Black Heart Procession.

Atmosphere of the night, black, it's all black. The best photo I could get.

I went to see Black Heart Procession at The Sage on Saturday night. I went alone as everyone I even mentioned this gig too just said 'No, BHP are far too miserable'.
I like BHP because they're miserable. Sometimes I'm miserable, sometimes huge black clouds descend upon me and I feel inescapably suffocated and suppressed. Sometimes I want to lie in bed all day with the curtains drawn playing my guitar and avoiding the world. Sometimes the voices of human beings around me grind me down and irritate my skin. Sometimes I'm in a mood where I have nothing but contempt for the human race, the general public disgusts me and I feel violence filling up inside. On days like these I need listen to something that can meet me at my level musically.
The Sage is a good venue to go too alone, a good proportion of the attendees are either grannies going to see the Sinfonia, couples on dates only concerned with each other or weird musically obsessed types in anoraks and child molester glasses. I must belong to the third group but I wear neither anorak or glasses. Hopefully I'm a part of forth group comprised of super cool types hot on the pulse of today's realest music-driven to see gigs with an unstoppable iron will-endlessly strong in the face of any adversity-the music becomes our lives and we become the music. But I'm not, I'm an anorak without even wearing an anorak, a dweeb, an odd and slightly scary outcast figure that parents warn their kids about.
The Lake Poets was the support, the name suggests a crew but it was only one guy. He was kind of enjoyable but he got a bit overly emotional about Sunderland and I couldn't relate to it. I mean seriously, how can you possibly love that place? He had already started playing when I went in and there was only 3 candles lighting the ominously black venue of hall 2. I went from bright sunlight adjusted vision, through the musical airlock and into total darkness. Unaware of the seating plan I just froze on the staircase, I could sense people around me and I could half make out some occupied tables at the front. I didn't know what to do I just sat down on the staircase and waited for my eyes to adjust. After a song or two I realised where I was and was relieved I hadn't ploughed through on to where I thought the seats were as I would have ended up tripping over a couple of hippie dudes and made an almighty calamity in the middle of a quiet set.
In the interval I got a pint and milled about with the aged Sinfonia fans as they said 'Eeee isn't that little lad good, eeeey'.
I went to the Black Heart Procession merch stand and asked the Sage employed camp as Christmas but super nice teenager in charge how much the albums were.
He said 'There only £10 each for all the vinyl.'
'Wow that's reasonable' I said.
He said 'yeah it's OK but I haven't sold anything yet, I've never heard of them anyway, they only sold 12 tickets before tonight so we contacted the band and asked if they, you know like, wanted to cancel or anything but apparently they said that the whole tour had sold badly and that they still wanted to do it'
'Only 12 tickets?' I said. I thought this band was big?
The merch guy went on to say that 'usually by the interval a band in hall 2 would have taken £400 at the merch stand.'
The merch guy further made his point by saying 'this gig is so poorly attended we're letting people in for free now.'
Shit son, that's crazy. Have Black Heart Procession fell off or something. I saw them in 2006 at All Tomorrow's Parties and you couldn't get near, 12 tickets?
'I had better buy a couple of albums then'.
Six-Black Heart Procession's album released last year was critically lauded how could the music loving public be so fickle as not to come see them only 12 short months later. It was only 12 quid, I have this theory that any band from America is automatically worth a tenner if only to cover their travel expenses so technically speaking this gig was only 2 quid.
Back inside hall 2 I sat in the dark and lost myself in the set, I became one with the candle lit darkness and my brain went soft. Pall Jenkins sang and played a wood saw with a violin bow while Tobias Nathanial played sombre guitar pieces. An hour spent wallowing in self pity and self deprecation. It was awesome and it was incredibly intimate. Well it had to be intimate there was only 27 people in attendance.
I came away thinking Black Heart Procession are awesome they just need to up their Myspace and Twitter game.