Blagged a free ticket tonight to see a sold out gig by the newly reformed punk legends Descendents at Shepherd’s Bush Empire... And it turned out to be quite an evening!
They came out all guns blazing, then after 3 songs, singer Milo loses his voice, has a tantrum and throws the microphone on the floor, except it somehow bounces back and hits the guitarist in the face. Ouch! Milo storms off, and the singer from the support band sings a song or two. Then Milo comes back and struggles through a couple of songs, but he’s growling so it’s like death metal Descendents! And it’s just not happening, when your voice is gone, what can you do! Drama! And you can’t cancel the show as people have travelled to see this from far and wide!
So what do they do? They swap instruments, drummer takes the guitar, guitarist goes on drums, Milo takes the bass and the bass player – sings! But that only lasts a couple of songs. Milo can’t really play bass! Few more members of the support band come on to do a few songs, the drummer sings a few, they even get their old roadie to belt one out! In between songs, whoever is on guitar is briefly teaching Milo how to play the next song, how punk is that! Learning to play on stage! Improvised, chaotic and shambolic, but hilarious and very brave too! The crowd loves it, mic is passed around to fans at the front to sing along, and at the end of it all it turned out to be a one-off, a very special Descendents gig. Few idiots booed at the end, but on the whole I loved it.
And then... [spoiler]I got propositioned by a complete stranger
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Here's one of my favourite Descendents songs:
[youtube]ZEdMKPztNgo[/youtube]
