Thanks to all of you who visited Matinee's website on the back of my last post, and for your (mostly) kind comments. Tonight, myself and Matinee guitarist Michael went out to see Gene (checking out the competition in the foppish rock stakes). Support acts wee Lorca (Mark Almond-esque torch songs, a bit too intimate for the echoey old Astoria) and Witness (very boring soft rockers who almost veered into Savage Garden territory, such was their general torpor). Celebs (note: this is relative) present were Sean O'Hagan of the High Llamas, Martin Carr of the Boos and, erm, the keyboard player out of Strangelove. Anyway, with rumours that Polygram have dispensed with the services of both Shed Seven and theaudience this week, pressure must be mounting on Gene. Needless to say, they came out like they had a point to prove, playing - get this - 'Fighting Fit'. The Roz is still rocking his skinhead look and Steve Mason scissor-kicked rather excitingly. Sensibly they adopted for a new song/old song/new song policy, rather than playing a raft of new stuff. Of those new ones, the next single 'As Good As It Gets' has a huge chorus, 'Something In The Water' sports the Morrissey style rockabilly strut and another great new song builds slowly over a typically 80s indie bass sound before crashing into a typically Gene/Queen glam rock ending. On the whole, though, the new stuff didn't break much new ground and rather tellingly, the best songs on the night were the really old ones 'For The Dead' and 'Be My Light Be My Guide'. On these (plus songs like 'We Could Be Kings'), the sense of communion between band and audience was quite awesome. It sounded like a football crowd in there and of course they capitolised on this by putting the house lights onto us, the Roz smiling smugly rather like Tim Booth of James, fully aware of how special his band can be. Reassuring moves from the Gene camp, then. If you can find a place in your heart for The Smiths with bovver boots, then you'll like them. As far as comparisons with our band go, the big difference is that they don't use any backing vocals and that they can sometimes be strangers to subtelty. But watching the shit corporate rock on tonight's TFI Friday (Alanis, The Corrs, The Sterophonics) would make anyone appreciate a real people's band like Gene even more, though. Martin Horsfield +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list please mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". For list archives and searching, list rules, FAQ, poor jokes etc, see http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +---+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" +---+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+