Review: McFly Live
This article is pending translation
It is a rare occasion when you can put your hand on your heart and say, with all honesty, that the supporting acts were better than the main performance.
Tuesday Night at the Motorpoint Arena was one such occasion.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that all of the McFly fans had a brilliant time staring up at their idols. And the music they played was not that bad - it wasn't exactly to my tastes, but they put on good performances. It was the attitude of the band that irritated me.
They could be perfectly charming at times, for example, during the whole concert, they thanked the crowd once, and they said that we were their best crowd of the tour so far.
The band were clearly aware of the fact that their crowd was made up predominantly of 12-year-old girls, as they sporadically shouted out phrases like OMG and FML, so asking young, underage, possibly prepubescent girls if they are "feeling horny," and if they would "like to play with some balls", didn't really seem that appropriate.
What didn't help matters was a few superfans throwing their bras on-stage. One landed rather neatly over the microphone stand, so one of the singers, Danny, picked up another one and draped it over the bassist, Dougie's stand, too. By the end of the gig there were probably about five undergarments on the stage.
Fair play to the guys, their songs, although they lacked lyrical depth ("Some people laugh and some people cry, Some people live and some people die") were not that bad, and the fans of McFly seemed to have a jolly good time playing with some large inflatable balls with the band member's logos on them, but I still found it a little questionable how they interacted with the band.
I had gone along to the gig hoping that McFly would still be the cheerful little fellows they were seven years ago, and I was somewhat disappointed.
There were two definite highlights of the evening: one of the opening bands, The Struts, were absolutely brilliant and I am pretty sure the lead singer is the Bowie Incarnate (even though Bowie isn't dead yet), and the other highlight was when the band sang three of their older songs, "Obviously", "It's All About You", and, of course, "Five Colours In Her Hair".
If you like McFly, then I'm sure you would have a brilliant time and you would enjoy the music. For those who are indifferent to the band, overall, I'd give the evening a 4/10, something I wouldn't pay to go and see, but at least the hot dogs were good.
IMAGES: Akshay from the Shouttawe Editorial Group
4 Comments – Postiwch sylw
Stormer007
Rhoddwyd sylw 14 mis yn ôl - 27th March 2011 - 12:59pm
Nice to see you being brutally honest =P
Great review =)
CeefaxOfLife
Rhoddwyd sylw 14 mis yn ôl - 28th March 2011 - 13:52pm
Boom! Take that McFly!
hannah182
Rhoddwyd sylw 13 mis yn ôl - 26th April 2011 - 21:34pm
I'm left quite baffled by this review. Could you maybe explain the reasons why you didn't think the gig was as good as you expected in terms of the musical quality rather than mock the audience?
I'm not sure that music reviews are meant to be biased to your own personal tastes either - maybe a little more self-opinionated would be an improvement.
I didn't attend this gig and would like to know more about the band than the crowd.
Thanks
emb789
Rhoddwyd sylw 11 mis yn ôl - 30th May 2011 - 13:07pm
hannah182,
If you think about it, it's impossible to be unbiased in a music review. If you want me to, I could talk about the chord sequences used and the dynamics and go all technical for you (I could even go as far as using fancy Italian words like ostinati and morendo), but I don't think that could really (if italics are doable in comments, they would be appreciated on the word really, you lovely editor types) be called a review.
In terms of musical quality, I did comment on the songs quite a few times - again, if I hadn't, it wouldn't have been a review. But if you want a little more, here you go:
The quality of their singing had gotten noticeably worse since the band originally came about, however, that's probably because in many recording of their newer songs, they sound a bit autotuned, and have come to rely on the autotune rather than their own talents (and they do have a lot of talent). Many of their songs were bland and generic, and they sounded like they'd been written for money and success, rather than because they wanted to write music that they loved.
I can't comment a lot on the band because there was not a lot to comment on. They were average.
I hope this improves your opinion of my work :)