f.e.a.r.

ian brown. the very name can make grown men cry, usually by hearing his singing voice. ever since i heard the first stone roses album, king monkey's been a musical hero of mine. imagine my delight when i found out he was playing the corn exchange in edinburgh.

his gigs have a reputation for going, well, awry. this one was no different. for starters, the support act didn't turn up, so we were treated to eclectic tunes from the tourbus' cd collection. it wasn't too bad...a bit of punk, a bit of reggae, and a bit of the beatles. after 2 hours this starts to pale, so it was a relief when the lights finally went down, and the band came on stage.

resplendant in an Ethiopia training top, sally cinnamon is belted out. a good start...the crowd goes wild! lots of hugging, lots of singing, it was like 1989 all over again.

then it goes down hill from there on in. although you couldn't tell, the sound wasn't to the monkey man's satisfaction. The second song was cut short, and the next one (waterfall i think) is started and restarted 3 times before he goes away to argue with the sound engineers. this is 20 minutes in. christ knows what the roadies were up to before the gig, though i imagine it involved rizlas and a trip to the 24 hour garage.

another song is started and then stopped. at which point brownie says f**k this and storms off stage. the crowd are getting restless, and some boos start to ring out. eventually he comes back out and gets on with the set, although the atmosphere was a bit flatter than before. he also implores anyone on cocaine to "f**k off", and then threatens to take the glass throwers in the crowd "outside" for a kicking. i bet you don't get this at a maroon 5 gig.

to be fair though the rest of the set sounded pretty good, made of stone and i wanna be adored were astoundingly good, and for once he didn't sound like he was singing into a bucket.

mr brown, we salute you, but with reservations.

however the night was not over. cynically happy, i walked back to the car to find out that some ned had got there before me, and had rifled through my glove-box and boot. i regret to say that after two weeks of happy ownership, i am now ipod less. i just hope the b*st*rd gets depressed by all the joy division and nick cave on it....