Television, Liquid Rooms, Edinburgh
Posted: June 18th, 2002, by Marceline SmithI’m just back from the fine city of Edinburgh where I was amusing myself in the style of someone with no money. Firstly I took myself to The Art of Star Wars exhibition with unemployed person discount yay and spent a good couple of hours wandering about engrossed in the pictures and costumes and spaceships. More on this later but go if you get the chance.
After that and some nice dinner we watched television, sorry watched Television [ha ha HA! see what I did there?]. We arrived about 9pm only to discover much cheering as Television took to the stage. So no James Orr Complex for us, boo. The venue was utterly packed and we could not see a single thing. If I stood on tiptoe I could make out the lights at the top of the stage but that was it. Luckily we were tipped off to the back stairs and side stage views so got ourselves a prety great view. I spent most of the set just thinking ‘Loooook! It’s Tom Verlaine!’ which was almost exciting enough for me. When I got a copy of Marquee Moon back in 1990ish and named my pot plant after Tom Verlaine I never thought I’d get to see them live, even when they reformed a couple of years later. So, to be standing mere feet away and hear all the hits had me unable to remove the stupid grin from my face. I’m glad I didn’t listen to the records or anything before I went to the show as it was way better being reminded of everything as it happened, the guitar lines seemingly indelibly imprinted on my memory. Highlights were pretty much everything they played off Marquee Moon and a fantastic Little Johnny Jewel. I’m listening to a live tape of them from 1978 as I write this and apart from the sound quality you’d hardly notice those 24 years in between. The Strokes wish they were half as cool as 2002 Television in their dad clothes, let alone 1970s hipster Television.
Marceline Smith
Marceline is the fierce, terrifying force behind diskant.net, laughing with disdain as she fires sharpened blades of sarcasm in all directions. Based in Scotland, her lexicon consists of words such as 'jings', 'aboot' and 'aye': our trained voice analysts are yet to decipher some of the relentless stream of genius uttered on a twenty-four hour basis. Marceline's hobbies include working too much and going out in bad weather.
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