WHY GOD CREATED YOUTUBE™: XTC Live in "URGH! A Music War"
I remember going to see URGH! A Music War for the first time back in college, literally in college because I saw it at the "theater" in the dorms (which consisted of a video projector and a four foot square screen). But honestly I didn't care, because I was watching a goldmine of recent music history (this was probably 1988, so altho it was footage of an amazing list of bands from 1980 it was just recent enough to still be somewhat cool and just old enough to feel like you were watching an artifact).
One of my primary motivations for seeing it was because they advertised that URGH! contained live footage of XTC, one of my favorite bands at the time, and since every XTC fan knew they'd never, ever get the chance to see them live because of Andy Partridge's stage fright, this was a must-see. And I certainly wasn't disappointed...not only did they pick one of my favorite songs of theirs to film, but I remember being blown away by the psychotic nervous energy that seemed to spew out of Andy Partidge's every pore. Well, maybe that wasn't true and it was more the pitcher of Miller Genuine Draft I'd just drank in the school's bar making me think I was seeing something I wasn't. But here's the footage for you to look at yourself, and since URGH! is criminally unavailable on DVD and very well may never be, enjoy it while you can.
Truly, this is why God created YouTube.
posted by John Eats at 5:44 AM
5 Comments:
just what i hoped it would be. i especially like the elevated elbow when he sings sex position. both bashful and suggestive.
I'm a big fan of his "white man chicken walk" during the opening riff...plus his awkwardly casual-yet-formal British necktie. He was so sartorially un-punk it hurts.
They are so young!
Damn! Andy doesn't look all that scared. I wonder what he had to do to psych himself up for a performance of this caliber.
Yeah, I know, he looks more frenetic than frantic to me...it's not really how I remembered it, so obviously it was the booze I drank making me think it was something it wasn't. I think there's still a faint hint of nervousness but it's masked really well.
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