Gig: Joel Goddard @ Heaven

Hot Chip look to be having a bit of a break this year with the members all going off and doing their own thing. Alexis has a new solo album out, Sarah looks to be playing drums for Harry Styles and has her own Pillow Person stuff and Al Doyle is back with LCD Soundsystem. Joe Goddard has also done his own album Electric Lines which he was touring with, hitting quite a lot of festivals over Summer. I'm seeing him at Field Day and Blue Dot but thought I'd see him playing this set at Heaven under Charing Cross station.

No support act, just a DJ to warm us up and he did ok.

Joe spent most of the set twiddling knobs and dials and generally playing with a table full of equipment. It took a few songs before he spoke to the crowd, but when he did his unease in doing so endeared him to the crowd.

We didn't get any Alexis appearance at this show which Joe apologised for. The female singer, who I don't know unfortunately was very good for the songs that she sung though.

and being a simple show we had balloons, lots of them.

The album isn't bad at all and is varied enough to provide at least one song to everyone that they'd like. Live was fine, not much to look at but the music is great and is going to go down really well if played in a small tent at the festivals.

Graffiti: Slough

I had to go to Slough for some training and was surprised with the quality of these pieces on hoardings outside the station.

Graffiti: Shoreditch

 

Graffiti: Camden

A quick post-work walk through Camden to see if there were any new pieces.

This one around the back of The Electric Ballroom is great. It celebrates Prince and his donation prior to his death to a charity that funds sonar panels.

Not new but it's a Dank piece and there was no traffic in the way.

This piece is great!

Zabou

Gig: The Big Moon @ Village Underground

The Big Moon were a band I missed at last year's Blue Dot and discovered at last year's By the Sea festival in Margate. There they played a little set of great indie songs and became my new discovery of that event. Since then they'd released a new album and were touring with it this year.

First up, Jerkcurb which was a bit of an odd name and I guess a reworking of his real name Jacob. He played a short set, more to get used to playing in front of a sold-out crowd I guess.

Second up were Swedish band Francobollo, which apparently means "stamps" in Italian. They weren't bad at all but I thought it was a bit cheeky of them to play one of The Big Moon's songs, but given they've been on tour together for a little while it's probably just some of the ribbing they do.

The Big Moon then came on and played for about an hour with the set consisting of most of the new album, which is really good. They still have the same energy on stage as I remember and they had a great crowd, a large contingent of whom were familiar with the songs, which is always good. A few were called out for having been following the band on their entire tour. I wish I could do that with a band I like, not this one? It'd be a bit creepy...not as weird though as the woman who came up onto the stage and almost muscled the lead away from the mic.

Film: Harry Potter Marathon @ Prince Charles Cinema

A couple of years ago I attended a Middle Earth marathon at the Prince Charles, which ran for 19 hours, easily the longest marathon I'd ever done, and being the fan of these nights I've done plenty. So when they announced for 2017 a showing of all 8 Harry Potter films back-to-back that would run for 21 hours, I had to go and made sure I was there in person to get a ticket.

I don't need to go over the film plots, I'm sure they're well known to all, such was the popularity of the franchise. The thing with film marathons is that you could easily do them at home and I'm sure many of the people in the cinema already own the boxsets to allow them to do just that but there's something to be had in doing it with several hundred others that makes these events so special. Whilst not as interactive as their sing-a-long nights the crowd cheering and getting into the event adds so much to it that, something you wouldn't get watching it from your own sofa. It's also a credit to the audience that the venue attract that you rarely get dicks in the audience. Just a good up-for-it crowd who cheer on their house (Slytherin seemed to be the loudest) and applaud and boo at the appropriate times.

So, how did I get on? The first 3 and last 3 films were fine. I found the middle two hard to stay awake, which is odd given Goblet of Fire is my favourite of them all. I did nod off a few times during the quieter parts in those films. But I still had a great night and clearly many did as there were quite a lot of survivors in the photo taken after the event.