I couldn’t be bothered to write this post. I’ve recently written about Brighton on my UK coast walk, and about treasure hunting (in Liverpool) even more recently. However, those posts have yielded a whopping total of ELEVEN(!) views between them, and you just can’t argue with that kind of box office. The people have spoken in their droves, and I’m here to give the public what it wants.
A couple of friends and I had tickets to see post-rock behemoths Mogwai at Cambridge Corn Exchange. We always try to see them if they’re playing locally or in London. On this occasion we were offered the chance to also see them in Brighton the night before, on condition that we checked some treasure hunt clues while we were down there. As I explained in my recent post about Liverpool, my friend’s wife organises treasure hunt events and the clues need to be checked every so often to make sure they are still valid. If there’s one thing better than a Mogwai gig it’s two consecutive Mogwai gigs. In fact, my two friends had already seen the mighty ‘gwai in Manchester the previous weekend, making it three times in little over a week for them. I felt like a lightweight in comparison.
Getting out of work a bit early on the Friday, we met at the station and travelled to the south coast of England. These days you can catch direct trains from Cambridge to Brighton, straight through the heart of London. On arrival, we checked into a Travelodge, ate dinner, then headed to the venue.
I had never been to Brighton Dome before, but I was mightily impressed. It’s a beautiful venue, originally built in the early 19th century by the Prince Regent (later George IV) as stables for his horses. An interesting bit of trivia that I didn’t know at the time: it was the venue for the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest, when Abba won with Waterloo. I doubt Mogwai will be playing any Abba covers tonight though, which is a shame.
We had seats up in the circle and I was initially sceptical about sitting through the gig. Those old film clips from the 60s and 70s of seated crowds at rock and pop gigs always looked a bit weird to me. As it turned out, we were perfectly placed. The unobstructed view of the entire show, from a little further back than I was used to, displayed the band’s epic soundscapes to their fullest – sometimes cold, brittle and glacial, other times swelling like magma and flowing like lava. Yes, I know… but it’s hard not to descend into pretentious ‘sonic cathedral’-style Prog Rock cliché when describing Mogwai’s music. The light show was spectacular as well, enhancing the music but never overwhelming it.
Usually a Mogwai gig ends with an epic Mogwai Fear Satan but tonight they closed the show with a full twenty minutes of My Father My King. Based on an old Jewish hymn, it was a song I hadn’t heard them play for years. I couldn’t resist (badly) filming the whole thing:
Next morning I woke up way too early. I hadn’t slept well, mainly due to Pryzm nightclub across the street, but I was looking forward to some treasure hunting. I’d been to Brighton at least three or four times before, but mostly along the seafront. I hadn’t seen much of the city inland. As was the case in Liverpool, the treasure hunt proved to be an excellent way to see the city more thoroughly, and I loved wandering about in The Lanes and other streets where a huge number of independent shops and characterful pubs can be found. Brighton is effortlessly cool without being insufferably self-conscious about it, especially when compared to other seaside towns that are trying a bit too hard to be Brighton (I’m looking at you, Margate). I suppose when it comes to trying to be Brighton, the place that does it best is always going to be Brighton. It’s been doing it for quite a while now. Brighton and Hove only acquired city status in 2001, but it definitely feels like a proper city.
The treasure hunt also took us onto the pier, where the weather was considerably better than when I was last there on the UK coast walk in November, but still quite windy and with a rough sea. By late morning I was starting to flag. Through lack of sleep, lack of breakfast, and increasing Saturday crowds, I was beginning to get tetchy and impatient when we didn’t solve the clues immediately. It was Max Miller who nearly tipped me over the edge. A music hall (vaudeville) comedian from the variety days of the early-to-mid 20th century, I was getting more and more frustrated trying to find his statue in the Pavilion Gardens. Just when I started thinking that some historical allegations against him might have necessitated the removal of his statue, my friends found ‘The Cheeky Chappie’ hiding in some bushes… much to my relief.
With the treasure hunt more-or-less completed, we had a couple more clues to solve inside pubs which were only now opening for the day. As it was lunchtime, we ate at The Cricketers, apparently Brighton’s oldest pub, and then had a final drink in The Colonnade Bar, a classic theatre pub with walls full of signed photos of those who had trod the boards of the Theatre Royal next door. It was then time to catch the train back to Cambridge for a second dose of Mogwai, this time in the familiar surroundings of Cambridge Corn Exchange.
This second gig was a very different experience, standing in the crowd in a much smaller venue and much nearer the stage. Needless to say, the band were magnificent as always, and I was in exactly the right frame of mind. The slight tiredness I was feeling was just enough to de-focus my mind, switch me off a bit, and let the music flow over my reptile brainstem. In this state I was able to appreciate the changes and small variations in the songs’ repetitions. A bit like standing in front of a Mark Rothko painting for an hour or so – what at first appears to be a monolithic block starts to reveal subtle changes in texture and tone.
The audience at both gigs behaved impeccably, with none of the chatter during the quiet bits that you often get at a Mogwai show. Nobody does loud-quiet-loud quite like Mogwai and, as one of my friends stated, the silent bits are just as important as the loud bits.
There was no question of either/or for the encore that night. They played Mogwai Fear Satan, left the stage, then came back and played My Father My King. Post-rock heaven!
On the way home we passed a drunken gay couple having an almighty punch-up in a side street, a scene possibly more typical of Brighton. Our attempts at marriage guidance counselling failed miserably and ended with one of them giving the other a few good punches before running off down the street and leaving his partner in tears. Some people just love a bit of drama.
Vole Explosion 
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