A VIEW FROM THE TERRACES
First of all, a brief overview. 'A View From The Terraces', released on April 1st 1998, is a d:video diary of the events of the year. Complete with live songs, interviews and videos it really is cool. Highlights include ginger gotees, yodelling and the inflatable alien Elvis. I thought this video was great, and I really enjoyed watching it several times for this review here.
"1997 was a cracking season: what started with a cautious approach to an unkown opposition ended up in a full-scale pitch invasion. The boys went into the year intent on havong a go at releasing their upwardly focused blend of chunky powerpop into the mainstream, and ended up with a few chart placings on their scoreboards. But they got more, much more. So join with us, if you will, on this look back on the season. If it sounded better we would have callled it 'Adventures With A JVC Digi-Cam'; wherever Delirious? went they were followed by a member of the team capturing it all via the wonders of modern technology. This unique footage has been lovingly spliced together with some more unique footage, taken on the last night of the d:tour, and captures the tracks 'Sanctufy','King Of Fools','Come like you Promise' and 'History Maker'. Keeping your finger away from the fast forward button are interviews with the band, comments from the fans and the videos for the singles 'Deeper' and 'Promise'."(From the cover of 'A View From The Terraces')
To start with, the Furious? films logo comes up. Then follows various wacky camera shots of frisbee-playing, cars, band members, ginger gottees, d:fans played to the start of the Prophet Deeper re-mix with Martin saying "The Message is Central to everything that we do" before the title 'A View From The Terraces' comes up. First up is Sanctify, recorded live at Wembley and Southampton, where the boys run on and kick footballs into the crowd, who wave their hands from side to side with the music in a visually stunning effect. It cuts between Wembley and Southampton, showing Martin singing and crowd shots. The music is the same as on the d:tour recording. It then goes into 'Come Like You Promise' as on the d:tour album, and Martin jumps about while the others play their hearts out and the crowd go mad. A truly excellent song. After the song it cuts to Martin having his hair done with funny plastic bits and we see Stu G with the funny plastic things on his gotees saying, "I just wanna say, I'm a natural Borg." It then plays Game Over? to d:crowd while d:video screen shows images of green aliens, gotees, bald heads, ??'s, guitars and spiky hair. Just as the music reaches a crescendo, it cuts to..
Martin saying, "One thing I'd like to do, as we're all gathered here together, for those who've not been to a delirious? gig before, meet Mr Tim Jupp at the back there. And on the drums - Mr Stewart Smith. What can we say but just - Jon Thatcher! My name's Martin, and this is Stu G!" and for each person the light shine on them. NExt up is the brilliant King Of Fools. This is done as in the live recording, except Martin sings into a mike with a camera on it, showing off his spiky (and slightly receding) hair. He wobbles about and the camera view becom es effectively dizzying. Halfway through, Martin appears to be psyching himself up, and then, in all seriousness, he crowns himself with the Jester's hat. As soon as he puts it on, he goes bonkers, pretending to snog Jon and junping on Stu G before running into the crowd before realising he needs to sing in a minute so runs back and grabs the mike and falls over cos he's knackered. It's great. Watch out for the bit when he can't see cos the hat's in his way. The video screen shows the coloured fools that appear on the cover of King Of Fools.
As the last chord is played on King Of Fools, it cuts to an interview with Martin saying, "It's exciting, honest and dangerous" upon which a production person says, "Right, do that again, say 'exciting, honest, dangerous' at a completely different pace, cos if you're saying [dull voice] 'exciting' it doesn't sound exciting." Martin turns round to the rest of the band and gives them a thumbs up, saying "Stay with me, brothers".
Next is a shot of Stu G waving at a camera, then it moves on to the band having dinner, where Jon brings in a green inflatable alien, saying "This is Elvis - the vibing man [where there's a shot of Elvis coming up an escalator] he makes me look like, I'm like, really energetic," continues Jon, that's why he's in the band." Then it shows the band outside a limo, looking in, and next shot they're in it. They play about with the windows and stuff and then Martin turns on the radio and we hear "CHART BIT HERE". During this, the band are all happy and we see Tim miming the guitar. The video of Deeper then plays - highlights include the gotee stroking and the bloke who puts his shoe on in the background. The next shot is of the same interview as befre with Martin giving a band history, "The story really began for me when some of these guys gave me a call one day and said 'D'ya wanna be a part of this event that's happening in Littlehampton called Cutting Edge?' I came over, we got this band together, and we started to doing these little meetings. They were really gathering young people from around the area, not just from churches but just anyone who wanted to come along." Footage is shown of old Cutting Edge events, with Martin's funny hair and Stu G's funny gotee. Potentially embarassing footage? Very.
Martin again, " We'd just set the band up and play for an hour and..." Stew continues, "75 people turned up the first night, that grew to 150 the next month, then 300 and eventually round about 1,000." More Cutting Edge footage is shown, which is really cool, then Tim says, "The early days were really exciting. We'd just turn up and play with no agenda. It was quite amusing at times, 'cos sometimes we didn't get very far until things came to a halt." Stu G continues, "Worked hard, played a lot of gigs, wrote a lot of songs, did a lot of recordings..." "Stayed up late" is Jon's amusing comment. Then it's back to Martin saying, " Songs kept on coming, songs, then albums, and here we are today."
Next up is August 30th, played with the band sitting on the sofa. The VS shows various people singing August 30th in front of a white brick wall. They fade in and out while the band keep playing. Trust me, it's cool, as all d:things are. Then it's the band on holiday - yodelling into the mountains!! Stu G does the best one. Next up it's King Or Cripple, with Martin on vocals on the sofa and Tim on keys next to him. The rest of the stage is dark and Martin dissapears into this before - KZZAMM!!! The music trashes out to strobe lights and images of sparks on the VS as Stu G and Jon rise from the blackness and give their guitars a good thumping. True class. Then it's back to the band having dinner. Martin says, "This is a review of the gig - is that the sort of thing you're allowed to do? - this is from a paper called The Void - 'I've just seen Delirious? play in Wolverhampton and they were classic'." Martin looks shocked.
Then it's out to the fans themselves, the cameras trained on bloke who says, "They're just brilliant - I play a lot of their music." and two girls who say, "I love them I think they're great" and another says "They're so honest". Then a foreign bloke says "I live in Belgium, it's a lng way, very good to come here to see Delirious?". Next up is my favourite song of all time - History Maker!!!!! This is fabulous, so much so the band play it with huge smiles on their faces. The crowd are jumping and Martin does a bit too. The bit where they say about all the famous History Maker's has been cut and this makes it flow more smoothly. Halfway through the song Martin gets a Digi-Cam and runs amok, taking pictures of Tim, Stew, Elvis the alien and bowing out with a picture of the crowd up their on the VS. The bit where they just play music goes on for ages and Martin just yells out cool stuff. I enjoyed this song so much that I haven't written a very good review of it, it's just so fabby the words are simply not there.
Then it's the funny scene where the boys are walking through the park and some guy hassles them, "Can I have your autograph? I think you're great", but they all act pompous and pop-star like, telling him to 'go away' and then the camera pans back to see the fan being duffed over. Top idea!!
It then cuts to a TV interview with the band. A woman, later introduced to us as Kate Thornton, says, "I’m with an explosive little band from Littlehampton who’ve come from nowhere to launch a massive underground assault on the charts." Upon which it cuts to a close up of Stu G saying, "When you’re a kid you dream about being in a band, or on stage, or an astronaut or summin’." Then it’s back to Kate Thornton saying, "delirious?, a band who’s name you won’t forget in a hurry." Then it’s back again to Mr. Mesmerising Goatee Man saying "There’s nothing like strapping a guitar around your neck, getting out there and playing your heart out." An what better song to demonstrate with but…..Louder Than The Radio!!! It’s the UK version, so less vibey than the US version but has still been beefed up for the d:tour. The words are up on the giant video screen, each word flashing up when it’s sung. Watch out for Martin forgetting to sing ‘la-la-la-hey’, turning round to see the words on the screen before scuttling over to the mike to sing. Footage from other gigs is used here too, including a Stu G crab-like wobble. It’s great.
The rest of what is on a video will be updated soon