Music Friday II: The Garage Gig

My monkier for my weekly Friday segment needs work. Music Friday doesn't quite work. I'll think about it, or you can tweet me some suggestions xD

So, here's your journalist-honing torture - i mean treat - for today:

LOSTPROPHETS AT RELENTLESS GARAGE, 18/01/10

It's all very well to be let into a venue at 6.45, but having to wait on the barrier for nearly an hour and a half to see your favourite band can be dull. Sure, you're in the warm, but it's cramped and hard to move around and the music is so loud that talking can only be achieved by shouting directly into somebody's eardum. The atmosphere is annoyed, but excited - soon, a behemoth of British rock will be onstage.

All irritation leaves the crowd as soon as the Welsh band take the stage in their first gig of the new decade. Tearing straight into TO HELL WE RIDE, the one-man-down 'Prophets start as they mean to carry on: powerful and punchy. DSTRYR/DSTRYR and IT'S NOT THE END OF THE WORLD (BUT I CAN SEE IT FROM HERE) remind the assembled throng why they're here - because today, Lostprophets have released their first album in 4 years and by golly it's a corker.

For just over an hour, the band sing, thrash, headbang, banter and, um, towel each other off. "We last played here in 2000! Who was there?" asks Ian Watkins. Half the crowd screams. "You liars!" he adds, laughing.

The highlight of the set is hard to chose; maybe the beautiful WHERE WE BELONG, which can compete with perrenial classic Prophets classic ROOFTOPS in terms of singalong value and began with an argument about the name of the girl on the phone, a girl who is now forever to be known as Kath. The other contenders were the epic SHINOBI VS DRAGON NINJA, which inspired much 2000-esque nu-metal dancing; and of course, the unified headbanging to BURN BURN.

Lostprophets are not a new band, and they have never claimed to be cool. A lot of people tonight were here just because it was free. But for the dedicated masses assembled before them, Lostprophets put on their usual spectacular show, and you know what? It rocked.

9/10