Friday 25 April 2003 Country Teasers St Aloysius Social Club
TimeOut made them sound interesting to my friend JD so we went to see the Country Teasers. Didn't realise the St Aloysius Social Club was going to be under the church of the same name in Euston, and the home of a group of Somerstown Mafiosos that were a might unpleased at having their dingy place decended upon by a whole host of media/art/s types in mis-match clothes, 60s 70s polyester flower dresses and thros back to 50s bad boys fashions. A group of white haired old men with huge ears and noses sat round their large guts drinking pints as the young uns got down to country music rehashes with a whole raft of influences including punk, the fall etc and some very right down dirty and nasty lyrics.
I'll go with this review of their music that I found on Amazon - the music is at times great, lyrics? minds not made up about the implication. I kinda liked them for their dirty seedy sound.
Love Margaret Atwood's story, saw pictures of the Opera which looked amazing. Really wanted to see it. Sadly, was terribly disappointed. The music didn't seem to capture the subtlety or the depth of emotion that the story has. The set was great, the costumes seemed right but it all seemed rather linear and rigid. The singing was generally high pitched and had that thing that turns me off modern serious music - lack of a tune or melody. It felt like it didn't have a beginning or an end in some way. Was the first time I ever saw an opera singer do a nude sex scene however which along with the soft porn images at the beginning was why the ticket said it was inappropriate for children.
The audience seemed to love it. They clapped and clapped. I looked around and couldn't really understand why they thought it was so great. It was only when I checked The Guardian the next day that I found an opinion that I agreed with. Disappointing...
