Mogwai Live. Royal Albert Hall 22nd September 2006

Emmy in her fantastic Fangirl blog mentioned that when she saw Mogwai on 20th July in Australia that they were a little disappointing. She mentioned that it hadn't felt like a truck being driven through your chest as it had on previous ocassions. I had reason to disagree with her as I had seen them in Cambridge and London earlier in the year and they had, as usual, blown me away.

Therefore I was hoping for big things at The Royal Albert Hall on Friday. As a venue it is pretty spectacular. A place of great history and somewhere that bands aspire to play in. It should have been the best Mogwai gig I have ever seen, shouldn't it? Well like Emmy I was a bit disappointed. It wasn't the vicious onslaught I was hoping for. I'm afraid that Mogwai are in danger of descending into pretencious noodling Prog Rock band.

Maybe it was the choice of set list that gave me this impression. I'm used to being slammed against the wall by their massive noise. On Friday I found myself drifting off, not in some blissed out way, knowing that soon the hairs on the back of my neck would be standing up on end and that the sound would thump into my chest like the truck that Emmy mentioned, but this time I found myself wondering just how many times I had been to see The Wedding Present (10 by the way). In short, at times, I was a bit bored.

It wasn't a bad gig, just not as edgy as usual. It all seemed a bit too safe. Maybe it was the surroundings that did it. Even Mogwai Fears Satan, a track that earlier in the year had made my mate Charlie's trousers move because it was so splendidly loud was a bit off. It didn't make me jump out of my seat or hold my hands over my ears begging for mercy.

I love Mogwai, and this is the time that I have been disappointed after seeing them. It was the third time I've seen them this year and I know that they have been touring the latest album Mr Beast for ages and that they maybe gigged out. I just hope that we haven't seen their best years and that they can come back and blow our collective socks off again, like they used to.