Adam Buxton rolled into town with his 'Bug' show, for two more performances at the
Phoenix on Tuesday evening. Bug has been running regularly since 2007 and is still as popular as ever, with both screenings packing out the Phoenix's largest room.
The show itself consisted primarily of Buxton introducing interesting and creative music videos, and then gently mocking the YouTube comments posted about each piece. It's a great formula for Buxton, as the constant releasing of new videos and idiotic comments provides him with regular fresh material for each show, none of which he actually has to write himself.
That said, he did do a short self-penned section at the start, in which he took centre stage and used Apple's Keynote presentation software to take us through the ins and outs of a recent earache he suffered, and the resulting embarrassment as his condition was mocked on the local news as being not worthy of attention from his local A&E department.
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| Bug: Now also a TV series, apparently. |
He spent the rest of the show sitting behind his laptop at one side of the stage, introducing music videos along with short biographies of the artists involved, often referencing other works they have produced. This enthusiasm and attention to detail appealed heavily to my 'geek' side, and I found myself wanting to check out some of the artists myself after the show.
The YouTube comment-mocking, whilst not a particularly original source of comedy, produced some big laughs as Buxton injected each comment with extra character, utilising a variety of silly accents and some deft zooming with his presentation software. Most amusing were the wind-up merchants (I believe the correct term is 'trolls'), posting ridiculously offensive and deliberately ignorant-sounding comments to rile fans of the artists, who would always take the comments and themselves far too seriously.
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| Darwin Deez: looks like an unused 'Nathan Barley' character being played by a young Chris Morris to me... |
As for the videos themselves, there's no sense me reviewing them individually, suffice to say it was a enjoyably varied selection of artists and styles, from
Darwin Deez being superimposed into cheesy stock footage, to Thom Yorke's crazy dance moves in the latest
Atoms for Peace video, and
Biting Elbows' blood-drenched, low budget, first-person action flick. Also worth a mention is the latest, surprisingly listenable offering from
Travis (remember them? This track's actually not nearly as dreary as the stuff they used to make), which was shot entirely on VHS for that fuzzy, flickery look, and fantastical animations featuring
Of Monsters and Men and
Grizzly Bear. My favourite though, had to be the Russian guy who filmed his
washing machine destroying itself in his back garden and set the footage to 'Gantz Graf' by Autechre - sounds bizarre, but it just works.
Overall a highly worthwhile experience. Sure, you don't need to go to a cinema with Adam Buxton in it to watch YouTube videos and laugh at the comments, but for someone like me who doesn't tend to spend hours idly browsing through internet content channels, I can't think of a nicer way to encounter some new bands and video artists than to experience their work on a gigantic screen with an appropriately chest-shuddering sound system. And there were more than enough laughs to keep the audience engaged and prevent it just being a rather dry procession of short musical films.
