The Wedding Present - Bizarro: Live in Tokyo 2010

My copy of Bizarro: Live in Tokyo 2010, the new album (sort of) by The Wedding Present turned up today!!  Limited to 500 copies this Japanese release was recorded on May 7 2010 at the Shibuya O-West, Tokyo.  Scopitones shipped 100 of these over and you can get your hands on a copy from their website below.

http://www.scopitones.co.uk/news/

The Wedding Present - The Assembly Leamington Spa

Headed over to Leamington to see The Wedding Present last night.  It was the final night of the UK part of the Bizarro tour.  It was a good gig which I'm paying for this morning  as I'm not as young as I used to be!

I would say that Leamington Assembly is my favourite venue at the moment but it is quite a big place and I was worried that there would not be a large enough crowd to create a decent atmosphere. I needn't have worried because in the end a few hundred people turned up and although they were a bit subdued everyone seemed to have a good time.

First up were The Jet Age. An American 3 piece with more guitar pedals than tunes.  There were one or two songs that were OK but on the whole they left me feeling not much of anything.

The Wedding Present took the stage not long after. Starting with Heather and then straight into Once More before Mr Gedge addressed the crowd. Next came Go Man Go and Skin Diving both had 2 drummers!  New song, You Jane, followed and sounded great. Then  The Theme From Cheers and another new song Can You Keep A Secret.  As that ended a loop of John Peel introducing The Wedding Present played and  it was time for Bizarro.

It's not my favourite album by The Wedding Present but has some great songs. Highlights last night included Crushed, Thanks, Bewitched, Take Me! and Be Honest. Even Kennedy (a song I've never been keen on for some reason) sounded fantastic.

There were a couple of bizarre things.  Firstly David Gedge appealing for people to follow him on Twitter and secondly stopping the show (with one song left to play) to single out the person who threw a glass on stage.  With the house lights brought up he threatened to have the person thrown out as the glass had apparently hit Jessica, his girlfriend.  I have never understood why people throw glasses on stage and David was right to have a go. As he pointed out to the perpetrator "it's not as if you're a kid in fact none of us are getting any younger!"

The interruption broke the spell and as they played Be Honest (the last song) the moment had passed and I was thinking about heading home.

One of the great things about Leamington Assembly is it is just around the corner from the train station. We left the venue with 6 minutes before our train home and arrived on the platform with 2 minutes to spare.

All in all a really good night out.

The Wedding Present Download

I'm a little out of touch.  For example, I had no idea that Belle and Sebastian were playing Birmingham Symphony Hall in December until Clare told me yesterday. Luckily we were able to get tickets. 

Having bought those we also bought tickets to see The Wedding Present at The Assembly in Leamington.  It's 21 years since the release of Bizarro and to celebrate they are playing the album in it's entirety.

I love The Assembly.  It's a great venue and have seen some good bands there since it's launch.  Pete Doherty, Spiritualized, Razorlight and Half Man Half Biscuit.   The venue itself was redesigned by Lawrence Llewelleyn-Bowen and has won the Music Week Award for 'Best Live Music Venue' in 2010 and the award for 'Best Live Entertainment Venue' at the 2009 Godiva  Awards.

Anyway, to celebrate seeing my favourite band at my favourite venue here is a track taken from Bizarro.

Recorded live in Zagreb, earlier this year, this is Take Me!