The Whitest Boy Alive

Had I walked to Rough Trade East, I would have managed to collect a wristband but, sadly, on 17th April it was raining without end so the tube seemed to be a safe bet. To my disappointment, it was not. The wristbands were gone, it was raining and I was queuing again. This time quite close and desperate, because in the rain. Why desperate? Because I really like The Whitest Boy Alive, and have great memories from their gig in Electric Ballroom and I sadly failed to secure tickets for at least one of their London dates this year, so Rough Trade East was an answer to my prayers and it was god patting me on the head, there you go girl, for your pleasure. But no, I failed, queuing there I was thinking about the past, precisely, what my mum used to tell me when I was a child - you are not made of sugar, it is just rain. However, if you pray and wait and pray, sometimes it pays, so I was let in. The Whitest Boy Alive were playing songs from their latest album, catchy and lighthearted it would seem. However, a record store is a place where musicians, I would guess, are haunted. So it seemed Erlend Øye was haunted by the ghosts of music industry and digital downloads coupled with memories of the past, records, artwork and playing instruments as opposed to software generated output and so on and so forth. And they have their own label Bubbles. And they never play same gigs as audiences are different, and in two hours in Cargo they will play a completely different gig because people will be different. And probably ghosts as well, sir. So I set out to describe the gig and I ended up summarising what the lead singer was saying throughout the gig but I thought it to be significant. I am sometimes wondering how musicians are making their living. Touring must be so exhausting. God bless all record buying freaks, then.