Are You Satisfied?

Attending a concert like the one I did in the evening of Monday 16th November , I was very aware of being judges by those around me. Of course, I shouldn't care, it was a concert after all, I was there to enjoy myself not to make friends with every single person I saw. But I wouldn't really say I cared, more just curious about their thoughts. What was going through their minds when they saw me? Was I too young to be there? Did I appear to be too 'innocent'?

To put some context to this, the concert I attended was a band who go by the name of Slaves. If you've been reading my blog for some time then you may remember me mentioning Slaves as part of my blog post about Truck Festival back in July. However, if you haven't read this post then, like all of my friends, you will probably have no idea who Slaves are and, to be honest, I wouldn't blame you as there isn't any particular reason you should know. Plus, in the words of my brother 'it's not even singing it's just talking'. Ok, partly true, but either way it's insanely good and I don't think you can necessarily write it off as 'not being music' because of this.

The concert on Monday was absolutely brilliant and the atmosphere was terrific although it was not quite that of Truck. (Oh, how apt that I'm wearing my Truck hoodie as I write this post.) I had read up the set list previous to the concert and I was thrilled to see two of my favourite songs from them due to be performed.

As well as playing the majority of their album 'Are you satisfied?' (hence the blog post title) and various new songs, they also did a cover of Shut Down by Skepta of which they also performed when I saw them at Truck and, yet again, it was fucking insane. Biasedly, I'd say that the best songs they played were The Hunter, Cheer Up London, Sugar Coated Bitter Truth and 99. Ok, lets just say they were all fucking amazing.

One thing about the concert which struck me was the people who were there. (If you weren't already aware, Slaves are a duo from Kent who fit into the punk genre of music.) I won't lie, I was expecting a large number of rowdy, middle aged men. There were a fair few people at the concert who matched this description but, by no account were these the majority. Instead, the group of which I saw the largest number of people were punks. With piercings, dyed hair and dark clothing they're kind of hard to miss or associate with any other group. These are typical punks.

However, shockingly, these kind of people took up only a mere third of the crowd on Monday evening. The remaining crowd consisted of men and women from the age of about 8 up to that of past 65. I was shocked to see such a vast crowd and way more diverse than the last concert I attended on the previous Wednesday (I will get round to writing about that soon I swear.)

Despite the variations amongst us, everyone seemed to have a brilliant time.

When the band first came out, there was much excitement amongst the crowd. The lights came up, the duo came out and beer went flying in the air. The atmosphere was incredible and, in my opinion, the audience has a huge effect on the quality of the night as a whole. After all, who wants to be at a concert where people aren't out to have the time of their lives? Definitely not me.

The opportunity to attend this concert was sprung on my suddenly a mere three or four weeks ago. I was so ecstatic to be going as I had mentioned it to my mother when I first saw the release off tour dates but nothing further had come of it at the time. In a way, I'm glad I didn't have too much time for the excitement to build because (yet again) I would just spend months counting down to it. I guess the fact that I only knew who they were in July and tickets only went on sale back in September (maybe later, I can't remember) also play a part though.

Needless to say, even with a only a short wait, I was eagerly waiting for the date to arrive and I'm so very glad that I got the opportunity to go, even if it was at the last minute.

Before I end this blog post (which will be shortly as I'm not quite sure what else to say and I have other ideas to blog about) I want to mention that during a gig in Glasgow (I think) the drummer (and singer) of Slaves injured his arm. I feel so sorry for those who were meant to be going to the cancelled show, my thoughts go out the Isaac (the drummer) and wish him a speedy recovery.

I apologise for the shorter post and also the fact that I have been meaning to finish this post since I started it two weeks ago but oh well its finished now. And hopefully my next posts will require a lot less explaining and brackets to be used.

--- Aimee ---