2000-04-17 Nottingham, The Social UK

Live In Your Living Room, Or…How Motorpsycho Stopped Worrying and Learned to 
Love Nottingham

17 April 2000

The Social, Nottingham UK

- Time to skate
- Big Surprise
- SS III
- Other Fool
- NevahLetchaOut
- Song For a Bro
- The One
- Like Always
- Hey, Jane
- Nerve Tat
- PPP
- Tai Fun
- Hogwash
- Shakin’All Over
- Summertime Blooze
- WWJ
- You Lied
- Black to Comm
--------------------
-FEEL

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! YES!
One of my long-running dreams, likely shared by hundreds of you fine people, 
has been to have Motorpsycho play in my house. Well, little did I know that 
this wish would come true on a quiet rainy Monday in Nottingham. After a 4 
hour and 20 minute coach ride from London I arrived, as they say in England, 
‘knackered’ and aching for a nice hot bath and
wholesome meal. Nottingham has been notorious in the past,
they’ve played The Double Bubble twice, and 
though the shows were great, the club is pretty crazy and idea of hauling the 
equipment up those steep four flights of stairs again was enough to cause 
serious unrest, especially among Turbo and Morten, and while they are 
seemingly tireless and always get things sorted perfectly, this was just too 
much. So, where then would they play this year? According to the listing on 
the Internet, the Social has a capacity of 190 people, so I anticipated a 
good little intimate gig. Well, you could use words such as intimate or cozy 
or whatever to describe the Social, but face it: it’s tiny!
In search of food we saw Cecilie on the street and she had quite the
long face, and warned that 
everyone was in a bad mood given the unexpected, uh, limited dimensions of 
the club. Now I anticipated a somewhat less than stellar show, 
maybe just an abbreviated set, go on, rock out, and go away. No, no, no, 
WRONG. That’s not at all what happened…we are
talking pure Zone, and huge 
oceans of energy and swirling soundscapes, peppered with raucous outbursts, 
it was amazing! Just more evidence that nothing can stop this band, how they 
do it night after night something magic happens. And it’s
these unexpected 
nights that confirm my belief that my devotion will be last forever!
The club looked promising at first sight, nice bar with comfy couches and 
atmospheric lighting, and pints of Becks on tap to recapture that Hamburg 
feeling and K cider (8,4 %?!) to finally get my hoped for cider frenzy in 
afterward. Indeed, everyone associated with the motors looked pah-ritty 
unhappy, and Pidah pointed out that they couldn’t even use
the stage, it wasn’t even big enough for the gear, let
alone the fellows, ha ha! So they decided to just set up on the floor,
forget the ‘stage’. When the doors 
opened, my curiosity was out of control. Whoa! What the…! I
just started laughing, it was truly as big as my living room!
Excellent! Lots of people, too, many had been at the previous
Nottingham gigs, some in London, and some 
had just been counting the days to finally get their chance. There was such a 
good vibe in the air, and suddenly the band just appeared, right under our 
noses. It was hilarious, thinking back to huge metal fences in front of 
monumental Studentersamfundet-type stages in 2,000+ capacity venues and 
suddenly Snah is nearly on my lap, ha ha! They kicked in with a snappy 
version of ‘Skate’ and breezed right into
‘Big Surprise,’ with Bent’s 
traditional intro of the Dora choir, this time Bard was
“Enry”, so funny. 
Then suddenly things went super psychotic during ‘Sideway
Spiral’, it was so lush. ‘The Other
Fool’ is so swingy, you must be dead if you
don’t at least swivel your hips around once or twice when
they play it. Everyone in the living room was movin’. And
the Gebh’s own little baby ‘Never Let You
Out’ is the sleeper of the Cake set, so many smiles
abounded. Bent introduced him in the UK as “our very own
Phil Collins!” or “here’s
Ringo” classic. ‘Song  
for a Bro’ went all spacy, but gave way to a jumping
‘Waiting for the One,’  
and nearly everyone was singing along. It’s so good to hear
Angels and Daemons songs again, and ‘Like
Always’ soared, seguing into a very jazzy 
‘Hey, Jane,’ which I usually can’t
stand live as it prompts mucho slam dancin’, fist
bangin’ mania, but here everyone just enjoyed it without
the nonsense. ‘Nerve Tat’ also spun off into
jazz bits here and there, fat bass you could really sink your teeth
into! ‘Pills and Powders…’ gave us
time to breathe, and then wow, ‘Tai Fun’ lasted
aeons, whew, it was one of those events when I just flew away floating
on a vanilla Necco wafer through the universe. I truly
hadn’t expected this
intensity. ‘Hogwash’ blasted back to  earth,
with a rumbling almost ominous jam and then YEAH:
‘Shakin’ All Over’, they were all in
harmony and it made the British feeling complete. Then
‘Summertime Blues,’ Bent totally goofing and
acting up bigtime, after it was time to ‘Walk with
J’ which still keeps changing shape night after night, 
they shouted their heads off, too, during the refrain. ‘You
Lied’ meant, damn it’s almost over, but
‘Black to Comm’ went on for ages,
‘She’s gotta tee vee eye on maaaay’
and ‘heyyyy, bo diddley!’ great stuff. Then,
this is England, so the lights came up, I looked at the time, it was
just past 23:00, but everyone was screaming, and this hilarious huge
bald ska-guy grabbed the mic, and yelled, ‘ROIT! LADIES AND
GENTLEMAN! DO YOU WANT MORE! DO YOU WANT MORE MOTORPSYCHO! YEAAAH!
GIVE IT UP, LET ME HEAR YOU, ROOOOAAAR!!” he was totally
freaking out, and everyone freaked out right along, there they were,
Bent announced that it wasn’t allowed, but still they were
going to give us some more. Luckily nobody pulled any plugs, and soon
the warm soothing ‘FEEL’ stirred the crowd into
relaxed, exhausted joy. And that was exactly how it should have
concluded.  Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
(and yes then I ended up in the throes of a hectic cider frenzy, I nearly 
dove headfirst down the stairs trying to get outside to find a taxi to get 
safely back to my friend’s flat, screaming ‘GET
UP, AND GO TO CALIFORNIA!’ the entire time. Then I shouted
in a terrible pseudo-Cockney accent at Turbo, who did the same right
back, what a sport. Ah, cider.) Big cheers to everyone, and special to
Simon and Dick, the former doing his best to spread the word across
the pond and the latter taking care of Nottingham.
--lighthouse girl, 19 april, holland--
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