I didn’t find out until shortly before the day of the show that The Gossip was the secret opening act (they were billed as “Pie Ghosts”), but managed to get some tickets online before they sold out. I hadn’t seen The Gossip since 2004 or so, and I kind of wanted to see them, despite not having listened to any of their albums since Movement. We showed up early and settled in in the balcony (which was a good choice, since the floor was getting mobbed). Asss were, despite their unbelievably terrible name, pretty good. Nice rhythm driven textural stuff. Good use of skronky sax and distorted and looped vocals.
The Gossip took the stage and started in on one of the worst sets I think I’ve ever heard. Apparently, since I saw them last, they’ve become a disco band. A disco band that likes to inexplicably insert covers of completely unrelated songs into the middle of their songs. I think, over the course of a roughly 40 minute set, we got five or six semi-covers, plus, of course, the inexplicable (but very faithful) closing cover of “What’s Love Got to Do With It.” Also, I should probably mention that Beth Ditto’s stage patter consisted mostly of how she had just peed on herself and how excited she was to see her absolute favorite punk band, The Yummy Fur. She went on and on about what a seminal punk act they were that I started to wonder if there was, in fact, another Yummy Fur than the one I knew about. I mean, I guess there’s a bit of a post-punk influence in there, but I would not really describe them as “punk.”
Anyway, The Gossip finally cleared off the stage, and it turned out The Yummy Fur were the band I knew. Really excellent set. They sounded great, especially for a band that hadn’t played together in years prior to this tour. The only real weirdness was the crowd. Obviously, the people that came for The Gossip was fairly different than the people that might otherwise come to see a semi-obscure British indie pop band from the 90’s. Different enough that it led to fistfights. Certainly made for a lively evening, but I probably would have enjoyed the show more without the guy who, I assume due to Ditto’s attempts to convince the crowd a punk act was about to come on, tried moshing through most of the songs (and yelled out “Play something I can mosh to” in between songs). Still, the crowd really wasn’t as obnoxious as they could have been, and, as I said, the band was great. I could have done with Beth Ditto’s time-killing interruption mid-set to talk some more about how much she liked the band. You’d think she’d be more interested in hearing them play some songs, but what do I know?