Gig Yap: Robyn, My Chemical Romance, Matt Berninger and Los Campesinos!, and Where to Stand

0:05Drowning Sound listeners, you like experiments, right? We're going to try different formats to podcast this week. And this is mostly an excuse for me to catch up with Helena and find out about all the great gigs she's been to recently because living vicariously through Instagram stories, Helena's been at all the gigs I've wanted to go to and didn't have tickets for. So I'm mostly going to find out what they were like and how exciting they were and how good they were but yeah this is drowning sound podcast brought to you in partnership with kobaz and helena who are we going to be talking about on this episode who will feature on your companion playlist so i went to four great gigs recently you'll hear los campesinos matt burning up from man of the national robin and my chemical romance now nobody can say that i don't have range i mean if there was some poetry in there and maybe a little bit of like droney ambient and Some black metal.

0:57Some trance. But yeah, there'll be a companion playlist at dranninsound.org forward slash playlists. And you'll also be able to find a 30-day free trial to Cobuzz, a slightly more ethical streaming platform, which has music in high definition. And I'm not going to go on about it in every episode, but I got some new headphones recently. And I've just been really thrilled by, like, how actually music sounds better. and I know that I hear podcasters do like ad reads where they're like oh yeah like this platform does this or that but like generally like I got those nothing headphones that are quite like they look like cassettes on the side of your head and because the music's got so much more space in it I'm like oh I can hear all the detail on the layers and actually the Robin record like there's some like little bits of panning and like the bits in dopamine like I really like that song I just exactly thank you about dopamine Sounds so good.

1:49I mean, you've sold it to me. I'm in. I'm going to buy them. So, yeah. So, and it's not an advert for the headphones, but it is an advert for what stuff sounds like on Cobuzz because I genuinely think, like, they're doing something special. And I'm so glad that they partner with us on this podcast where we may speak less highly of other streaming platforms. This is the Drowning Sound podcast. I'm Sean Adams, your co-host with Helena Wadia. and Helena I think we should start with the artist we interviewed recently Gareth from Los Campesinos yes and I think it was a few days after the interview you went along to the show did you make it to their fan merch thing beforehand I actually didn't yeah um apparently the free bar went in like 12 minutes yeah yeah he did mention that on stage and I was not surprised at all.

2:41I think there was a£500 bar tab. Yeah. The price of beer in London. Yeah. Maybe it's that. Maybe it's just how many thirsty Los Camposinos fans turned up. In fact, that's probably like 50 pints, isn't it? It's not like... Yeah, I suppose it's probably not that much, unfortunately, which is a sad state of affairs. But no, I didn't. But, you know, it didn't make the gig any less special. Can we talk about the merch first? Was there an impressive array? Honestly, I mean, my husband, bigger Lost Camp Sinos fan than me, basically like exclusively wears Lost Camp t-shirts now. And their merch is always fantastic.

3:25I do have quite a wide range. But I was thinking the other day, you know when t-shirts just disappear? So many of mine have disappeared. And I'm just, I don't know where they are. but yeah there was a great array got a new got a new got a new t-shirt which was kind of the the all hell album album t-shirt which was amazing there's also one that I I got the previous time I saw them which was also all hell themed and it's got this kind of like skull that's on fire and my friend's daughter who is not even one years old pointed at it and said flower and I thought Well, sort of. So how was the show?

4:11Like it seemed from people that I follow online, like everyone seemed like it was like a real communal kind of like special evening. Yeah, it was really amazing. I mean, mostly what I remember is being so hot and so sweaty. It was the electric ballroom. It was the electric ballroom, exactly. Which is, for anyone who doesn't live in London, is like quite a long, thin room just around the corner from Camden Tube. and i mean i saw prince there when he did his like secret like i think it was his second to last ever uk show um somehow that i was drinking with the pr beforehand um just around the corner and she said prince has asked if we can get someone to film the show tonight it's like literally an hour from stage time so because i managed to like get the guys that filmed to drown in sound at the time to come and film the show um they would let me stay for the like do two sets um but that night in the electric ballroom like all i can pitch when i think of the electric ballroom is that show because it was just prince being prince anyway that's not me meaning to brag but i mean what a brag though i'll allow it the um but it's like a long thin room isn't it and it's like it's quite not low ceiling but it's it's not like a big space on a very hot day was it like 32 degrees or something and i it was definitely some kind of you know heat wavy day um i think yeah when i think of electro ballroom i just do think sweaty in general and it's small which is great because you know it's intimate and i honestly think like loss can't perform best in that kind of space um and what i did do quite successfully though is you know electro ballroom it has this bar and then there's these like couple of steps that lead like down to the main bit where you're standing I did manage to stand myself on the edge of one of the steps um with my back against against the wall which was perfect for a being five foot one but b just being able to see everything oh my gosh it was amazing um and also just to like see the the the crowd because um I wasn't quite ready for a mosh pit um that day due to aforementioned heat and also having recently broken my foot.

6:26So I've been steering clear of mosh pits, but I honestly love watching them so much. I feel like you get the same energy than when you're in them. And yeah, it was, so yeah, I positioned myself very well for that show. I feel, so I was just thinking in the back of my head, you know when people sell those like courses on Instagram and things, I wonder if there is the ultimate guide to where to stand in a venue if you're under five foot five and like a guide to like all the London venues like the best spots to stand I could write it I'll tell you that I could write it I I have sort of like become known within my friendship group of people are like oh yeah we'll go with Helena because then we'll be able to see yeah if I sort of don't not necessarily like don't care about the band but like if I if I'm not you know super excited for the gig like really want to be able to see every single thing then you know i really don't mind kind of like hanging back a bit and maybe i'll just catch a couple glimpses of the people on stage doesn't really bother me that much but when it's someone i love i will get in that position um i have become like really a queen of going around the side and then wedging yourself in a bit um that that's my top tip there's one little go to the side there's one little spot in shepherd's bush empire there's a bar kind of at the back of the room downstairs and there's a little gap next to the bar before the steps and when I was I've been in there on like sound checks and things I'm like why do I not stand here this is like the best view of the show you're right by the sound desk you're right by the bar yeah and like you've literally got like a shelf to put your drink on in front of you oh that's so good they should charge for that it's like a little vip one spot the um Pinterest Town Forum as well the the the stairs it's always it's always going there's a little step i mean sometimes security like move people off it but um if you if you if you stand your ground often it's all right the uh i want there must be them all around the country people with all this knowledge maybe we need to create just an inbox for like but i don't know i don't want to make it too readily available yeah exactly other people will stand there like people like me who are five eight who can kind of see like they're going to be the ones that are a bit like oh that's that's meant to be the best place to stand because there should also be like where does the venue sound best like i kind of wonder if there's like sound people saying actually if you stand at the like in brixton academy there's a few different places where it sounds better and worse right um and like if you're so if that's your priority and like i don't know there must be like people that like to see the lights and the crowd like there's probably like a good people that love to sit yeah um brixton academy i love because of the sloping floor.

9:08Yeah. So you pretty much always got a good view. But also there's another issue. You feel it in your calves the next day though. You do, yeah. There's another issue with height though. Some five foot one people have six foot two partners that they go to gigs with quite a lot. What do you do then? Because when I was first discovering live music and going to a lot of gigs, I sort of would always talk about this idea of early entry for people 5 '3 and below. Like when we bought a plane. Yeah. If you've got like, but there should be things. Also, if you could pay an extra pound and that went into like the accessibility for the venue or something.

9:52Yeah. Like there should be the ability to do that if you've got like, I don't know. It feels weird that there's so much about live shows where you just can't do like really simple things. You reminded me of something when I worked at Six Music I posted out once about kind of gig etiquette and gig rules and I suggested having a tool in a short area and honestly you would think I said something racist on the internet or something the amount of people that got upset from just like what would be the one thing you would change about gigs and like definitely definitely spurred a lot of ire in people to suggest that maybe like for instance the quiet carriage on a train right like I quite like that it's a simple like opt-in like if you did use your phone no one's gonna kick you off the train maybe it's like because the thing is i would i would go to the short section any day but yes i'd have to leave my tall friends behind it depends who's on whether i do that or not you know the national i'll go to the short section i'll leave everyone behind but i'd also be there five hours early so it doesn't really matter but um maybe there could be like a short section and you get to bring one companion who is under five eight yeah i mean there should be a cut but it's that thing of like why couldn't you just pay for a little bit extra if you want like the difference between seeing the show and not seeing the show in fact i saw something yesterday and it sort of disturbed me it was a no view audio only ticket that ticket master was selling for a show oh i have heard about this i don't know what gig it was i saw recently but they sold tickets behind the stage so that you could hear the show but not see the show i think it was at the o2 or somewhere and like what on earth have we come to that you can sell that as a ticket i mean yeah if anything if that is a ticket that should be free yeah um if it even exists i mean i get if you can't see Like if you're like hearing vision problems, that might be a really good option for you because you're not going to be as.

11:57But yeah, it's quite an odd thing to see it being sold. Somebody else told me about like screen only tickets. So you can't see the stage, but you can see the screen and you can hear it from the stage. Maybe that's the same thing. I don't know. I once went to the O2 and I had a ticket. The guest ticket was right at the very back of the O2 and it was really high up. And I went to see the opening band Mew. They were opening for Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction when they did that Ninja tour, which I thought was a good name for a tour. um and i went some i'd read somewhere that if you're ever at the very top of a venue and you have any kind of vertigo you can speak to the people and they will move you to like an obstructive view seat oh but my obstructive view seat that they moved me to was basically almost on the stage of the o2 so i got to watch nine inch nails from like yeah not i was on a kind of like 45 degree angle from the stage but literally felt like I was in the show it was so good so that's one gig tip for people tuning in so we've given two tips already the best place to stand in the electric ballroom and but yeah obviously if you turn up late they're not going to be able to move you because there's probably not very many of those seats but from your optimum viewpoint how was the gig it was amazing now this was a gig in celebration of 20 years of lost camp um so it was a really like varied set list the first song okay was probably something that has well one of the songs has the longest song names uh was this is how you spell haha we destroyed the hopes and dreams of a generation of faux romantics first time played since 2018 amazing which was very exciting to hear when it first started i thought what the hell is this because I hadn't heard it in so long.

13:54But it was amazing. They did Got Stendhal's live debut of that. And they did a cover of Pavement, Frontwards, which was really special. Again, first time played since 2018. A lot of All Hell, which is their latest album, which I was very happy about because I think it's genuinely, like, maybe I'll just say, maybe it's the best Los Camp album. hot take but so I was very happy about that but yeah it was a really it was a special gig celebrating 20 years of them made all the more special that I knew all the ins and outs of it having just interviewed Gareth with you and yeah he made a very funny comment actually so their song The Sea is a Good Place to Think About the Future great song title incredible song title incredible song but there is a line that But over the years of being saying Lost Camp, everybody like screams this line out.

14:55Gareth doesn't even really like sing it anymore because it's an audience takeover of that line, which is you can never kiss a Tory boy without wanting to cut off your tongue again. And it was funny because then after he sung that, he went, he was like, I just feel like it's, he was like, I feel like that line doesn't work anymore, guys. who said because the Overton window shifted so far right that like it shouldn't really be a Tory boy anymore and he just said I feel like that that line doesn't mean anything anymore which I thought was kind of interesting especially from what we've been talking about about politics and music and the merge of them and I mean Lost Camp are right on the precipice of that you know yeah like it's amazing to think as a band they just bring so many different parts of everything in and i think i completely get why you're so obsessed with them because like i guess it's like a busman's holiday with some of the politics they're talking about and then what you're doing in media storm and what you're doing in your other day job as a journalist and like there's there's something really like if you listen to them on record you maybe wouldn't have think they're as a political band as they are if that makes sense yeah like it's only been in recent years following them online where i've really noticed quite how political they are and how they brought that into their merch as well as into their music and well talking about the merch you know for that song and during the time of that album there was the merch for that song was a very like i mean people were nuts for this t-shirt a picture of david cameron an illustration of david Cameron kissing a pig's head and it said never kiss a Tory over it was that the t-shirt that the now deputy leader of the Labour Party was wearing that got in trouble was that oh my gosh could it have been that it was like never kiss a Tory or something wasn't it the t-shirt I'd never I mean maybe it was that it would be I mean it'd be crazy it'd be crazy if she was a Los Camposinos fan I was a little get her on yeah um but yeah he even said you know after he was like I if we were making a t-shirt i don't even know what t-shirt we make now i was like that's such a good point like every day it seems like there's something more and more extreme and further right happening and it's yeah i wouldn't know what they were putting it be nigel farage kissing tommy robinson i mean maybe or kissing like money yeah putting his head in a trough of money probably or something never kiss nigel farage but i think we don't need to be told that no the uh it will taste of benson and hedges depends on hedges even exist anymore i think they do i think as a not as a non-smoker i have no idea i think they do exist i mean also non-smoker but i think they do exist um so that was lost camp yes that was i don't know it was like a couple of months ago now and the uh i think it was the very end of may yeah yeah and it's ages since we've done a podcast together so i i wanted to know a bit about the robin show because i i think i'd become obsessed with the record a few days before having like loved dopamine i'd i'd heard one of the other singles i was like oh well i'll get around to it and then i just got really really into the record and then i was like oh no all of my friends seem to be going to see robin and why didn't i not get a ticket can i honestly say something yeah that you know when you you're like oh everyone was at at that gig i often say that like quite flippily oh everyone was at that cake everyone's at that festival everyone was at okay apart from you not to rub it in or anything but genuinely scrolling through instagram that night or the next day i have never seen so many different views of the same stage on the same night mine included yeah it's so weird it's it's and also when i got to the o2 before getting to my seat and sitting down I bumped into four people that I knew so already I was thinking oh my god everyone is at this gig does this say more about us and the people we know though like we are the crying in the club kind of brigade like melancholic camp pop music is probably like and also Robin has been brilliant for so long yeah like I think there was that gap in her career and I think in that gap people got into like Caroline Polacek and Charlie X.

19:13Yes and all these different artist and then there's a whole bunch of new people yeah that have got into her more recently and they've gone back and discovered how great she is totally you know someone said to me like oh i didn't think like robin could sell out the o2 on multiple dates but yes like it was i mean what honestly it was an incredible show i had a slightly different experience because i went with my friend whose due date was two days after that show that's dedication we were seated well did they buy a ticket long before they probably yeah bought a ticket long before they got pregnant but the funniest thing was was that when she found out the due date she was like i'm not missing robin it was sort of like when you have a bit when you're having a baby but you've got robin tickets you know um but so we were seated which is quite unusual for me i don't usually choose to see to be seated but uh oh is this like when you've been in first class and you're going to want to be seated every time now i i okay i will say i do see the benefit because we'll come on to it but um went to see my chemical romance at wembley stadium i swear i did not see them at any point in the flesh because i was standing and i was too short and i was too far back so you know that that whole gig still amazing we'll talk about it but i i didn't see them i did not see them any member of my chemical romance on stage honestly being able to see a show as visual as robin from because she put it together in such like a meticulous way and in such a structured but you know really fun kind of clubby way being able to see the whole thing and take it all in was actually very cool i wouldn't say that i would want to sit at every single gig because you know when some of the like club bangers were playing and you could see everybody dancing I was getting a little bit jealous um but people were dancing standing up in the seats weren't they yes and also we were seated in the front row oh amazing which was yeah so good I bet if your pregnant friend probably didn't want to stand up and dance exactly yeah yeah it was it was it was it was yeah it was a really good job you're good at getting optimum views and optimum seats I know I honestly I don't know how I did it but it was sort of like quite central as well which I enjoyed I actually really like going to gigs at the go too which as someone that like I don't mind them either I think people might be surprised yeah like obviously I love nothing more than going to like a tiny grassroots gig but I've seen some amazing shows there like I said like that Nine Inch Nails show I've seen them there three times I saw Katy Perry there once and it was as a spectacle it was amazing um and i think there's something about it as because people have to fill the space the type of show you get is quite different and i think yeah if you're sat there and you can actually take the show in like i actually don't like being on the floor at big shows part of it's i just don't love being i don't like that feeling a bit trapped it is a bit overwhelming and and again like i'm not that tall so i will be the person that two minutes before stage time your six foot two boyfriend will come and stand in front of yeah and it's like not him in particular yeah you know what i mean he would never yeah he respects gig etiquette yes and i think that there's something in the um ability just to take him one of those shows as a kind of an entertainment spectacle sometimes but like for robin's i bet there's like an art to the lights and the movement and like everything about the show like what sort of show was it and well it was exactly that it was it was like being in a club but it was also like going to see an exhibition yeah it was very like thematic with the lights honestly the camera the way the camera was like uh filming her for the screens was also like they were making a mini movie and it was you know very carefully chosen camera angles um the way that yeah just everything was very coherent and it was actually pretty cool to be able to to see it all like in one in one spectacle also we did get a bit like we we sort of you know sometimes when you look at something too much it then looks weird we started to they feel like watching the the people on on the on the ground was like They were like half like Sims characters and half like mushroom mycelium.

23:54Okay. Did someone slip something in your drink? No. Did you slip something in your drink? I slipped something in my pregnant friends. No, I didn't. No, honestly, I didn't. But this is what I love about gigs. It's like you can feel high without taking absolutely anything at all. um i think it was just like the synergy you know of everybody being so in it i like that word using the correct context and not in a business context i would never use it in a business context um yeah it was really it was really special and like i said you know it was like everybody was there it was it was kind of weird it was like after going to the gig and like seeing the amount with people um posting on social media it i was for once sort of like oh is this an upside of having phones at gigs because it made me feel like i was part of something um yeah it was a special moment you know it's frustrating that it's so much harder to even know which of your friends are going to a show like for all the things that tech can do like it would have been really nice there's probably a bunch of people you know that went to that show you haven't seen for ages totally and had you all known you could just arrange to meet beforehand can i say actually somebody messaged me who i've kept in contact with but haven't seen in over 10 years in 12 years and we met up before robin oh yeah it but sorry that wasn't meant to sound sarcastic but i feel like yeah gone are the days of like i'm attending this event on facebook but I would like that again.

25:35Yeah. And I think I get the data protection and stalking and all the other reasons like why you wouldn't necessarily broadcast, but it is slightly frustrating that we often, I mean, not to quite our city sound system, but we're literally like, you spend all that time trying to get with your friends. And it's like, where are your friends? Like they're literally four rows in front of you and you didn't know they were at the gig. And it's like the amount of times I've been to things. I was like, oh, if I'd known you were there and you're seeing it on the last train home and like there's a weird thing as a journalist as well you often get one ticket so I've been to loads of big events and then I found out that like 15 of my friends were there and I like I went for like a lonely dinner before the gig and like you're like oh I would have yeah it's like you just don't know like I know how can we bring that back there's definitely something we should be trying to fix and I don't really know how and also when shows don't sell out like if people will go like we're all going to this show tonight and there's still a few tickets left like how collectively can we help promote a show um because there is that thing isn't there like the blue dot fever stuff i think we talked about on the podcast briefly and emma's definitely written about in the newsletter and big arena shows in america aren't selling out all the time and i wonder to what extent like knowing that all of your friends are going to something like there must be a nice way we can do it it's not just some like corporate upsell yeah anyway we'll say we'll have a think about it yeah um anyway we've got listeners they collectively can come up with a solution right everybody think about it yeah yeah the other thing i think that was special about robin is that you know she's she's 47 which is obviously very young but in a pop music context and in a female pop music context and so female solo acts as well it is quite rare to see somebody of that age selling out stadiums and arenas i guess a woman of that age selling out stadiums and arenas and without being like a megastar yes robin is robin is like famous in our world yeah but she's not you wouldn't if you i don't know i always like to think about when you speak to a random person like on a plane or in a cafe and you say what are you off to and you're like oh I'm going to see Madonna and they don't know who you're talking about yeah but we've left that era of monoculture where someone could be that famous that the average person would know who you're talking about yes exactly like I said people were like oh I didn't think Robin could sell out um like I I mean I know some of her songs but I didn't think you know is exactly that but it's it is really special to see i mean i mean i have to admit that at parts she didn't talk very much but at parts when she was talking i couldn't exactly quite like work out what she was saying i think that's just like the acoustics of being in such such a big room um that the the vocal acoustics were incredible um but yeah it's like i think it's important to have that kind of representation and you know she had a baby and this is her doing being incredibly successful and also being incredibly good at what she's doing

28:54hi there it's emma here i'm gay crashing the podcast to quickly tell you about the drowned in sound newsletter every wednesday i invite myself into your inbox with permission of course to share opinion writing and resources, tell you about cool things that you should be involved in within the world of music, activism, etc. I also bring track of the week and a little bit of hopeful news for you because we all know that the news cycle can be grim at the best of times. Drowned in Sound newsletter every Wednesday in your inbox. Sign up now.

29:35So you've been to some other shows. my chemical romance i felt like everyone i knew was at that show right but the thing i thought was really interesting and like i saw them in 2011 i think it was the last time i saw them playing wembley arena sort of towards the end before they went on hiatus um and i thought they were great but i didn't think they were so good that i'd buy a ticket to a stadium show to see them because they actually didn't put on much for show when i saw them it was like you're joking there was like quite a dress down like just like it was quite and there was no like podium and flames oh my god i could not tell you how much of a show this was yeah that that really surprises me so what i wanted to say was that the thing that surprised me was how many of my female friends went as groups so they didn't just but like they collectively bought like some of them were like groups of 15 people seated together yeah that's a lot of organization to do that and I noticed like a couple of people that I follow like there's a photographer I follow and she went to five of the dates and took like photos in Liverpool and Glasgow and London wow um and I think she went to like a couple of nights in London so like it was and I just thought it was really interesting how the people showing up in my feed that went to that i know that my kems are a band that bring people together yes but it was a lot of it was a lot of women and a lot of women going together but not not not my boyfriend dragged me along type of gig yeah they were that was their women's the kind of collective night out i also went with two of my female friends who were also teenage emo's and i think that's what it was it's that nostalgia i mean the nostalgia was like off the charts so much so that they came on started played the first note of the end and um my friend just burst into tears and i cannot and i think it honestly and she said it was just pure nostalgia for being like 13 14 15 and and feel and like listening to emo and feeling those emotions for the first time and being like shut up mom yeah but it's like that was so important to our like collective upbringing and and our the way that we that we formed like relationships with each other and I don't know like learn how to process emotions and yeah it was it was really special honestly I I probably lost count of the amount of times that a woman of like around my age was crying around me honestly it was it was unbelievable there was so there were so many tears and it was really fun because um me and my two friends we dressed like our teenage emo self not like super extreme like I didn't bring how different is that to how you normally dress well right now very different for those people you know listening listening i i'm in a very brightly colored dress which is very unlike me um but as i said to sean when i came in my three black dresses that i rotate were in the wash but um yeah we didn't i didn't like bring the side fringe back or anything but um you know being able to to like dress in that way up the eyeliner again it it was just so fun um and i do think the my chemical romance sound is it is one that just like epitomizes that encapsulates it it's it seemed more like a cultural moment in an event yeah because i think in the same week or so there was um bad bunny did the tottenham hotspur stadium this was it i cannot tell you okay when i actually no wait was this this was the the robin the robin date when i was coming back from robin okay i got on the train back and then it was so funny so i i sometimes do this thing that when i'm leaving the o2 because i have to go into town what i do is i um sometimes get on the jubilee line one stop the other way and then get a seat and then go back cunning is this is another good isn't that good yeah that's a really cunning um yeah and it's great as well because i can't remember exactly what the stop is but you just have to cross the platform yeah so there's no like big change when you have to go back the other way.

34:03So yeah, hot tip. Obviously, I don't want everybody to do that. But I did do that. And I got on and then it was so funny because all these like Metallica fans got on because Metallica had been playing, I think at London Stadium the same night. And all these Metallica fans got on. And it was so funny because then obviously we go back to North Greenwich, the O2 stop, all the Robin fans get on. And this woman who had a Metallica t-shirt just like said to her partner, they were saying next to me she just went was there something on it though too and I went yeah it was Robin and she went okay and I've like honestly never seen somebody who did not know who Robin was like less like she she had no idea and then I was like I'm not I'm not gonna try and explain Robin to this metalhead but um yeah I think it was Metallica was on a London stadium Snow Patrol who had brought out Kylie were on at Crystal Palace Harry Styles was on at Wembley Alabama Shakespeare, Ali Pali, Robin the O2.

35:01I mean, it was... One night in London. One night in London. And probably all those shows were sold out as well, I imagine. Honestly, it was incredible. I mean, there's been a lot. Like, I think I even saw Sadiq Khan talk about the Harry Styles shows as being this big, like, moment for... And again, another gig I was so gutted and didn't get to see because so many people I follow. There was a lot of people I follow who were mums that were like music journalists that took their kids to the show that then ended up being like it was one of the best shows i've ever seen like they i think it was miranda sawyer who i followed yeah and i i'd assume that she was going and expect had reasonable high expectations but i think it massively exceeded them yeah and but i think there's something about the difference between all those shows i bet there was people i know that went to the snow patrol gig but did they post about it did i see it like didn't didn't really notice it like the bad bunny gig i saw a few people post but it was posting the stage and not them and their friends And the thing I thought was really interesting about the Mike M show, it was that I am here, we are here.

36:03Yes. Like we're hanging out. It felt so different. Yeah. And, yeah. I mean, it was a sea of black T-shirts, honestly. My people. Yeah, exactly. And a lot of eyeliner. I mean, I think it was just a real chance for us to experience that teenage emo emotion again. To be part of the Black Parade. Don't, I'm going to stop crying. That song gets me every single time. Yeah, I mean, it was very, very cool to hear the whole of the Black Parade album in full. That was kind of the first half. My friend who had been the night before me said, oh, yeah, don't worry about, you know, seeing the stage because in the second half, they come and they do it from the middle of the audience, from a stage in the middle of the audience.

36:57So I was there thinking, oh, OK, I can't see anything. Doesn't matter. I'll get to see him in the second half. No, could honestly see even less because I was so far back because Wembley Stadium is so huge. I was so far back that the middle of the audience, quote unquote, was still like extremely far forward. So, yes, I didn't actually see them. But honestly, it was it was enough. Wembley Stadium need a sloping floor. Wembley Stadium need to sort something out because it was it was also the other thing which and this is sometimes with stadium or big, big shows that I don't like is there were two tiered as in price wise.

37:39tickets not not uh not sloping floor wise um tickets for standing and there was like general admission which is essentially like the back half of the standing and then um i think it was called like forward standing sometimes it's called like golden circle which was um the front half and i do think that that shouldn't exist because there was a barrier in between the two there's always a big gap and there's always a gap i actually think for mcr there wasn't a gap which was very impressive but i remember seeing lizzo at the o2 and there was a huge gap and it kind of just killed the energy dead i've been to a few of those british summertime gigs at high park yeah and like as a journalist having a press ticket you're able to get into that golden circle bit and it's amazing but then you look behind you and there's this huge gap between you and like the next group of people and i always feel like i'm getting daggers from everyone stood that can see me and then see this big gap that they can't walk into yeah um i get why like we've had some tragedies of people being crushed at barriers but i also get why because it's greed and they can charge more for those tickets to the front i think it is much more a agreed and like uh tearing the system every tragedy is a um way to make more profit i was trying to there is a like idiom i can't think of but yeah yes something like that but i i mean i honestly don't think it like necessarily spaces out anything differently.

39:12I just, yeah, it's sort of, it's kind of frustrating, but I guess like with a venue as big as Wembley Stadium, you know, something has to be in place. This episode of the Drown and Sound podcast is presented in partnership with Cobus, the platform that pays artists four times more than the industry standard, that has high quality audio, that has human curation, which as a human curator is something that I truly value over the kind of algo slop that you get on some platforms. You can really hear the difference. I know lots of places talk about the audio qualities and as soon as I moved across it sort of felt like I was rediscovering music, which is one of the platform's slogans.

39:58If you're worried about your playlists, you can use Soundiz. It's a really good tool that's part of the sign-up process when you join Cobuzz. It just transfers everything across. If you'd like a free trial of this platform that's independently owned and made for music enthusiasts, head to drownedinsound.org forward slash playlists where you can hear not only our playlists, but get a free trial. You can also find these details in the show notes to this episode. And now back to this episode of the Drowned in Sound podcast brought to you in partnership with Cobuzz.

40:35so before we carry on to accidentally using mike hem's word um is there anything else you want to show before we talk about you seeing your absolute god on earth um no i guess i guess i just love that they have a song called helena and that they ended on it you know it makes me feel special and and did uh mr beringer have a song called helena for you no he hasn't yet he has not yet Ritz is a song about me. How dare he? But yes, I was back at the electric ballroom for Matt Berninger. Did I just get his name wrong? I did, didn't I? You know, there's many ways that his name has been pronounced. I used to say Berninger.

41:19Yeah. I feel like a lot of British people say that. I think I've got like, is it Berninger, like the clothing brand or something in my head every time I think of his name? It's like, he says it like Berninger. Yeah. Mumbly mumb. Yeah, we can't do his like low drool. Though I'm almost losing my voice, so maybe I can. Maybe you can now. But yes, I mean, yeah, back at Electric Ballroom. I mean, I was really happy because the National haven't been on tour this year. The last show that they did was 2024, which I know to some people is like not a long time. You probably know the exact date it was. But for me, I'm like, oh, I'm having withdrawal symptoms.

42:03So it was very special. He also played three national songs, one of which was Gospel, which is from High Violet, but kind of like a lesser known High Violet song, which I had not seen live before in my 22 times of seeing the national. So that was that was really special moment for me. Do you have a little log like that in your head? because people often say things like that and i'm like am i a different kind of music fan because like i often can't remember what i have and haven't heard and like have and haven't seen i'll tell you i didn't have a log until i did the gig pigs podcast okay um so this is a podcast with uh ivor graham and alex keely two comedians and they usually go to a gig with a comedian and then talk about it afterwards.

42:54But I am not a comedian, but I was allowed to do the National one just because Alex Keighley, who's also a huge National fan, has just named his newborn daughter Ada, stole my future baby name, but I'll forgive him. But he was like, we can't do gig pigs in National without you on. So I had to go on a comedy podcast with three very funny comedians because Stuart Lourdes was also, which was very intimidating. To talk about the most hilarious band in the world. Yeah, to talk about the funniest, most uplifting band in the world, The National. But I made a log for that because they said they were going to ask how many times have you seen them?

43:36What song haven't you seen? What do you want to see? So at that point I made a log. So yeah, I guess I do for them but I don't really for any other band. It's interesting. I've seen and I think it's because it's journalists like oh they played this for the first time in like 15 years and I'm like like there's bands I've seen loads and I wouldn't be able to tell you when they have and haven't played a song no I mean I would only find that out later yeah exactly it's just it's interesting I'm just curious because I think I get so emotionally swept up like I've left like I remember leaving the cure actually at Hyde Park my friends are oh my god I can't believe they played this they never I was like did they yeah I was like I loved the gig but like i don't remember i was like i just get so like drawn into the show especially if i don't have it to write about like when i do write about a show i'm making notes and things yeah yeah it's interesting i just get like so emotionally engaged and escape yeah um swept up anyway so how was the rest of the show it was really good you know it was very funny it was very silly he's a very you know for somebody that writes such dark lyrics he's a very very funny person um at one point for example just like an example of his silliness um so somebody in the front row had bought a tennis ball and a no a baseball ball and a baseball ball a baseball baseball um you can tell i love sport and uh a sharpie um and this kind of like i you know he he wanted matt to sign it this kind of like harks back to um when matt had writer's block um he when he kind of like broke through that he started writing lyrics just on anything that he had to handle one thing was baseball balls and he wrote loads of lyrics on them um and so somebody gave it to him from the front row and he took it and looked like he was signing it he just turned it around he just drawn a penis it's just like yeah that's hilarious i mean it's kind of the opposite comedians isn't it lots of comedians are really serious and kind of maybe depressed in person yeah whereas musicians are often very funny and charming because they they get it all out another place and like yeah and also sorry get it all out if you made a penis reference i didn't yeah and i mean also something else that i love about um you know national shows or these solo shows is um the support acts and the people that they tour with is is always amazing So the support act was Ron Boy.

46:05And I think this just kind of like harks to the way that Matt Berninger, Aaron Dessner and the whole of the national like really support like young emerging female and gender nonconforming talent all the time. um aaron destiner has worked with like so many artists like that and they yeah they really like know how to pick very talented like young emerging artists and yeah watching rhomboy was like a real pleasure quick description what does rhomboy sound like you know very guitar heavy quite synthy but also quite delicate at the same time um i'm not sure what genre i'd put them in but like a rockier perfume genius that kind of vibe okay yeah i haven't even heard their music so that was my guess yeah yeah yeah i would go for that i would go for that cool well that sounds like i should be jealous of every single one of those shows and just tell us quickly why you haven't been going to many gigs because i've been working on a magazine and i've been working on an album campaign so the anchor s records out on the 7th of august which i guess by the time this podcast comes out it might already be released but it means a lot of suddenly had to drive to Manchester because she was on Radio 4 and like lots of spending my weekends editing videos and things that I didn't realize as an artist manager would suddenly be like a job that I'd need to do and so yeah it's quite weird being in having run a label for most of the 2000s to put records out now just feels so much more like data entry and a lot of like what are the actual rules like what signals do people want to see like like people talk about social proof like great record reviews become that right and i think anyone that's doing anything creative right now probably feels a little bit like just sort of throwing things into an abyss of both the platforms and the social kind of marketing side of it.

48:05And yeah, it's quite a strange time, but fans are buying the record. It's just growing that audience, connecting to the sort of slightly disconnected bit of the audience. Like, I don't know, when you've got 20 ,000 fans on Facebook and you haven't reached more than about 7 ,000 of them. It's like, how do we get through to that next chain? And so, yeah, so I'm just sort of in the throes of all of that. But also you have to like buy a ticket nine months in advance to shows and when i'm not when i'm not writing reviews i can't just like ask a week before for guest lists so yeah i need to get better also i need to have more money in my pocket to buy more tickets well one of my friends was like i didn't even know mcr were playing and i was like and they were like oh maybe i'll get a ticket and i looked at when i got my tickets august 2025 wow i bought the tickets to mcr and actually it wasn't even me It was my, you know, aforementioned emo friend saying, we've got to go to this and live this dream, live the emo dream again.

49:03So, yeah, honestly forgot all about it until the month before. It's unbelievable how early things go on sale. Well, this was an experimental episode. I really enjoyed it. I think I learned loads of gig tips. Like so many, we should probably just do Helena's gig tips episode. But this has been the Drainless Sound podcast, brought you in partnership with Kobuz. if you go to dranninsound.org forward slash playlist you can find lots of tunes by the artists we've just been talking about so i'm expecting some proper national kind of like things you've never heard before deep dives some lost count b-sides right yeah definitely so dranninsound.org forward slash playlist you can also get a 30-day free trial to the ethical music streaming platform that pays artists more than the others and has music in high definition I have been Sean Adams and I think I'm about to lose my voice and you have been Helen Awudia This has been the Joanna Sound Podcast.

50:00Thank you for listening. See you next time