February 26, 2008 parish Reel Big Fish My ears are ringing, my back aches and I feel like a hundred years old this morning as I took Liam and Emma and a friend of theirs to see Reel Big Fish play at the Portsmouth Pyramids. Now, as a youth worker, I am used to being surrounded by young people, and it doesn’t normally bother me, but maybe because I hung back from them so as to not cramp their style, because I was effectively there as a bloke on my own (and haunted by the words of the Smiths: So you go on your own, and you leave on your own, and you go home and you cry and you want to die -“How Soon Is Now?” has untold influence on my inner monologue). The audience were made up of teens: a wild menagerie of School and Sixth Form College with a few Uni Students thrown in, and I felt old. I was there in the 80s and I saw The Selecter, The Specials, the Beat and Madness in that flourishing of Ska from the Midlands. I had forgotton how much energy was implicit in Ska, as today it is given a much more punky edge. As well as enjoying the band, I was just captivated by the exhuberant dancing (not just in the moshpit) and the sheer joy of watching young people enjoying themselves in a unstudied way. In this postmodern world, RBF seem to cross a lot of boundaries and cultures: a melting pot of music and influence. It was great. …and now my shoulder is killing me. Need an appointment to sort this out by, I suspect, surgery. This is the price you pay for touching base with your youth: Lou should have come too and then we could have experienced this together and it makes me realise that we should get back out to small, sweaty gigs a lot more. Reel Big Fish “Sellout” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ4S-UiNmzo Reel Big Fish Fish “Take on me” – they do a good line in Ska-based covers, even launching into Mettalica’s “Enter Sandman” at one point. By spr
1 comment so far Sarah Brush Posted on 11:00 am - February 26, 2008 I am SOOOOOO Jealous – I love RBF! I was introduced to them by one of my young people four years ago and they are just so full of life. Funnily enough said young person doesn’t really follow them so much now but I still do!! I am going to be singing Sell out in my head all day now! Reply
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