I recently saw Minotaur Shock live, and then only ‘fun’ bit of the video stuff was when there was shots of Dave Edwards playing the dums on film, while playing with his laptop stage. Quite interesting. The rest of the videos were standard and not really exiting.

I like the way Broadcast use videos, projected on the whole stage, including them, and with very little other lights. That way, the image becomes more like an atmospheric way to provide light than just a simple interpretion of the music.

That gig was the third time I’d seen them. The Robots were rather special – they have a marvellous sense of the dramatic. I’m contemplating suggesting a short piece to Jazzwise magazine about how visuals mediate and therefore spoil concerts. I have lots of notes garnered from various gigs where I’ve shut my eyes tight shut to avoid inane visual ‘interpretations’ by video ‘artists’ that distract from the direct experience of the music that I’ve paid money to hear. Kraftwerk are, I believe, the one and only exception in this regard. Milkman – I’d be interested in any other positive experiences of visuals that you’ve had.

The gig I attended at the Brixton Academy (where you were too I believe) is still one of my absolute favourite gig ever. There aren’t seemingly, as you said in your post, not much to get excited about watching four middle-aged men standing practically still behind keyboards, but the whole thing was just fantastic: great music (of course), fantastic high quality visuals and sheer energy running through the place. It was truly magical. I couldn’t believe when the robots appeared on stage and the crowd went totally mad.