“Need a little time to wake up, Need a little time to rest your mind, You know you should so I guess you might as well”
-Morning Glory, Oasis

Attention single ladies: if you want to meet men, go to an Arctic Monkeys/Oasis concert. The audience is 90% men.

Carrie-Anne, Dan and I saw the Arctic Monkeys and Oasis last night at the ACC and I was surprised…surprised by how much I really liked Oasis. Dan and I hadn’t been to a concert in ages (what was the last one? No Doubt in 2000?) and Carrie had only ever seen one show- Area 51 with Moby and David Bowie. We got to the ACC after a dinner at Spring Rolls and had excellent floor seats, 15 rows back from the stage. It was then that I looked around and realized that Carrie and I were the only girls in our row and we were surrounded by beer swigging men. You could see the odd girl who was obviously dragged along to the show with her boyfriend. I’m sure it was more of a mixed crowd elsewhere, but on the floor, it was all 20-something men.

The Arctic Monkeys kicked off the show. I was excited to see them and figured that I would like them a lot more than Oasis. I was really, really disappointed in their show and they way they performed. Not to say that they were bad but it was seriously lacking. I think a lack of stage presence did them in. They seemed to be in a hurry to play their song and get off stage because they whipped through them so quickly. As well, I think they are over-hyped for what they really are. I just couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a little band that should be playing in a high school gym. I thought they were like their CD- some good songs, but mostly mediocre songs. I was the only one of us who was a fan going into the concert, and not so much leaving. Seeing them live tarnished them for me. Dan and Carrie on the other hand, weren’t that familiar with them and they did like them more than I did- especially the latter half of their set. "When the Sun Goes Down" was their best live song, "Dancing Shoes" was also good, as was "Perhaps Vampire…". "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor" was not so good. Here’s a video of their best, "When the Sun Goes Down" so you can judge for yourself:



Oasis meanwhile, really blew me away. They were excellent. They had stage presence and a good set. I wasn’t expecting them to be that good. And I don’t throw this out frequently, but they were in the upper echelon of concerts I have seen (and I see a lot of concerts). The brothers Gallagher were both excellent, and although no beer bottle throwing or fighting took place on stage, the closest we did get to that was Liam angrily pointing at his brother Noel and mouthing some angered words that we couldn’t hear while making angry hand gestures. He also had a thing for leaving the stage and standing perfectly still and staring out at the audience for a few solid minutes when he wasn’t required to sing.

“Need a little time to wake up, wake up”

They played a lot of hits that took be back to my grade 7 days when Oasis was the coolest band around with their (What’s the Story) Morning Glory CD. Dan and I had a lot of memories for that since we sat next to each other in grade 7. And their new songs were good as well. The only complaints that we had (aside from the guy in front of us barfing all over the coat of the woman in front of him…) was that it was relatively short at 90 minutes. Of course, I’m just spoiled by the many U2 concerts I have seen where they last over 2 hours. And as we were leaving we starting thinking about what they didn’t play that we had thought were obvious: "All Around the World," "D’You Know What I Mean," "Where Did it All Go Wrong," "Stop Crying Your Heart Out," and "Don’t Go Away." They did play a song that Dan and I had completely forgotten about: "Don’t Look back in Anger," which I easily have not heard in 8 years but was able to sing every word last night. They also played one of my favourites, "The Masterplan," which I now present to you in video form:



Other than that, it seems that people from Thorold love Oasis. We saw 4 people we went to high school with. And they travel in packs so you know there were more of them around. They were actually trying to sneak other people from Thorold onto the floor. Then again, the three of us are all from Thorold and we were still hanging out together (but we also all live in the city…well Dan and Carrie are cousins so they live together anyway and I will soon crash with them the first week of May). I also found a really cool but mangled Hard-Fi poster on the ground which I kept because it wasn’t mangled past the point of salvage. I wish I was going to see them April 5th, but I have to rein it in somewhere…and I just saw them for $10 less than what their tickets are now at the end of January.

“Tomorrow never knows what it doesn't know too soon”

Now we are all very excited for the Coldplay shows this week. I’m going tomorrow, they’re going Thursday. I have 2 more Oasis videos to post and I’ll add some Coldplay videos to the collection tomorrow night. I still have another Stars video from their show, so one day I will just make a music post of all my concert videos.

Here's teh review from the Toronto Sun which gave the show 4 out of 5 stars.

“Another sunny afternoon, Walking to the sound of my favorite tune”

Top 5 Playlist of the Day:

Morning Glory- Oasis
Dancing Shoes- Arctic Monkeys
The Fallen- Franz Ferdinand
A Rush of Blood to the Head- Coldplay
Soul Meets Body- Death Cab for Cutie

“What's the story morning glory?”