23/05/2008

Xiu Xiu - Roadhouse, Manchester - 20.05.08 - Photos & Recording

I've been waiting many a year for Xiu Xiu to hit the UK and hit it they did the other night in mucky Manchester. This was my first overnight stay in the city where I wasn't robbed, the first time some swine stole my socks out of my shoes and the second time someone stole my pillow, all that was stolen this time was my heart, by Jamie Stewart and his band of merry men and the lovely Caralee, who was rocking some of the most terriblest moccasin style shoes I have ever seen! Chris Garneau was supporting and I actually enjoyed his short set, I'd listened to the stuff on his myspace beforehand and wasn't impressed but I'll be 'sampling' his album from one of the fine 'record sampling' websites that one see's about on one's travels through the information super-highway. Here are some photos of him playing: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tfrancis/sets/72157605202951313/ I recorded his set but I ain't uploading it until TEN people request it in the comments cause I don't like him enough yet to let him into the Boxing Duck! family.

Xiu Xiu played for an hour, Jamie seemed really flucked, he looked super duper tired and ready to collapse between every song as he gargled his drink. There's no way he can go on with all his shouting and yelping, it really can't be good for him, so I say to Jamie, "sing some quiet songs, make an album like El Perro Del Mar to give your vocal chords a rest".

I usually come away from gigs thinking about how much it had cost me to get to where it is and stay the night but I came away from this thinking that they were really great, Jamie was awesome, Caralee was awesomee, Ches was awesomeee, and Devin was behind a pillar for the whole gig. I must give a shout out to my main man Ches cause he kicked ass, I love a good drummer and he was great, he was giving it the whole, bang, bangidy, bong, bong, bing, bing-a-bing, bonk, bonk, bonk, bonk, all that stuff.

I shot a whole bunch of photos which are ok (click the photo to go forward, hover over the bottom part for thumbnails:


Now for the recording, the setlist wasn't all that really, for me at least I'd have liked to hear a lot of different stuff but Suha was just fandabbydosie, I can't think of a better song that they could've finished on. The recording is a weird one cause Jamie's vocal is just swamped beneath the noise...

1. Bishop, Ca
2. In Lust You Can Hear the Axe Fall
3. Clowne Towne
4. F.T.W
5. No Friend Oh!
6. Master of the Bump (Kurt Stambaugh, I Can Feel the Soil Falling Over My Head)
7. You are Pregnant You, You are Dead
8. The Fox & The Rabbit
9. Save Me, Save Me
10. I Do What I Want, When I Want
11. Clover
12. Apistat Commander
13. Suha

http://sharebee.com/8f7c4fe4
http://www.badongo.com/file/9521375
http://rapidshare.com/files/116863639/xiu-xiu-live-manchester-roadhouse-20-may-2008.zip.html
http://www.zshare.net/download/124236827fdcf3be/
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=6XNGX6UE

Buy Xiu Xiu albums on Amazon, the Boxing Duck! gets a percentage of whatever you spend so get your hands in your pockets!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cool :D

Anonymous said...

You should learn to use the normalize function on that H2 of yours.

tfrancis said...

believe me, this has been normalized to within an inch of its life! recording xiu xiu in a small venue was never gonna work, it was just a wall of noise...

thinkingofhom said...

hey thank you for your post
I was making videos on XIU XIU live in Saint-Petersburg and your recordings helped with sound a bit

check out some stuff:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNSC6dL7O_E&feature=channel_page