Gig Review Thread

[A Passing Turk Slipper]

Heh, I was surprised it wasn't sold out actually, there are still tickets to see them in London left as well I think if that's any help.

[Peking O]

A few pics from Coachella. It's a fun festival, the drinking restrictions are really annoying though. I only went on the Saturday, so missed the Madonna-fest the next day.

Animal Collective


TV on the Radio


Palm trees


Ladytron


Yer Depeche Mode on the big screen

[Robot Devil]

Final Fantasy / Grizzly Bear / Simon Bookish / Corey Dargel - The Luminaire, Kilburn - Wednesday May 10th 2006.



I arrived halfway through Corey Dargel (thanks to some arsehole surfing on the back of a Jubilee Line train), and I can't really say I'm too bothered about that. He/they sounded like the more electronica-y end of the indie pop spectrum, and were pleasant enough, but they didn't have any sense of cohesion - lyrics only half scanned, live instruments were drowned out, and no real melodies actually jumped out and grabbed you. Moreover, and this is an somewhat silly reason for disliking a band, but they didn't really play much of their music live - the majority of the sound came from an onstage Powerbook, from what I saw; guitars and saxophones were wielded only to be half-heartedly tapped on and made to produce some aimless noise. Corey Dargel had his/their moments, but they came mostly as little parts of songs, rather than songs. Closing number "Gay Cowboys" (emphatically not Brokeback-related according to the singer) was the closest they came to crafting a compelling piece of music as a whole.

Whilst Corey Dargel would have benefited from some more onstage personnel, Simon Bookish has more than enough charisma and talent to propel a set with just a Powerbook as backing into something more than the sum of its parts. Sometimes poppy, sometimes glitchy and abrasive electro-acoustic compositions soundtracked both spoken word and sung passages. The uniting factor in all of this was the brilliant lyrics, which conjured up surrealist images that really stick with you, such as a man who convinced everyone he was a train driver having a yauht as a perk of the job, or a children's TV presenting dwarf heading up a Vivienne Westwood fashion show. There's not much more I can say about him, except I've never seen anything quite like him before, and I highly advise people to check him out. Here's a video of his last, more poppy song, "Interview".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJP3pFQ7BO4

Grizzly Bear have been compared to Animal Collective and Sufjan Stevens, but to my ear, their psychedelic electric folk-rock sounds a lot like My Morning Jacket (alright, my friend Oli made that observation first. But I agreed with it!) Reverb-treated harmonies and rusty sounding guitar lines build up, to be joined by pounding drums and rumbling bass. Very few bands can create guitar music that generally doesn't go up-tempo or "rawk out" and still make it interesting and enjoyable (I'm not a big post-rock fan), but Grizzly Bear are a warm, slow-burning triumph, on their first U.K. show to boot. Incidentally, the guitar player was superb, showing great inventiveness on both electric and acoustic guitar, all whilst singing in the majority of their songs. I was quite jealous.

Final Fantasy, i.e. Owen Pallett, seemed a bit taken aback by the reception he got as he greeted the "pretty on the inside" London faithful. However, on the strength of this performance, he should expect much more his next time on these shores. Opening with the bouncing violin of "That's When The Audience Died", Pallett holds the attention of the crowd like you wouldn't have thought one man (for the majority of his performance) could. He is a staggeringly talented musician, and displays of virtuosity abounded - especially striking was the moment when he played/recorded an unfamiliar sounding violin line, and then reversed it on his loop pedal to reveal an almost note perfect version of the intro of "This Is The Dream Of Win And Regine", or the moment when he blazed through the three simultaneous (the man is a genius with that loop pedal) solos on "The CN Tower Belongs To The Dead".

However, this was no dead-eyed display of technical skill, Pallett's songs shine with intensity and emotion, particularly on the aforementioned "CN Tower..." (which contains some of the best "rumination on death" lyrics ever: "Never rode on the plains, never thought I couldn't stay/Had a good run anyway, had a good run anyway/I could fill up the lake with all the things I didn't say/Had a good run anyway, had a good run anyway"). Songs from the more multi-instrumental new album - "He Poos Clouds" lose nothing in the translation to solo pieces, particularly the campfire-ish percussion of "Song Song Song", and "This Lamb Sells Condos", a tale of a real estate agent gone mad with power, and the standout track on the new album.

Pallett seems much more confident than when I saw him support Arcade Fire last year at the Astoria, for one thing, his voice sounds much more powerful and less choirboy-ish. The biggest example of this artistic assurance is his choice of encores, the first was a run-through of the first four songs of Orchestral Manoeuvres In the Dark's "Dazzle Ships" (which Owen referred to as the best British album ever), which saw him both speaking German and looping "A B C, 1 2 3" through his violin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4qkh66zlxI&search=luminaire

The second encore, upon which he said "Two encores! They'll think I'm a prick!", saw him take a request from the audience to reprise a cover of Mariah Carey's "Fantasy" (with Ed from Grizzly Bear on harmony vocals, and amusingly deep-voiced "Don't cha know"s) that he performed in Canada this April. In the hands of a less capable artist, both of these could have been terrible - imagine James Blunt coming out for an encore and covering the A-side of Ultravox's "Lament" followed by "Since U Been Gone", or something - but Final Fantasy delivers these songs just like the rest of his set, with charm, conviction and talent to spare, sending everyone home with a smile on their faces.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK2EYwWt-v0&search=luminaire – The Mariah Carey cover.

[fanny splendid]

Handsome Family.

They are a strange, alt-country/doom, husband and wife duo who sing songs about shopping malls and waiting at the airport. Great between-song banter between the two of them, and the wine flowed freely.

First bad hangover of the year.

shudder

[Abbie]

Morrissey - 24th May - Cheltenham Town Hall

Arrived at the town hall in the pouring rain unsuitably dressed in a polka dot dress and high heeled shoes. Outside was a man wearing black boots, turn up jeans, black leather jacket and sporting a massive quiff...oh yeah, we're in the right place! Inside were a crowd of 20, 30 and 40 somethings with a few teenagers sprinkled about. FYI: Cheltenham Town Hall is a small venue with a capacity of about 1000 people - sound was great and we were right near the front :)

Here's the review my mate penned:

OK, let's get the 'special' guests out of the way first. There are few words to describe Kristeen: she seems to have embraced elements of PJ Harvey and Bjork. Unfortunately for us, they are all the annoying elements, resulting in a bizarre, tuneless, screeching harpee style performance.

Moving swiftly on, Morrissey and his band of playboys took to the stage a little before 9pm. The smallness of the venue and the very tiny stage seemed to make his presence even greater and, unsurprisingly, the crowd went mental as he hurtled into the opening song 'First of the Gang to Die' [when she says mental, she means mental...I thought I was going to die!]. Looking fit and trim, and in very fine voice indeed, the energy and enthusiasm exuded from the stage and all around the hall. The notoriously temperamental Moz actually appeared to be enjoying himself: indulging in banter with the audience regarding his desire to win a Brit award, farmers ruining the countryside and animal terrorists in Oxford (presumably a reference to Huntington Life Sciences). However, he did choose to ignore one excitable girl's plea for him to 'show us your cock!' during one of many shirt changes - the man sweats like a pig; the laundry bill for this tour must be huge. Cheltonians can be so vulgar sometimes.

The set list was heavily geared towards Ringleader of the Tormentors, with only a passing nod to You Are the Quarry and nothing from any of his previous solo work. Not usually one to play crowd pleasers, three songs midway through the set did just that. Not to detract from Morrissey's recent return to legendary form, but Girlfriend in a Coma, Still Ill and a superlative version of How Soon is Now reminded us all why we loved him in the first place. The main set ended with a tremendously powerful rendition of Life is a Pigsty - and may I just take a moment to offer kudos to the drummer for manfully handling not only the world's biggest drum but also a massive gong - and then Moz was gone.

As a further testament to Morrissey's enjoyment of the gig, he came back for an encore (he has form for not coming back out if he's in a mood), which was a raucous version of Irish Blood, English Heart. Then he really was gone. And the crowd happily spewed out onto the rainy Cheltenham streets. But not before stopping off at the merchandise stall to buy their commemorative Morrissey medal and matching cufflinks.

[imitationleather]

The Polysics were fookin great tonight. Thats all i have to say.

They're playing at the Highbury Garage and Brighton Concorde in July. I've got my ticket!

[Ciarán2]

I've just been to see...

Billy Bragg, Vicar St, Dublin.

Absolutely bloody brilliant. just before the show, I was pick-pocketed and had my ticket stolen. So I rushed to the box office and the show was sold out. I had to buy a new ticket from a tour and ended up paying €50 for it. But this ticket got me right up the front, right under the Big-nosed Bastard's big bastard nose, whereas I would have been up in the rafters with my originial ticket. I consider having to pay extra to be a kind of tax or something. These things happen. Didn't dampen my mood.

It was the last night of his tour, just himself and Ian MacLagan onstage throughout. (And an excellent support act from Seth Lakeman.) He's a stand-up comedian as much as a singer, Billy Bragg. What a witty chap. He was heckled once or twice for rambling, he'd talk for up to 10 minutes between songs! But he was always entertaining, it just made for a brill atmosphere. He played 2 new songs, one of which doesn't have a title yet and which he wrote on the SXSW tour. He played "All You Fascists Are Bound To Lose" to the tune of The Faces' "Stay With Me". He played "Life's A Riot..." right through as a second encore. It was absolutely superb. He is the greatest living British songwriter in my opinion. I took some good photos, I'll post them here tomorrow if I get a chance.

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f358/cilamc/IMG_1326.jpg

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f358/cilamc/IMG_1329.jpg

[A Passing Turk Slipper]

He played "All You Fascists Are Born To Lose" to the tune of The Faces' "Stay With Me". He played "Life's A Riot..." right through as a second encore. It was absolutely superb.

Interesting, he played it (it's called all you fascists are bound to lose I think) on some glastonbury show to a different tune from the record version a while back and it was astonishingly good, one of the things I was after in the Reverse SDJ thread. Maybe it was to this Faces tune, I'll have to investigate.

[Ciarán2]

He played "All You Fascists Are Born To Lose" to the tune of The Faces' "Stay With Me". He played "Life's A Riot..." right through as a second encore. It was absolutely superb.

Interesting, he played it (it's called all you fascists are bound to lose I think) on some glastonbury show to a different tune from the record version a while back and it was astonishingly good, one of the things I was after in the Reverse SDJ thread. Maybe it was to this Faces tune, I'll have to investigate.

"Bound", of course, sorry. Was pissed when I typed that.

He also mentioned that when he was rehearsing "Levi Stubbs' Tears" on the Red WEdge tour, Paul Weller came up to him and said "Ere, Billy! Is that Levi Stubbs out of the Four Tops you're singing about?" When Billy said that it was, Weller apparently replied "But you're a FOLK singer!" Billy replied "It's soul-folk. I'm a soulfolk singer". He then did a mime of Weller wandering off and writing in a notebook. Then he half-jokingly said that this affected Weller's subsequent musical output.

[Johnny Yesno]

I went to see The Bays and The Heritage Orchestra in Brighton yesterday. This is the promo from the Liverpool performance:

[youtube=425,350]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=HY54PDPEvvc[/youtube]

Unfortunately, it wasn't as interesting as it sounds on paper. The Bays just seemed to be doing their own thing, four-to-the-floor techno, while the composers desperately tried to think of chords to put over it. It didn't help that the composers and some of the orchestra didn't seem to be able to hear what was going on properly. It was basically a rave with an orchestra over it and it was so dull I and the people I went with left early.

However, we were impressed by the support band, who included in their lineup, one of the aforementioned composers, John Metcalf, and the drummer out of The Bays.