Birmingham Gig NIA
 

This was a such a good gig. He was in a fairly chatty mood, telling the stories about Coconut Skins, I Remember, Childish - absolutely hilarious. And he played my 3 favourite non album songs - Professor, Childish and BABY SISTER, which was beautiful. The stage performance and lights and everything was almost reminiscent of a Pink Floyd gig! And at this one point, Brandon/Brendon and Joel were both drumming this real funky stuff together. And strangely Damo did the cannonball unplugged thing,. but the thing is this venue was absolutely massive, luckily i was sitting right near the stage. But overall great, great gig

i was sitting in the middle kind of nehind/beside the sound/lighting board and heard cannonball perfectly. what a wonderful moment. everyone was deadly silent. amazing!!

there's nothing better than cannonball unplugged :)

wow, sounds great. How respectful were the audience throughout?

Also how full was the venue?
x

I don't know

The gig was the best I have ever seen from him also i would chance one of the best gigs of my life.

Performance was great, Childish was a treat as always just like Unplayed Piano.the only low was the guy who started barking out loud in the middle of the unplugged cannonball.

it was great to chat with vyv

BUT

can't believe after seeing him a few weeks ago in new york things will be so different

damien became a travelling circus.the whole atmosphere of the gig, outside of his performance was just bull**** and plastic. only 1 Irish band would live up to this expectation and that is U2.

and that is something i never thought i would say of damien rice.

whether he'll go down on this stadium road, which i am sure is great money and looses all human touch and soul with his fans or will come to his senses....hope he'll do at least he'll have time to think about it now

I can't believe I missed this gig given I live less than an hour away and I didn't buy a ticket months ago thinking I'd not be in the country. I hate you all with the upmost jealousy :(

Can you say more about this? What did you mean a travelling circus? What did we all miss?

A spine tingling night from the opening note of 'me,my yoke and i' right through to 'eskimo'
the unplugged version of 'cannonball' was beautiful,but of course the eejit who belted out something needed a (plastic) bottle thrown at his meat head.
I was sitting 3 rows from the front middle and we had another wailer who thought she was auditioning for x-factor behind us who kinda spoilt it a teeny bit.
Was great to hear 'baby sister' and 'unplayed piano' as they're not usually played often.I'm still wanting to hear 'rootless' tree live without the piano,a more angrier version!!
Even though the nia is mahoosive,i totally felt in the moment with the songs and the whole feel of it all.
Not being a kiss arse,but Damo and the band never fail to impress.I kinda felt the words,the music,the atmosphere and the drum jam was excellent!
Looks like he'll be taking a break after the rest of this tour.

superb night.

I'm really confused. What do you mean exactly?

Cannonball Unplugged!!!!!!! :):) :icon_kidr :icon_kidr

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpXShSUADi8
.... Just a bit of it tho!

Grrrr.

At the past UK tour and Marlay park everything he threw out was very normal, mostly 0/9 songs bar The Professor, though still brilliant. I'm so jealous that this UK tour is getting the likes of Childish, Baby Sister, Unplayed Piano and Bhohemian Rhapsody!

ya.. i feel the same way when he came to vancouver.. he only played stuff from 9 and O... + the professor.. but u can't always expect unreleased stuff.. he's playing damien rice stuff.. the stuff most people know, so sadly he is appealing to the lesser damien rice fans? i dunno.. i just know that us eskimos would love to go to a concert and hear allll the unreleased stuff :D :icon_kidr :hello2:

i dont now what the big venue complaints were about. the gig wasnt huge by any means. i saw dylan at the nia and they didnt use just 1/4 of the arena they used the whole thing, and that was too big. but i though that size for damo was just right. the way the music uindustry is going thesae days bands make barely anymoney from record sales, as do the labels (hence radiohead, prince, charatons giving theres away) so the only way for artists to really be able to survice into profit is to do larger gigs. As now labels are struggeling to make money through album sales, they are designing contracts so they recieve profits form tours, where as before that was just for the bands.

GIG was amazing. me my yoke and i was incredible. I like how he couldnt think of any bands form birmingham with a nice happy song while try to explain how he originally wanted i remember to be...

The gig was absolutely amazing. I was sitting on about the 10th row back in the centre on the ground floor. Starting with me, my yolk and I was brilliant. Its completely changed the way i hear that song from now on.

He did a really laid back version of Rootless tree starting on the piano which was incredible and played unplayed piano, baby sister, childish, the professor. All fantastic non-album tracks.

He also played Coconut Skins merging into a crazy jam session and then into woman like a man. Really incredible live stuff.

The highlight unplugged version of cannonball was the real highlight though, especially when on the ground floor. Aside from one muppet in the crowd screeching along to one part it was a really emotive, personal touch to a predominantly heavy damien gig.

Definitely want to see him again, although he mentioned he'd be going on a break after this tour, just hopefully not for too long!!

Let me just say there was an awkward feel to it.It seemed very business like (not the performance itself, but everything around and behind it).I met a few peeps and there was an attitude to them that i never seen before at a Damien gig and didn't like it at all. (these people weren't from the crew)

I don't have any problem getting big and i don't agree that someone like Damien has to do stadium gigs cause otherwise he would struggle to make a living out of record sales.I can say for sure Damien is not struggling and hasn't been struggling for a while now, which is good.It was more of a choice to go down on this road (whether it was his idea or the management's, obviously simplier and cost friendlier than playing two-three smaller gigs in one place) I am just concerned where it will lead cause he is a genuinely independent minded fella but there is a big chance that the whole gigging and his own enthusiasm about performing and communicating with the fans will turn into a routine and gets scrumbled up in this big machinery.And he was never about that before so it would be sad to see that happening, which i think will eventually if he sticks to these big arena gigs.It will suck him in slowly.