Well here it is, end of an era, but at least some small comfort can be had from the fact Toploader split earlier in the week, going with a whimper, and that bloody Dancing in the Moonlight single still haunting me from a previous (Student) life.
Anyway, thanks to a combination of somebody leaving their luggage on a train from Gatwick and Tony Blair's Culture of FearTM, as well as the Central Line not being as open as previously thought, I managed to miss The Blueprint, as well as the signed copies of Bootlegged, Distorted, Remixed & Uploaded at the merch stand. Although I was assured their 20 minute set was pretty darned fine. Blair, is there anything he can't fuck up for the rest of us?
Anyway, I did manage to arrive in time for Million Dead, or did I travel back in time for an early At The Drive In gig? Either way, the main point of interest was some dickhead in the crowd who we were taking bets on whether he would live long enough to see PSI arrive. A broken guitar, a gimp stage invasion, and a strange habit of being side-on with the crowd made them kinda interesting, but kinda annoying at the same time. Give 'em time, though, they may become better.
Anyway, distractions aside, here comes the Main Event. With some material from Doheny aired over the PA, the brothers Clayden have a future ahead of them, which is comforting. After all, fading away would be the greatest insult of them all.
And trust me, they were never going to go quietly. As soon as the intro from Infotainment? (merged into Trancer) aired, everybody was ready to lay waste to the Astoria and give them a fond farewell, even if Jon has a weird, mottled blonde/brown, barnet. Have I seen him in all his hair colours by now? Anyway, they launch straight into proceedings with Triad, as the rest of us launch into proceedings in a more literal manner. Anyone ever notice it seems to last ages on record, and about three minutes on stage, by the way?
Swiftly following on with Dead Battery, Eight Days and Scene This just reminds us how muich we're gonna miss the lads. After all, will we have another PSI, or are we more likely to have about twleve Lostprophets or Kennedy Soundtracks? Meanwhile, general humiliation of guitarist Dan Rayner during Down, as well as other more recent tracks My Kind and We Know fitting in nicely with the older stuff, including Microwaved with the changed "And you don�t read the papers? Tony Blair is gonna save us" lyric, Virus, and Keep It Clean, dedicated to Blue, Busted, and Willeth Gates. Somewhere along the line, we also got introduced to Jon's missus on the balcony, had a mini rave to What's In It For Me?, because we all like drun 'n' bass after all, and a pic taken by Kerrang (I'm the guy andwiched between several large blokes, girls on shoulders, doing the "V1" sign). Alongside plugs for the new album (and to think, majors wanted to charge �22 for it), giving out a The War Against Terrorism (work it out) T-shirt, and a solid round of thanks to ex-members (Jim Davies especially) and, oh yes, US FANS, it felt like a good send off. Even better, Ian Camfield put in an appearence and awarded them with a nice shiny disk for 1m (that's 1,000,000) worldwide record sales. You may have thought it was like running headfirst into a succession of walls, but it turned out to worth it all along. Following that with Shutdown was a very apt moment...depending on how "indefinate" this hiatus is. You have to live in hope, y'know?
A swift encore of a carnage-enducing Genius and a final burst of Please Sir put a lid on the evening, with Jon giving the front row a lot of high fives for being there, rather than the last nail in their coffin, although sections of the crowd were baying out for W.Y.S.I.W.Y.G, but unless Jon was willing to do two hours, it wasn't gonna happen. So I can moan about no Un:UK, Everything's Fucked, Screenshot, Wafer Thin...
Some people are never satisfied, are they?
RIP Pitchshifter: 1989 - 2003.