20:26 on Monday night and I arrive at Deaf Institute with my girlfriend to watch Rustie. Not to be confused with the trampolining midget weatherman on Live TV,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y5UWCc6KHY
he is a Scottish fella who you could probably describe as doing electronic, hip-hop dance/dubstep (if you were a dick who had to categorise everything). I first became aware of Rustie a few years back with the release of his first album Glass Swords, which last year he followed up with his second, Green Language. I’ve always been a bit of a fan so thought I’d give him a watch and do a lovely review. The thing is, I’m finding it really hard…
Photo by Jack Kirwin
I attended the gig with my girlfriend, whose musical taste is, erm… what shall I say? erm… shite. When we first met she proclaimed to love Ed Sheeran and was quite clearly one of The Script’s biggest fans In fact, she even attended the recent Script gig at the MEN twice, going so far as to walk on stage with some shitty flag while their squashed little faces belted out another tedious song purely written to be played in the background of an X-Factor Audition sob story.
So I brought her along and it was pretty evident almost straight away that she was going to hate it. I therefore decided to write down everything that popped out of her mouth, in all of its infinite Rochdale-ian majesty.
20.32 “There’s a weird mix in ‘ere int there?! Some are Uni and others are just druggies”
When I was a young lad growing up in Oldham I lived near Waterhead Park and the most frightening thing in the world to me was glue sniffers. When I imagined them I thought of some bigger boys standing in a circle passing around a big slab of Pritt Stick, just waiting to beat me up and steal my bike. I was obviously being a silly sausage (nobody would want to steal my shit bike – it only had 8 gears), and it’s pretty safe to say that there were more than those two types of people at Deaf Institute that night. But I must admit that the whole situation felt a bit ridiculous. I mean, there we were, listening to music usually associated with clubs and festivals, all the while Phil Mitchell was slagging off Danny Dyer on BBC1. It felt a little odd, but as the drinks continued to flow, we started getting into it.
20.36 “I’d say that they’re all stupid for looking ahead and bouncing up an down”
We had walked in while the support act, MssingNo, was on and the extent of my knowledge of this fella was that he is named after the glitch in Pokemon on my Game Boy that got me a level 100 Pikachu. I was very impressed with him though and the crowd were indeed bouncing up and down whilst looking at the front of the stage. Perhaps the thought was that this simple concept of live music did not transcend other genres that weren’t ‘shit-pop’.
20.49 – “Ere, this wallpaper is bloody horrible innit!? Horrible”
After a few minutes looking at Instagram, I was shown a friends’ wallpaper. It was indeed shit. It was that kind of wallpaper that was mostly black with bits of silver that you buy from Matalan and only put on one wall in your front room.
20.55 – “This one’s popular…they’ll clap at that!”
MssingNo was finishing off his set and he can give himself a little pat on the back for a job well done. In the break before Rustie we were treated to some music which was ripped straight out of a Jean-Claude Van Damme sex scene where he gets his arse out. After a couple more drinks and a prolonged build up, Rustie stepped onto the stage and started banging out his stuff. Accompanying the live set was a rather impressive visual display, which projected right over Rustie himself, which according to Wikipedia (in its infinite wisdom) were done by A-Rock and included “lost Egyptian artefacts, swarms of birds amongst other extravagant effects”.
Photo by Jack Kirwin
21.22 “Look at that show off with his massive camera…He’s definitely like “Heeeyyy! I’m with the press.”” Not even the official photographer is safe!. Maybe my girlfriend wants to go back to the days where people didn’t need a big camera or arrogant attitude to say they were working for a newspaper. All they needed was a trilby with a card tucked in the band saying ‘PRESS’ in big black letters.
21.35 “Is that why all these guys have got backpacks on? To keep their Apple Macs in?”
Backpacks can hold a variety of things such as books, a coat, some meat, an Apple Mac and in the case of Kevin McCallister; a handful of fireworks and a Talkboy.
22.20 “It’s all just a bit weird; I wouldn’t know where to start with a review!”
As mentioned at the beginning, it’s massively difficult to come up with a review for this Rustie gig for loads of reasons. I mean, the guy is really talented, the set was amazing, and if you’re in to this kind of music – you should get involved. But the problem is – if you are in to this kind of music – you will already have heard of Rustie, and you wouldn’t bother reading some knob head’s review on it. And if you do like the music and have never heard of Rustie then I think it’s about time that you pack it in and go home. Stick to something else; I’ve heard The Script are alright.
