I was going to title this post ‘abundance of arseholes’ but I think I’d regret it in the morning and I really don’t think it is representative of the post as a whole and is possibly due to my stressed state of late. I do like the title though, I’ll have to find something to use it for…

Interesting gig at Space 2 in the custard factory tonight. The first gig I’ve been to there outside of Supersonic.

It was the Amanda Palmer gig, a part of the ‘Who killed Amanda Palmer‘ tour. I have to say I’m really glad I caught the pre tour show in London after tonight. The venue sound was pretty much awful throughout, on quiet songs there was low end hum all the time, and if you were any more then three rows back all you could hear was chatter – though I couldn’t see people taking anywhere – from the bar area. Then the heaters – over the stage and very very noisy* Odd. It made it very hard to get involved in the music, mostly it just made me grateful I’d caught the ICA show.

*this is not just because I got shortchanged at the bar, again – I was sober I really should pay more attention to what change trainee bar staff deliver. It is most probably a coincidence that the last three gigs I have been to here someone in my group has been shortchanged…

The all the acts were great though, Jason Webley and Zoe Keating and also someone I missed, who was in the toilets all night arranging his postcards, and Amanda was great, even with a broken foot. Jason Webley reminded me of a specific period of Tom Waits, so much so that I kept expecting one song to break into ‘Strangers, Talk only about the weather,’ but there was more than that too, it was great. I enjoyed Zoe Keatings set too, though it wasn’t the best environment with lots of people chatting or at least the sound of that – was there a ‘the sound of people at gigs talking’ CD on the PA? – It reminded me of some of the US Warren Zevon bootlegs I have – but this is the UK, we don’t talk over musicians we’ve paid to see here, do we?

All in all I’d say buy Who killed Amanda Palmer, its a great album, and do catch the tour if you can, but to whoever put this gig on at space 2, what about the Town Hall. It seems a woefully underused venue since its been re-opened, and it would have been preferable in both character and professionalism from tonights experience…