CSS and The Gossip Myspace Secret Show @ Roadhouse, Manchester

This is gonna be a long one, but worth the read! ;)

Some bold facts: Myspace UK has been organising two secret shows so far, this was the second one. I learned about it in a bulletin sent out by the Myspace Secret Show UK page. It announced the date and place, May 18th Manchester, but I only found out about who would play a couple of days before the gig.
To get a ticket I had to befriend the myspace profile (which I had already done ages ago) and CSS's and the Gossip's myspace page. Then put the three in my top eight, print out my profile page, and then, they day before the gig, go to the local book and music store Fopp to queue for my ticket.

My friend and I arrived at the store two hours before they started giving out the tickets, only two be quite surprised that there were people queuing already! So we took our place in the line and waited. Somebody took pictures of us holding the prints of our profiles. I mention this because we were exposed to photographers let loose quite often. They started handing out the tickets on time, and soon, after showing the prints and an ID, we got a wristband, a ticket and some buttons which said things like "you looked better on myspace" or myspace is for losers but you're all f*cking on it.

Holding the tickets in our hands we thought of two things. First: we got the tickets, no more queuing! (how wrong we were...) Second: oh, the tickets say dress code: shock. What are we gonna do about this?
I won't explain what we wore, in case you may read my description too well and then I got no idea if weird pics of me will finally come up on the myspace page...

But we did dress up a bit the next day and went for a nice pint. The tickets said Doors 8:30, so we where there 8:30. Only to have to queue again, for an annoying one and a half hour. Why this was like this, I do not really know, but I got my suspicions: there were cameras again. People handing out flyers, people taking pictures. And a film team that filmed the queue, encouraging everyone to cheer. Of course, if you wanna persuade people who weren't there about how busy it was, you got to make the audience queue. But for one and a half hours?

Nevertheless, we finally got inside, only to wait a bit more. Then CSS played. To be honest, I did not know any of their songs before, and one gossip song only. And to be honest, I was not particularly found of the music. I liked both bands attitude, the singer from CSS with glasses painted on her face and a fake tooth gap. I read about them afterwards that they started the band without knowing how to play any instrument. If that is true, bless them. But to me all the songs sounded the same.

Things were similar with The Gossip. Again, not really an idea what they sound like, yet I was familiar with some of the modern myths surrounding Beth Ditto, and maybe she fulfilled them again this night with her ultra-short dress and her party-attitude which could have resulted from drunkenness. But she does what she wants to (at least I hope she still wants to be like this, and it has not become a necessity to stay popular), and I appreciate this. Plus there was something else about her, which was clearly my highlight of the evening: her voice. Let me tell you, no matter what you think of her and her band, her voice IS amazing. They opened their set with a cover version of George Michael's Careless Whisper, and I as an old George Michael fan say they did it very well.

Here are some pictures my friend took:

CSS

The Gossip

The glowsticks

After these nice impressions, here is what the press said:

First of all, myspace UK still has not managed to put reviews, videos and pictures up on their profile yet. Maybe they will have when you read this, but they certainly did not have when I wrote this. Considering the fact that the gig was friday night, and I am writing this on a monday afternoon, I must say that's pretty lousy and lame of them.

However, the NME was really quick, giving us this story. Do I approve what they wrote there? Frankly, no, not all of it. But first, my congratulations to the author who figured out the setlist. How you can keep all these songs apart and recognise them is a miracle to me. But maybe he just nicked the setlist? Yet I do not remember Beth Ditto shouting for Paris Hilton to be put into prison. I also do not recall her dedicating the gig to Yoko Ono. And I was really sober. The rest seems true, though.

After the gig was over, there was a bit of djing going on, were once more I realised that either my electro time was ten years ago and is over now, or the best electro songs simply were made ten years ago, because what got me (and the crowd) going the most were some old nice tunes such as daft punk's around the world and mr oizo's flat beat. When we left they gave us free posters of both two bands, and we still had these glowsticks they had been throwing into the audience extensivly. Having spent less than five pounds for this night I was quite satisfied with the outcome. lots of annoying things, but who am I to complain when it's a bargain!