Jubilee
Sin City, Swansea, 4th October 2008
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To put it simply, we couldn't miss the last gig of the tour.
Going into more depth, and being a lot more honest, ever since I first saw Jubilee back in January I've been obsessed, and the only thing curbing this obsession has been cash!
If you've seen this band play, or even if you've just heard a couple of songs, you probably know what I'm talking about (and you might want to head over to my forum, Obsess and Devour), but if you haven't, you're sorely missing out.
Forgetting for a minute the whole OMG NIN + QOTSA fixation that a lot of people seem to have, Jubilee are a fucking fantastic band in their own right. Even if the names meant nothing to me, the music would still speak absolute volumes, but I'm not going to try and describe the music, you can listen for yourself at www.jubilee.la and fall in love like I did.
Ok, so we decided to go along to the final show of the tour, trying out my car's newly cleaned turbo in the process. The drive was bearable until we turned off the M4, when it became utterly breathtaking. I've never driven to/in Wales before, and it's bloody dangerous cos you spend half the time looking at the mountains rather than the road. But we eventually got to Esther's place, and after a hearty meal, we put on our party dresses and set off!
We saw Jeff Lynn outside the venue, where he very kindly agreed to take Tania's birthday cake backstage to get signed by the rest of the band. This made Tania very happy indeed!
We got to chat to Michael, Troy Boy and Jeff before the gig, which was cool, because they're all so down to earth and lovely to talk to.
The gig itself was wonderful, there were a couple of technical problems (missing gear is a technical problem!) and some drunk guy who seemed desperate to give Aaron North a bit of man-time, but nothing could take anything away from the sheer wonderfulness of the music, they even played L.A.!
Again, I'll leave out the details of the music, as obviously it's incredibly subjective, and by default, brilliant. You'll just have to wait until they're touring near you, and check em out for yourself.
After the gig, and to the soundtrack of 80s cheese, we hung out with the guys and danced like morons.
I couldn't believe it when Matt asked Mikey to give me bass advice, when he came over I thought I was going to pass out. I expect I came across as a psychotic obsessive (pretty accurate really) and I think I kept saying "You're my favourite bassist ever!" over and over again, but it absolutely made my day/week/year. Also, I asked him about the head-shaking/foot-kicking thing he does, assuming it was a timing technique, but apparently it's "just something my body does..." *SWOON*
Aaron also returned the guitar I gave him to destroy, saying it was actually not that bad, which I found amusing. He couldn't smash the shit out of it, as a) I forgot to bring a strap, and b) they were missing most of their gear, including the amp that would have taken the brunt of the beating. He was very nice about it, and even chatted to Matt about guitar geekery for a few minutes.
We reluctantly called it a night at about 2am and drove back over the mountain and through the valleys. The partying continued til about 6am, but I had to retire before that, being taxi driver n'all!
So, all in all a fantastic night, and a very suitable end to the tour. It's just a shame the tour had to end!