The Mae-Shi, Johnny Foreigner, Lionheart Brothers @ Fibbers, York 7th May 2008

Wow what an amazing gig it started off mellow with pretty much just me and a couple of Mae-Shi at the front watching the Lionheart Brothers they were pretty good. There was head nodding done to their indie rock tunes, it wasn’t really my cup of tea but it was still really well done. They had some rocking moments. Well done for playing a good set to the sparse crowd I say.

JoFo came on and where really good. They were getting heckled from The Mae-Shi, with shouts of SINGLE, When they couldn’t remember when theirs came out. I LOVE YOU GUYS: when JoFo was commenting back to The Mae-Shi and generally confusing comments about Radiohead being knocked down to build houses, brilliant. JoFo also got confused about a girl with a sword, it turn out she got it from Whitby and you can’t buy JoFo swords from the merch stand. You can however buy lots of CD's and fashion them into knives or strangle people with JoFo T-shirts if you so wish, excellent advice from the JoFo. The set seemed quite short but the tunes held up beautifully. The new tracks are brilliant and make me look forward to the album even more.

Then we get to the main event, which took everyone by supries.

THE MAE-SHI!!! Just about the most fun band I have seen ever and this isn’t an exaggeration. They played most of the set in the crowd, with us dancing with them/laying on the floor/jumping around/shouting. The guitarist from what I can tell pretty much came from behind us in the toilets or something at the beginning. God knows where the drummer came from; you half expected one of them to be lowered from the ceiling. It was a joyful romp of the highest order. The Mae-Shi where pretty surreal in places with chants of STAGE CAGE, at the Fibbers stage…ummm…cage, that they and some of the crowd members where constantly jumping over. POISON, was also chanted as a segway to another tune. A nice Lo-Fi costume change leading to a Westlife moment, seriously they put on white trousers and T-Shirts brought out a white blanket and all lined up in front of the stage like a deranged boy band to sing part of their song, then to just drop the curtain and change back like nothing happened. Then to top it all off at the end they invited most of the people and I who where going mental for them: up on stage for the last tune for dancing, partying, drinks and to play their instruments. They dismantled the drum kit and spread it round the venue for the crowd to play and gave us guitars and whatever was to hand. I took over on Base for a while and smacked out some power-chord action, this was my first base experience and I’m glad it was part of The Mae-Shi. Then it was over everyone was amazed at what had just gone down. The Mae-Shi are the ultimate party band. Really nice guys too we were chatting and mingling with them after the show they were really glad people where going mad for them on a Wednesday night and they declared them selves to be from York LA and told me they felt at home, Brilliant. Somehow they managed to almost top the HEALTH gig recently, I didn’t expect that to happen any time soon, bless The Smell and all who sail out of her. Go and see them right now or when their on next. Nasty Fest should be incredible.