All in All

First gig of the year goes to New York band, Vampire Weekend.

First venue of the year is the Hoxton Bar and Grill. Full of people who watched Nathan Barley thinking it was cool without realising it was laughing at them, not with them.

First support came from Damn Shames, three young lads from Edinburgh who we also saw support Wildbeests at the same venue a few months back. They were crap then and sadly have not improved with age. I’d rather not have them support anyone else I see this year if possible.

First audience irritants go to two painfully trendy twats wearing old men’s shirts with skinny ties and (on one) skinny red braces. They danced like friendless students to Damn Shames and then in the break, what rebels! They had a few sneaky cigarettes! Take that smoking ban, your law doesn’t apply to us Hoxton wannabees! Now, I’m a non-smoker but have been largely indifferent to the ban – yes, it’s nice not to go home stinking of cigarettes but people smoking around me rarely bothered me. But a law has been passed so why did these twats think it schoolboy-cool to break the rules? People around them complained but they just laughed. They didn’t laugh when the security guard came and threw them out! I cheered because they were twats. They were let back in eventually but did miss over half of Vampire Weekend so that’s a form of justice I suppose.

Vampire Weekend were great. Jangly guitar pop-rock. I loved them. They are one of the 10 tips for the greatness this year in many papers. We shall see and if they are, we were there at the beginning. (I shall be saying that again in a few weeks after Black Kids, too)