After the very serious video for previous single “Whale” (starring the lone traveller and his crossroads conflict), Eight return with a much more lighthearted video for “Moments Gone” – but a song with the same epic rock scope as “Whale”.
This time the action centres around the unusual goings-on in the lobby of a building. Away in a dark room, a man with a neckbrace and a stern bespectacled woman review a security tape, trying to get to the bottom of the incident that saw him end up with a neck injury.
On the tape we discover an assortment of wacky zany madcap characters causing chaos in the lobby. There’s a cleaner who seems more interested in using his mop like a mike stand, a naked guy, shifty fellows in trenchcoats and fedoras, aloha party office workers, a girl on rollerskates, a flasher and, in a special cameo, the traveller from “Whale”.
The tape also shows the source of the man’s injury – he slipped on a banana peel. But how did the banana get there? Why, it was dropped by a giant gorilla. The woman quickly works up a sketch of the culprit. But is this fair? Surely the cleaner should have noticed the banana peel and picked it up. But no – he was too busy pretending to be a rock star to do his job properly.
Here’s my dilemma. It’s a fun video, but it seems completely at odds with the tone of the song. It’s more like the sort of goofy adventures drummer Paul Russell’s old band Supergroove would have had in their early videos. These guys have a mature rock sound. Their video should be more advanced than a high-school-quality romp.
Best bit: the sketch artist’s detailed likeness of the gorilla.
Next… written in the stars.