You do get much closer to the stars, but the waiting around and general hassle is not so great. It is more like Top Of The Pops, with several stages dotted around a disused warehouse cum TV studio. There is no bar in the place, which is very bad indeed, especially since filming goes on all evening. They do at least 2, sometimes 3 takes of everything, which means that you wait around for ages to see the same thing again and again. Still, such is life in TV, and it is still free, so you can't complain too much.
The filming started off with some interviews, by hosts Steve Jones and the lovely Lauren Laverne. First up was some bird from Shameless that I'd never heard of (ever having watched Shameless might have helped, and may be why I didn't have a clue who she was/is). Then, the main interviewees, Shaun Ryder and Bez. Being in such close proximity to utter rock royalty was very humbling indeed. They seemed as sober as they are ever likely to get, and Shaun Ryder obviously swore and ranted liberally throughout the whole interview. Excellent stuff. Then, the last interview was with Peaches Geldof - why anybody is interested in what she has to say, I have no idea. She did seem to have decent music taste, professing to be very excited that Bright Eyes were due to play on the show, but otherwise what she said was utterly forgettable.
After the interviews, Maximo Park filmed their appearance on the show. We all decamped to a stage where the band were all set up, then Paul Smith appeared on stage, dressed in a very cool hat, and sporting a black waistcoat. Attached to the waistcoat was some scaffolding, on the end of which was a camera, pointing directly at his face. They played Our Velocity with him singing right into the camera, looking deranged.
Annoyingly, the vocals were not amped very well in the studio, hardly at all in fact, so for those that didn't know the song, they probably wouldn't have got a great impression of it. All we heard was guitars, drums and keyboards, you had to really strain to hear the vocals properly. Despite all this, the performance was extremely intense, in fact it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end at times. After this, the camera came off, and there were 2 more takes of Our Velocity, again with amazing intensity, but again without amped vocals. Paul Smith in particular was going mad on stage - a fantastic frontman.
Maximo then played Books From Boxes, a track from their new album which I was probably one of the few people in the studio to have heard before, given that the album isn't out yet. It is a great song, and their playing of it may mean that it will be the next single - which would be a good choice. I really enjoyed it, and by the third take, the rest of the audience seemed to be enjoying it too.After Maximo Park, Mark Ronson and his band played 3 takes of their song. Mark Ronson is best known as Lily Allen's producer, and producer of a fair few other albums lately too. His band has keyboardists, bongo players, and a fair few brass instruments, and they performed an interesting cover of The Smiths' Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before. Clearly not as good as the original, and I'm not entirely convinced that it is necessary to cover such songs at all - especially in a style similar to the Brand New Heavies. Still, it sounded OK, as Smiths songs always tend to do.
Next up (after a long and boring delay whilst cameras were moved around the place, of course!) were The Twang, who performed the obligatory 3 takes of their single Wide Awake, from a balcony above the main room. This meant that they were very difficult to hear, and even more difficult to see. Many in the audience were not familiar with their song, so this was probably the flattest performance of the evening, if only because the band were too far removed from the audience, and many of the audience didn't know who they were. But, the performance was good, and confirmed to me what a great song Wide Awake is.
Then, (for me), the final band of the evening, Bright Eyes. On a stage that was pretty much in the middle of the room, I watched them play their new single Four Winds, and it was incredible. I hadn't heard the song before, but it was very much in the vein of those from I'm Wide Awake Its Morning. But the intimacy of the performance, the fact that you could hear the vocals properly, and just how very very very good Bright Eyes are when they play live, made this an utter privilege to watch.
After Bright Eyes, there was the dubious "promise" of a live performance from Fergie which proved far too exciting - so I went home rather than wait around for another half hour for it. All in all, this wasn't as good an evening as the Album Chart Show, especially given the lack of bar in the studio - but standing 5 feet away from Bright Eyes playing live to 50 people, kind of made all that worthwhile.
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