Two very different music events are scheduled for this weekend and they are each so unique and original we had to put them back to back just to revel in the extreme oddness of each.
We'll go with the bloody, messy, macabre event first. Skip ahead if you don't like chainsaw slasher horror flicks or bands whose names translate as "Dead Port"...
St Louisiana duo Puerto Muerto play "uniquely smarmy and intelligent punk folk" according to Fire Records and they will be performing at 8.00pm, this Sunday on Old Street. Appropriately, for a band who have a highly recommended creaking, gothic sound and a dark, twisted dark on the American dream, they'll be performing in London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) St Luke's, the redeveloped Grade I listed 18th century church which is the venue for the LSO's community and music education programme. The show will be the duo playing their 2005 release Songs from Muerto Country, their "lost soundtrack" to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and they'll play during a special screening of the film itself. It's sparse, macabre but beautiful music for a rather unpleasant but cinematically important film - a delightful way to finish your weekend with screaming, wailing, bleeding, sawing and singing.
Puerto Muerto - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 8.00pm Sunday 26 November, LSO St Luke's (Old Street). For more information and for tickets, go to the Barbican website here.
And the other musical option this weekend is...
Video Games Live, at 7.30pm this Saturday Donde: at the Hammersmith Apollo. This is a live and interactive, "immersive" event that mixes video footage, music arrangements, a live stage show, solo performers, special effects and audience participation - not the awful pantomime-type audience participation where everyone has to yell "Behind you!" in a forcedly merry manner. We're talking about audience participation as in audience members being invited on stage to play computer games to the accompaniment of the live band and stage show special effects...
This really quite extraordinary and frankly, quite bizarre event from the game industry is a way to recognise that game culture is becoming an artform that has a following as with any other artform. This Saturday evening outing is for those who have a sentimental longing to hear the music from Super Mario Brothers played by a live orchestra and is also a good night out for the type of person who wants to wring every last drop of enjoyment out of the recent blockbuster games. Add to this frothing well of computer geekery goodness, there are giveaways, competitions, game demonstrations and industry leaders thrown in to the mix. It's no ordinary concert; you wouldn't see the London Symphony Orchestra allowing a bunch of ultra-competitive chaps in their mid-thirties on stage to play Streetfighter II on a mega-screen display while they provide the music and someone else does the laser show.
Video Games Live, 7.30pm Saturday 25 November, Hammersmith Apollo. For more information and for tickets, go to the Video Games Live website here.
