My second visit to see The Strokes in 2 weeks, this time a trip down to the Brighton Centre. Last time I went here for a gig was in 1994, to see Oasis round off an eventful year with a gig right at the end of December. Its strange to think that political party conferences also happen here, with Tony Blair on stage bleating about Education. Alternatively, we have cool New Yorkers on stage wailing about getting wasted - altogether much better. The gig had an "over 14s" age limit, which a large proportion of the audience only just sneaked past - most disturbing.Support were the Shout Out Louds, as at Shepherds Bush, but as I'm also due to see them again later in the month, I elected to stay in the pub for their set. They are a decent enough band, but 3 times inside a month - well, I don't like them that much!!!
So, The Strokes. Playing many of the same songs they'd played in London, but in a much different order, they seemed to really enjoy this gig. Coming on stage to some funky music, and with their projection screen dramatically swinging into place, the ploughed straight into The Modern Age, which sent the crowd wild from the first minute.
The acoustics in the venue were fantastic, you really could hear absolutely everything very well (except for some of Julian's mumblings between songs). An hour and 20 minutes must have squeezed upwards of 20 songs from them, with one classic after another being pulled out of the bag. Again drawing heavily on the debut album, they played their favourite 8 or 9 tracks from that, especially delighting all those that were fans from the start.When it all finished, we were released into Friday night Brighton town centre, at around 11pm. Not somewhere I'm keen to see again, as the stag parties and other assorted groups of brawlers rampaged around, with a heavier police presence down the main street than I see at a lot of Premiership football matches. You know you're in a place with problems if Friday night takes that much effort to police.
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