i was one of many subscribers that helped Marina Gasolina's debut solo single cause a mini stir among the blogosphere.
it just seems such a shame that those willing to give exposure to Marina's talent in an online forum weren't quite so keen to turn up in person for a free gig when Marina Gasolina hit Brixton's The Rest Is Noise last week.
the bar hosting the gig is probably best known as a place to hook up with friends and knock back a few drinks before gigs at Brixton Academy, me and my brother found ourselves stood at the bar at a little after eight, waiting to get a pint among a whole bundle of Deftones
fans and then trying to find a spot to perch and wait out the inevitable exodus that would occur.sure enough, come nine o'clock, the punters still inside the Rest Is Noise were actually outnumbered by the bar staff.
and as there didn't seem to be an awful lot of activity on the tiny stage i became a little concerned, and was uncertain if that really was Marina Gasolina sat just a couple of feet away from us.
it was Marina, although i didn't know this at the time, she certainly looked different from the last time i had seen her hanging around at an M.I.A gig at London's ICA, but all of this is regardless - it had now gone 9 and i was starting to wonder if anything was even gonna happen and started to fret that we may have had a wasted journey to the far flung end of the Victoria Line for nothing.
instead of approaching the maybe Marina i thought it best to avoid embarrassment by simply asking at the bar if the gig was still going ahead, at which point i was told that she would likely be on once it had picked up again, probably about half 10, going on 11. something that wasn't entirely evident from the details of the event that i had previously seen that simply said the gig was 8 - 12.
a little flummoxed by this, i ordered the next two pints, hoping we could make them last otherwise this 'free' gig was going to work out pricier than i imagined since i was buying for both me and my artistic (translated as currently unemployed and broke) brother, and more importantly i actually had no intention of getting drunk at all and knocking back beers was hardly gonna achieve sobriety
so how exactly do you make a pint of beer last an hour and a half?
by providing enough of a distraction by raiding the bar's table full of games! that's how!
Connect 4, despite it's simplicity and the fact we had to substitute fingers for missing red counters if the game wore on too long, probably kept us going the longest, this may also be down to the fact that not all of the pieces for Frustation and Downfall were in the respective boxes and we wasn't sure we'd have time to conquer the world playing Risk
the only other option left was a boardgame version of Blockbusters, sadly missing it's instuctions, and since it looked like quite a complex game to set up we simply made it up as we went along, unpeturbed by a lack of guidelines and possibly bolstered by a slight boredom of Connect 4
The Bishop was just about to start his Gold Run (that i was gonna have to make the rules up for) but the game finished in a forced draw when the band started up....
this was intended to be a Marina review, getting a little sidetracked here
midway through the first track, and just outside the streets of Brixton were suddenly awash with four thousand deftones fans, with a number of passing punters steadily streaming in and refilling the empty bar and giving Marina something resembling an audience to work with
perhaps it was down to the unfamiliarity of those gathered and the fact that the bar had been practically empty just five minutes previously, but it was hardly the performance that i was hoping for given her history (and mine) with Bonde Do Role
gone were the baile funk beats and the extrovert antics, in was a style more associated with Juliette Lewis and the Licks, backed by a more traditionally accepted band of guitar, drummer and bassist, Marina fronts the band with a tearaway attitude and a punk-tinged but pleasing singing voice, something that wasn't evident from her tenure with Bonde.
talk of working with producers such as Radioclit, had my salivating, but little of the electronic influence bleeds through into the show i witnessed, although, by her own admission, Marina had managed to spill an almost full pint over her sampler just as her set began, which may have left us without an important ingredient of live proceedings.
i could hardly chalk this one up as the most inspiring performances i have ever seen, but i pin most of that on my pining for even a nod towards old school Bonde Do Role, but despite the changes, Marina is still a rather unabashed entity, willing to work for a crowd, and when she flashes a cheeky grin or swivels her hips it is like a tease of the way things use to be, and i only hope that her audiences will grow alongside her newly forged solo career.
a free download of Marina Gasolina's debut single was featured in my post from earlier this month
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