Another Fine Mess

The most spectacular display in Belfast this Halloween didn’t happen in the sky.
Had you run into any of the two thousand punters streaming shell-shocked and plug-eared from the Ulster Hall that evening, you’d be left in no doubt where the real festivities took place.

The Strathern brothers – Owen and Enda – and their pal, Stephen Leacock, carry themselves like wised-up undergrads rather than Premier League rock stars, so eyebrows were raised when their band, General Fiasco, announced a headline gig at Belfast’s most prestigious venue on the noisiest night of the year.
Check out the footage of the boys (resplendent in cheap fancy dress) blasting through their encore anthem, ‘Rebel Get By’, and you’ll be left in no doubt that they called it exactly right.
Gig of the year? That’s small beer.
If any local band has played a finer one this decade, I’d be staggered.
Two things happened at this show. The first, very clearly, was the ascension of General Fiasco to the top of the Northern Premiership. The second was the real and true re-opening of the Ulster Hall.
In a way, we shouldn’t be in the least bit surprised that the boys find themselves in this position. Their first Belfast show, you may recall, took place not in some mandatory toilet venue, but in front of thousands of Killers and Razorlight fans at Vital. And since then they’ve seen no reason to drop their standards. From opening The John Peel Stage at Glasto, to playing at Reading and Leeds, gracing the BBC’s Electric Proms and headlining Glasgowbury – the General Fiasco method seems to be aim high, shoot higher. So far, nothing has been able to halt their rise. And when you hear a song like ‘Ever So Shy’, and realise it could have been written anytime in the last thirty years, by anyone from Pete Shelley to John O’Neill to Alex Turner, it’s obvious why.
The three lads don’t come across as a presumptuous lot (according to their tour blog, on-the-road highlights extend to visits to local swimming pools and bingo halls) but they are good. Very, very good. In fact, let’s lay our cards on the table and predict they’ll be responsible for the first great Northern record of the 2010s.
As for The Ulster Hall, well I know the official opening took place earlier in the year, and that the showcase gig – Do You Remember The First Time? – was a full bells and whistles re-launch. But while any night that sees Ash, Snow Patrol, Therapy?, Neil Hannon, Duke Special etc etc etc share a stage has to be worth the ticket price, it felt more like a cameo-packed testimonial than a fixture with something significant at stake.
Everyone present that night played songs by acts they’d watched at the venue – flagging up not only their favourite bands, but also the inordinate significance that a live performance can take on – given the right venue, the right act, and some degree of risk.
Elements that were all present and correct on Halloween night. Looking at the youthful faces of the audience, come 2029, it would come as no surprise if whatever hometown act is rocking the venue, cite General Fiasco’s as the show that fired their imaginations.
As the music industry’s end-times feel has spread, the old goals of signing deals, recording albums, playing huge, defining, shows are voiced less often. Musicians operating in this new climate talk instead about building an on-line profile, operating collectively with like-minded souls, sourcing distribution. And while these are all noble and healthily self-empowered kind of notions, it will be a sad day when they come to represent the full spectrum of ambitions open to eager young noise-mongers..
News that ASIWYFA (supported by two other likely cases, LaFaro and Cashier No. 9) are back in the same venue on December 18th, suggests that with a bit of luck, whatever fuse General Fiasco lit on Halloween, is just the first Catherine Wheel from a brilliant set of fireworks.