WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 26:

Two notes into the first song, it seemed pretty clear that guitarist Simon Taylor-Davis (wearing a shirt that lost a bet to a hospital gown) was too drunk to perform. He was playing in the photo pit and then—in an apparent attempt to shed weight and climb onstage afterwards—he threw his guitar (violently) away, forcing the tech to run out with a replacement. As un-punk as the switcheroo was, it’s hard to hate a helpful roadie. Boy, was he helpful. When Davis knocked over a mic stand, the tech ran out mid-song and picked it up. When an empty cup was thrown onstage, he ran out to grab it as it was landing. Then, in his endless swerving, Taylor-Davis knocked some mic stands into the drum kit, and the tech came out with fucking sandbags. This guy was born to save the day and was a straight-up trooper all the way through the last song, when Davis caught his tuning pegs in the cable winding down the singer’s mic stand and dragged it around the stage, presumably trying to free it. Then he gave up, dropped his guitar (still tangled in the cord) and spent the rest of the song with the mic wrapped around his neck, sloppily dragging his guitar around like a sick dog. Needless to say, there wasn’t an encore. But I got a Klaxons show right proper. Cheers! (SB)