Imperial Leisure, Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:30:00, The Metro Club, London, The Event on Last.fm.
From my gig review post (includes abusive comments):
Support:
Didn’t catch their name as speaking clearly seemed to be beyond them
The support was OK but someone should tell them that Kurt is dead and to stop fucking his corpse.
This is Imperial Leisure’s single (In a letter) launch party. Now this is an official single, there are only 1,000 pressed and they are part of a series put out by the ‘zine Organ. This means they follow a certain aesthetic, black and white paper slip in a plastic sleeve. Now this will be a bit of a rant so I’d like to point out that I think, as I have stated many times that IL can be massive and I love their live energy and their tunes. However this release? Bollocks! Seriously it’s a great tune and could get you some radio play but the presentation? I have seen self released EPs with more thought put into them (X-constant set a bar but they are not the only ones). Then there is the b-sides, good tunes too (Landlord’s Daughter and The Beast) which have been re-recorded and there is also radio edits of In a letter and Landlord’s daughter. The production lets them down though, especially on gang vocals and the levels on the lead vocals occasionally. This is not the 80s good production is possible from your bedroom. OK it is nit picking but come on if this is your first "real" release (whatever that means now anyway since they’ve had 3 demos/EPs) you’d want to hone the product to perfection. The core is great but you need the icing to get noticed. I fully support these guys so I bought a copy of the single for me and then one for Sarah and another for Al but I think the next release needs some work.
Anyway less whining, what about the gig? Perfection, I’d only seen them two days beforehand and the set seemed the same but they were just loving it, crowd was bigger (even though Saturday was free) and it was great. Again if they aren’t big soon, the world is ridiculous, I’ve now seen them 8 times and kick all kinds of ass, record an album (properly) and release it right. If a prog thrash band from Ireland can you can.
Photos here.
Later days,
Halo.