I've just come back from the Forum, Kentish Town gig. After the... mixed... reviews here, I was sort of dreading what I feared was going to be a bad amateur Karaoke night.
But. Holy shit, it was great! I loved it! And, I think everyone else there did too. From what the other people posting reviews in this thread are saying, I think this had a very different atmosphere than some of the other gigs.
We did get a few special guests for the last night that I don't think were at the other shows, so ignoring those for a moment, I laughed my head off for the entire gig
and also thought it was a hastily-assembled, "LET'S PUT ON A SHOW IN THE BARN TO SAVE THE COMMUNITY CENTRE!*" slightly amateurish mish-mash.
* (c) 1984, Breakin' 2: Electric Boogalo.These are slightly contradictory statements, but I do think it worked. Mostly. Some parts were a bit naff, but overall, a fun night was had by all.
I imagine we benefited from being there on the last night, as some of the bits were definitely being worked out during the tour. Sorry, Birmingham...
Apparently, the brass section on the right were only at this gig?
I didn't find the effin' and jeffin' objectionable here. I think it was inserted at appropriate moments and not gratuitous -- unlike the language on the second album.
Aled's Guide to London was in the vein of his other guides (silly and fun) and the bits with the receptionist and Chris were very funny. Good stuff.
Dom and Aled's karaoke was not good and a waste of time, but Dom's "Fay Kadele" bit with the drummer was * hilarious! I laughed all the way through that. At first I was saying "Oh no. He's not going to wear a dress. Jesus, no." But it worked!
Dom singing a One Direction song was a
* disaster, yet he refused to sing more than two lines of Dominick The Donkey despite the entire audience singing along. What the *
is that all about?
And rather than a crap 1D song, where was "José" or "No Hair"? Are relations so bad between Chris and Dave that Chris can't use the old parodies, or are they BBC-owned? Hopefully the latter.
To the people who wanted jingles and radio bits? You're nuts. How would that work?
Having said that, Chris could certainly have taken a live show in a different direction -- I've seen other acts similar to Chris doing Q&As -- where the whole show is a
real Q&A, people like Kevin Smith do this.
I do believe Chris could do this, and it would probably work, but he clearly wanted to "PUT ON A SHOW!" and have fun with some singing and "skits". It seems like Chris is living many people's fantasy of "becoming a rock star" if only for a brief moment in time, and I wouldn't want to begrudge him that. He's also pretty good at it sometimes -- the Freddy Mercury bit at the end was not bad at all.
Quick thoughts about the rest of the show:- The Twitter foes bit was very good. Chris has great comedy timing.
- The #AskCMLive crowd work was also good.
- The video of "A Day in the Life of Aled, Dom and Chris" was a bit amateurish and cheesy, but it did work and got some good laughs.
- Maddy, who posts here got featured nicely. Like Chris, I also thought she might have been a man! Shit, she just dropped her hat again!
- The solo by the Rockaoke girl was awful. It was a bad cabaret act and not what we paid for.
- No-one was picked out of the crowd to sing at this show. I imagine because there were so many special guests.
Well worth the £50-odd for the night.
Special guests were Mel. C and Ricky Wilson. I deliberately didn't video Ricky, as it wasn't a duet with Chris, "just" a fantastic storming performance of "I Predict A Riot". I did capture a little video of Mel C. and Chris though (obviously the audio was better in the venue than I could capture):
I have a few other short video clips and stills that I may post later, I'm too tired to do it right now.
Cheers!
Neil.
chrismoyles.net
