I put off writing my review of the Glasvegas/Carl Barat show because my computer crapped out and I wanted to include some photos in my review. Well, I still don’t have a computer that I can use to upload photos from my camera, so I’ll just have to add them later (the photo shown here is from a different show). I drove down to Seattle last Saturday, braving rock slides on Chuckanut and flooding in the Skagit Valley, not to mention the steady buckets of rain dropping from the sky (windshield wipers were on full-blast most of the way). Despite it all I made it to the club just in time - Carl Barat (formerly of the Libertines and Dirty Pretty Things) was already on stage.

It was my first time at Chop Suey, so initially  I was split between taking in the environment and Barat strumming away on stage. It is a cool club, similar I guess to the 3-B and the Nightlight, but with a Far East theme going on. The stage looked like a Chinese pagoda - even the speakers were concealed by panels to complete the look. There was also a huge dragon hanging over the crowd - it must have been 50 feet long or so. The club was absolutely packed - they had a pathway roped off to the restrooms, but otherwise you couldn’t move anywhere.

Carl Barat played about 40 minutes or so. It didn’t seem like he was quite comfortable with the solo artist with guitar thing, at least initially, but towards the end of his set he played some old favorites that the crowd sang along to. He tried to talk to the audience between songs, but I don’t think many people (myself included) understood what he was saying. Seemed like a friendly guy though - I even saw him at the bar during Glasvegas’ set hugging members of the audience.

Glasvegas came on about half an hour after Barat finished his set - it wasn’t long before the audience was blasted with a wall of guitar fuzz, fog and strobelights. They kicked off with “Flowers And Football Tops”, the opening song from their self-titled CD. I was impressed by the sound-system at the club - despite the fuzzed out guitars and harmony vocals from the band being blasted out loudly from the PA system, everything sounded crystal clear. Even more amazingly, despite the fact that I was only about 15 feet from the speakers, my ears didn’t ring after the show. However, that may have been due to the band only playing about 40 minutes or so.

That was really my only gripe about the show - it seemed really short. I’m a big fan of their sound and their songs, but it seems like they could have done more than just play every song from their CD and end it at that. A cover or two, or perhaps a few new songs, would have padded out the set nicely. Although they’ve quickly become one of the top bands in the UK, it’ll be interesting to see how things go with them in the US. The show was sold out, but there have been many hyped bands in the UK that haven’t quite been able to crack it open here in the US (Stone Roses, Blur, Libertines, Manic Street Preachers, etc.). You can check out their appearance on the David Letterman show here.