Fuck charity, long live objectivity

Yes I know it’s a bold, brash headline and you’re thinking ‘dick’, but it does have its roots planted in some kind of logic which you’re now going to have to read in a ‘this had better be good, son’ kind of manner. Read on then.

The charity gig is the golden ticket for promoters. Punters will come (and more importantly pay to come), bands will play (and more importantly not want to be paid to play) and reviewers/critics/sour-mouthed hacks will review it….and MOST importantly not write nasty mean words…. because it’s for charity….. no matter how bad it is.

Well I want to give my opinion of the latest charity gig I attended without my conscience vetoing any sharp words in the name of what is socially acceptable, so I retrospectively donate my £5 entry fee as a waiver on my conscience and as a holding fee enabling me to dodge any wrath aimed at me by the gods of charity… or any charity muggers throwing clipboards and hash pipes at me.

The Purple Turtle in Camden provided the location for said gig, and three acts pounded the stage before the end of the night reared its beautiful head.

First up. Some chap who I would love to name and shame, but I was so bored watching I didn’t bother to catch who he said he was. He over-played his way through some intricate guitar, slobbered over the top with some yanky drawl I’m sure he’d refer to as singing (despite him being English) and in between each of his own songs (which were predictably non-descript) he felt the need to play a “Zeppelin” number. Only not even any “Zeppelin” number people had heard of. Just weird adaptations of obscure songs plucked from the inner depths of Jimmy Paige’s drug-addled mind. Get off the stage.

Next up. Change of pace. In fact, from snail to Velociraptor would be an apt comparison, but take heed of this snippet of truth; faster. Not always better.
On to the stage came about eight people dressed in variations of a ‘shabby black tie’ theme, fronted up by some abnormally leggy blonde with one of those half-a-microphone-stand things which she had put pink crap on to customise. Only it looked rubbish. They punched their way through a few songs which would not have been out of place at a wedding, masquerading as a modern/ska/rock outfit but doing nothing to hide the fact they were a glorified house band. And not that glorified.

Last up were the awfully-named Dorp. I don’t know if it’s an acronym. But even if it’s the acronym for the answer to the fucking meaning of life, it still doesn’t justify being used as a band name. The music was not as bad as the name suggested it would be, however. They served up electro-edged rock.

Nothing too fancy, but if they were more styled (skinny is the new baggy, Dorp) and they all stomped a bit more arrogantly like the lead singer did (who incidentally bore an uneasy resemblance to Deuce Bigalow) then they could have probably passed themselves off as more of an indie band than they managed to. But after the acoustic Zeppelin dirge and an assault on my eardrums by the house band from happy land, I was not complaining.

It wasn’t the worst night of live music I’ve attended, but the whole thing stank of an organisational headache in which only the three worst acts of a potential 10 actually turned up. It also stank of body odour and crack but that was because of all the charity muggers.