways wait wait between sets, staring at the ceiling drinking VB cans.

A group of young blokes turn up near me, a group of 4 friendly chaps in their mid to late 20s, nice looking friendly enough, I’m standing beside them, they make sure I can see and save my spot when I go to the bar. Just before the lights came back on, the BMS eyes one, lets call him the red shirt, she looks him up and down, nods her head, smiles coyly, target locked on, then it began. I then preceded to watch an all out offensive of BMS on red shirt to get his attention, get him talking, basically secure him for her or one of her companions for the night, thought it was a little odd as she looked a good 10 years older than him and to use the term class, they certainly belonged to different classes (classes here are suburb based but that’s for another time). The pretext was other girl was learning how to whistle, I must admire the maneuvers, the speed in which the prey was targetted, set upon and secured and the way she went about it but it was just at the wrong place – nightclub a gig is not. Red shirt was a little worse for the drink, his friends picked up on BMS and her plans straight away so stayed back well out of it, even though BMS tried to bring them into the conversation a number of times. BMS’s voracious attack, and hell fire it was voracious seemed to of worked, I thought so, so did red shirt - that BMS was after him. It turns out it wasn’t, because during Bubblegum Years, red shirt tried to put his arms around BMS for a swaying singalong, BMS stopped him, shook her finger at him and turned around to watch the stage again, I was a little confused, so was red shirt, but I gather BMS was on the look out for her friend, got an innocent unsuspecting guy in her little web then handed him over to her mate. BMS, annoying and loud though she was, I truly felt like David Attenborough watching the mating rituals of humans in all its unfettered and ugly glory. Though I really could of done without BMS’s fish wife screeches, but as I told Jeffrey the next day, it was like a soap opera, the noise was annoying me and distracting me away from the music but I couldn’t move somewhere else, I had to stay and see how it all panned out.

Gig ended, lights came on, red shirts friends, who had watched but stayed out of the machinations of the hunt during the gig because I get the feeling red shirt had been going through a dry spell, saw BMS and the other girl with the lights on and dragged red shirt out of there as fast as they politely could.

I laughed.

I left the Metro and wandered up to Townhall to catch the nightrider as the buses had ended and as I suspected, there was not a cab in sight. Nightriders are a social experiment of their own, but lucky for me I only have to go to Newtown station, wasnt in the mood for bed so stopped off at the Sando for a cider on the way home. Nice night.