Frank Turner – Down At The Front https://www.downatthefront.co.uk The place to be to experience new music Thu, 13 Feb 2020 20:05:24 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.1 212659681 Foo Fighters at the Invictus Games https://www.downatthefront.co.uk/archives/1672 Mon, 03 Nov 2014 21:29:07 +0000 http://gigs.pahudson.net/?p=1672 Although I’ve seen the Sound City Players, I’ve never seen the Foo Fighters. So I thought I’d take the opportunity to catch them as part of the closing concert for the new Invictus Games at the Olympic Park. Games for injured servicemen and women. A good cause and a chance to see the Foo Fighters. Seemed worthwhile.

What I didn’t bet on was a god awful day of music from the likes of the Military Wives (poor choir), Rizzle Kicks (at least they gave it a good go), Ryan Adams (didn’t want to be there), James Blunt (sleep inducing music), Frank Turner (shit ‘folk music’), Diversity (dancing shit), Ellie Goulding (zzzz) and The Vamps (WTF – are they meant to be a real band?).

The music was so bad that a short cameo from Bryan Adams, just him and his guitar and some old classic singalong songs was one of the highlights of the day. Even the Kaiser Chiefs seemed good, compared to the shit that had been playing earlier in the day.

The day was interspersed with medal presentations to the athletes who competed in the games. It was a pleasure to see their reactions and for many of them it clearly meant a lot after the difficulties they’ve been through.

Invictus games

Thankfully, musically the day was salvaged by a short (1hr) ‘greatest hits’ set from the Foo Fighters. Grohl and co. at least seemed to put some effort into choosing music that suited the occasion and sticking to the ‘greatest hits’ formula meant that most of the crowd seemed to enjoy the gig. But it’s the last time I going to allow myself to be tempted by these ‘good cause’ concerts unless the programming is significantly better.

Foo Fighters at the Invictus games

]]> 1672 Frank Turner https://www.downatthefront.co.uk/archives/965 Sun, 20 Oct 2013 23:08:50 +0000 http://gigs.pahudson.net/?p=965 God this evening was terrible. I’ve never really listened to Frank Turner. I listened to him from the street at SXSW, but I wasn’t particularly impressed. But I try to get to as many gigs at work as possible because I think it’s important to support live music. But there’s something ‘false’ about Frank Turner. He’s not terrible as such, but he’s billed himself as a ‘folk’ singer yet he sounds like he’s created a pastiche of what he thinks modern folk should sound like. Few of the songs are actually about anything. But then as he’s posh, having attended Eton, it’s to be expected. But that’s the central problem with tonight’s performance. The crowd loved it. I know that seems silly. But his music is so vacuous, it just shows how dead the music industry currently is. To me his music feels just as manufactured as any pop song and the fact that so many people were lapping it up, just felt so wrong. There was literally nothing surprising about his music. Every break, every chorus, was exactly where you thought it would be. I like music to surprise and challenge me, and Frank’s music simply didn’t.

Frank Turner at the Forum Hertfordshire

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