bellx1 are my heroes

trousers

I went to BellX1 in the Olympia last night.

Last time we saw them we had to sit through the most woeful, turgid support band I've seen in years, so this time we took our time, got in late, I even ordered a Guinness, though the band sounded good, only to discover it was the Walls! And then we had to wait for our pints! So unfortunately we only caught two songs, and they sounded great. And most interesting of all, they were using a drum and bass track and had the drummer on film behind them, seamlessly blending in, even doing a bit of prerehearsed interaction. It was consumately professional and smoothly done, I was wowed. Inspiring.

Bellx1 are uncategorically excellent. The successors to U2 as Ireland's flagship band, I think.

The set, the lights, what they do with the songs, it's all to a standard of artistic excellence that is Raising the Bar.

They played a lot of older stuff, unlike in November when they were previewing the album - but the new songs fitted in very well, more than I thought they would - in November it was all quite keyboardy and electronic sounding, but a lot of last night was heavier. Close your eyes and sway away into the sound, heavy. So good!

A beautiful surprise was a guest appearance by Lisa Hannigan, for the encore, for their Cake Sale duet. She's unassuming, and lovely, and sounded gorgeous.

They're clearly pouring money back into the music, the new electric guitar toy he was fiddling with a little nervously last year is confidently broken in, everything flows perfectly.

They even have a new song called Breastfed, introduced with a Pat Mustard intro, about nobody buying UHT milk because it's shite - and I think it's pro-breastfeeding, but I'd better check to be sure, you never know with their lyrics. But if I was Paul Noonan's mammy, I'd be proud to have fed that mind and voice and six foot something frame, I tell ya.

His voice is angelic as always. His dancing pleasantly staccato and mad. The man is so sweetly funny, I love his joke about not videoing them being too lost in music, as we might catch them making their sex faces. The best bit about that is thinking about him making his sex face...

My only complaint is about his terrible, terrible trousers. They are a shiny looking grey. They taper. The hem sits at his ankle. He's a skinny man, but they make his arse look big. They were actually a distraction, I couldn't look away. Honestly Paul. Trinny and Susannah need to come for those trousers, their time is up.

But worst, almost, than the trousers, was the noise. Of the crowd. I don't know whether the sound was down more than usual, or it was the weird acoustics of where we were sitting upstairs, but my God, the chat. Blahdeblahblah over the music, even the loud bits. People shouting into phones and blathering at each other. A giant rattling hum of noisy talking. Why?

Why do people spend money on tickets just to shout to each other? Why not listen to the songs? The rudeness of shouting over a quiet song... I dunno. It's weird.

It happens all the time now. Comedy gigs are the worst. What's wrong with people, eh?

I'd love to post some video, but I am lacking in technology. I'm going to keep my eye on Youtube though.

Check out a real review at Swear I'm Not Paul

God, this is not smooth, but it's taken over three hours to get this far! I had to rush out and bring my car to the garage, I'd forgotten to go! And now I have to change a nappy.

So that's it!