Not.
HP tried REALLY hard to fuck up what could have been such a nice show. HP should stick to making shitty printers. The event was mismanaged. Nothing quite as bad as I am making it out to be, but it certainly could have been better.
I got there around 6:30 and met up with a friend. They let us in without much hassle and the generous Trendcrusher Pete accidentally gave us four tickets instead of two. Sadly, we had to return these out of decency.
So we went around the place checking things out, meeting people, breaking HP computers and stuff, waiting for the show to start. They had this really nice painting kiosk thingy for little children, who weren’t even allowed in. They had four crappy HP computers running Need for Speed Carbon on them. Good game, but shitty computers.
I don’t know what happened during the time I was getting some B/W film from Salaam stores, but when I got back, they had some lame comedian clown on stage. “Irra rwerre ougam firrim Scotland” was all I could hear. Seriously. Scottish pub sideshow comedians can not make a sober audience laugh. On top of that, he was filled with random borrowed clichéd material. What a sorry sod.
And then sometime between the food being served and us getting horribly intimidated, the music started. Cisum were the first to play. Cisum is, incidentally, Music spelt backwards. I wonder if their first record’s gonna be called drocer. Really mediocre music. GO BACK TO THE PHILIPPINES!
The food was quite mediocre, except for the Shawarmas. Maybe they’d served leftovers from an HP board meeting. But it was free so meh. The drinks were expensive, with 15 for a can of Pepsi and 25 for anything alcoholic. I’m sure a lot of people went home sober.
I came home thisty.
Next band, Leprechaun NepercoN. Not my thing. Didn’t like. Better than CISUM though. And then, Kerie Lee. She looks nice in the photos I took, if you like ad 25 layers of full strength Gaussian blur. She might have had a good voice, but with HP’s squeakbox sound, it was impossible to tell. And Alanis Morisette wannabe 30 something with a guitar and sad lyrics is so 1995. Massive fail. In fact, Kerie Lee is a new category of Fail.
And then it’s Sun King, Dubai’s own awesomesupercool rock and roll band, Sun King. Great stage presence, lovely music, awesome guitarist, and good old rock and roll madness. The vocalist jumped off the stage and hit me, nearly kicking me in my nuts. Scared the fuck out of me. I hope to catch Sun King again at the Ampulance gig at the Canadian University, Dubai. And maybe at Santana. Yes, they won. They get to open for Santana. If you’re Santana and you’re reading this, you can look at some pictures of Sun King so you know what you’re up against.
Indiephone was omfgomgomfgzomg awesome. This was only my second time seeing them live. Superawesome. They couldn’t wait to start playing, and kind off pissed the idiot DJ/presenter off. Which is okay, coz it was DJ Ho Mo from Channel 4 FM. RhordiHannahShanyaAndy all of them were awesome. They were all locked up most of the time, so I didn’t get to meet with them until it was getting late. But listening to them live again <3. I caught snatched one of the toilet rolls that Andy threw out. Really amazing gadgetry, that toilet roll. It has ‘vote for indiephone’ written on it. I kept that part but threw the rest away. You don’t want to be seen wandering around Dubai with a toilet roll in your hands.
Indiephone were such a joy. Oh and guess what? I got meself an autographed EP!!! All the surviving band members. I tried to synth-nap the mini Korg. It’d get me a good ransom. Some of the indiephone pictures came out nice. Hung about with the band for less than half a bit and then I went off to randomsecret after-party involving sheesha and cards.
The gig was really terribly organized. The sound was bad, the staff was rude and intrusive, and the lighting was just plain old ugly. RED. Forty billion watts of red bulbs IN YOUR FACE. A lot of my pictures were ruined. Not ruined per se, but everyone looks like a beetroot. The SWAT dancers. Oh lord. I recommend you avoid them at all costs.
Now, some pictures:
And my autographed EP: <3
