Last night I saw Nick Cave barking and howling
 

I saw Nick Cave, Jarvis Cocker, Shane MacGowan and Pete Doherty "singing" (i.e. howling and barking) Home Sweet Home from Lady and The Tramp, and Nick Cave and David Thomas singing Heigh Ho from Snow White, and Nick Cave singing Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee (An Actor's Life For Me) from Pinocchio.

Oh, and I saw Grace Jones singing Trust in Me from The Jungle Book. And Gavin Friday singing The Siamese Cat Song from Lady and the Tramp.

What an evening!

where was this?

So, how did petey behave?

It was at the Royal Festival Hall in London, an evening of Disney songs called "Forest of No Return".

Pete Doherty was very well behaved, and came out into the auditorium to watch Shane Macgowan do a solo rendition of Zippedy-Doo-Dah. He and his lady sat three rows in front of us, and he seemed to be a very pleasant young man.

He was under valium, probably.

Shane Macgowan was under several pints of lager. He really is a sad sight to behold these days.

Nick Cave was in this building to watch the Philistines play about a week and half ago. He didn't look too well, he had bloodshot eyes.

He was wearing shades when he ventured offstage last night. I'd assumed it was a rockstar thing, but maybe not. Jane thought he was quite handsome.

These rock star get together things really get me down. It's like the current trend for bands like The Pixies reforming to tour 'best of' sets. We're in the midst of a real Indie dinosaur era. There's something very wrong about the whole thing.

The very fact that they play at the Royal Festival Hall is a testament to that. It all got a bit too comfy for these ageing and ageing-like musicians.

By ageing-like I mean youngsters who are old before their time, by the way.

Agreed. It's a phenomena that I hope will come to an end sooner rather than later.

It has cash-cow written all over it. It serves no other purpose.

Entertainment?

Yeah, but have a look at some of the crowds that go to this sort events in the Royal Festival Hall. I think it's self -explanatory.

Who cares?

Go meditate.

Ps - Sounded like a fun night, sonicl.

I do. Don't you?

It really is only a matter of time before the original line-up of Napalm Death get back together to play a run-through of Scum at the ICA.

Wrong, that's what I call it.

Do you mean the sort of crowd who go along to something because it's an "arts" event? You get that sort of crowd anywhere. The South Bank Centre attracts a lot less of the blue rinse brigade than most local arts centres.

Or do you mean the sort who likes their entertainment easily packaged? Isn't any event that is advertised easily packaged?

Totally. They should only have Ryan Adams playing in that sort of place. Where I work they have this slogan that says 'The ............... is yours', but that's total bullshit, because normally the great majority of people who come to see the shows here are upper or middle class. Only when we have the tenner season you get to see a different crowd, but that's only once a year.

See my answer above, and as I worked in this area for years, I think I know the typical crowds for most events well enough.

You can package a gig: making people aware of the bands that're playing. That's inevitable. My real beef is the various 'classic album' gigs that're doing the rounds.

It's not going anywhere. Leave the past be and move on.

The South Bank crowd is all about reclaiming the past for itself: legitimising the very things it once ignored and therefore making them 'important'.

But what about the acts?

What ABOUT the acts?

Oh, if we're talking about "classic album" shows, I'm with you on that, but that's not what I have been posting about. I was posting about a show with musicians doing their interpretations of Disney songs - there's no huge difference between pop musicians doing that and Miles Davis /John Coltrane doing the same.

I know, but I can't help seeing a similarity between these curated legends-together type affairs and a band like Teenage Fanclub performing a run-through of Bandwagonesque.

It's no big deal anyway. All it tells me is that the people mentioned have at last admitted that their best years are behind them. It's up to the fans whether they want to pay into their retirement fund, I suppose.

Well, no, not quite. The replaying of a classic album presents nothing new artistically. Artists working outside their recognised comfort zone (e.g. their own material) can present artistic challenges, both to the artists and the audience. For instance, anyone who went to the show last night to see the pop acts, also saw several interpretations of Disney classics by members of Sun Ra's Arkestra - hardly toe tapping stuff.

Nick Cave plays in these entertainment complexes a little to often , for someone who was once in The Birthday Party. He might want to be like Frank Sinatra, but Frank Sinatra is dull. Shane McGowan is a bit of an alcoholic who doesn't remember his whereabouts, and way past his prime. Pete Doherty is an old junkie trapped into a talentless hipster.

That's not my idea of entertainment, but to each their own.

Maybe not the same, but there is an air of smug self-satisfaction about both.

Once again the art vs entertainment argument...

I would much prefer entertaining art, but failing that I'll take artless entertainment over unentertaining art any day.

Nothing wrong with artless entertainment when that's all a person is capable of. But, as we know, Nick Cave, Shane MacGowan and the Arkestra have proven themselves to be capable of a bit more than just that.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not attacking people enjoying this kind of thing. I'm just saying that when once exciting artists start taking this route it's a fair sign that their creative juices are running rather low.

Spot on.

Not sure I understand what you mean by the 'south bank crowd'? Do you mean the people who programme these events in the venues or the people who attend? If you're focusing just on the programme for this year's Meltdown then I tend to agree with your statement. The programme is mostly boring, awful and just lazily curated.

I'm not one of these people that subscribes to the artist must suffer for their art mentality or should stay true a persona they had over 20 years ago. I don't have a problem with artists just having fun or earning a buck. Whether I part with my hard earned cash though to see it is another matter altogether.

Whether any of them are still relevant or not, time will tell. In all honesty, the only one we're probably thinking about here is Cave, whose output these last few years has been as solid as ever. McGowan is past it, Doherty never had it and the Arkestra is untouchable. And anyway, one album of Disney covers out of a back catalgoue numbering over 300 can hardly be considered a crime against art - and Sun Ra probably didn't make any money from it either.