Blog

Thu 29 Apr – Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

This was proper pared down rock & roll. The moshpit was a seething mass of grinning sweaty lunatics throwing themselves at each other with gleeful abandon. A great bear of a security man tried to calm the crowd surfers with stern looks and threats of ejection but they were having none of it, responding with ever-wider grins and thumbs-ups before hurling themselves forward once more.



Meanwhile the band played on, thumping out that inimitable Jesus and Mary Chain bluesy rock sound they've made their own through a Concorde 2 PA system I've rarely heard sound better. A fantastic gig that left my ears ringing and my face grinning.

More pix here.

Wed 17 Mar – Melting Vinyl Presents FOUR TET
I'd completely forgotten Nathan Fake was supporting Four Tet last night so it was a bit of a treat turning up five minutes before he went on. Nathan played a blinder I thought - typically abstract and abrasive in places (I told a friend at one point that this is the kind of music I put on loud in the office when I don't want to be disturbed by my kids - and it works) but also suffused with the kind of ethereal beauty that I for one have always found completely captivating. I was genuinely transported at times in a way that usually requires a lot more input than the can of Coke I was drinking.

Then Keiran came on and I was completely blown away. What a great set! This was my first live Four Tet experience and it was clear straight away that his music really comes alive on a good system. Thankfully the Concorde 2 was perfectly tuned last night. He opened with Angel Echoes and we joked that he'd just put the new CD on and was going to do his emails in front of us while it played. But he was clearly doing a lot of it live and the music really benefited from that spontaneity. He hit us with dirty big growling basslines that had my trousers flapping nicely, and some increasingly dark and interesting beats that grew and grew in intensity until the only way to describe it would be proper dancefloor techno. I'd been expecting a slightly chin-stroking affair but there was none of that - it was a proper visceral treat.

Fri 26 Feb – Hot Chip, Casiokids, Grosvenor

I got the wrong train for this gig and ended up arriving minutes before Hot Chip hit the stage, so it was all a bit flustered to start with - which isn't ideal. We were still in the cloakroom queue when the band came on but ended up only missing that single song, thankfully.

The other problem was the sound mixing, which was well off. The Academy's not the easiest place to get the sound right, granted, but I don't think I've heard it worse than it was last night. It was muddy and unequal - the bass was really loose and the midrange too forward. Having seen Hot Chip play at the Corn Exchange in Brighton where they got the sound exactly right I knew what a difference it makes to hear those amazingly phat basslines the way they're meant to be heard. So that was a bummer.

But despite all this, the boys delivered big time. This was the third time I've seen Hot Chip and I reckon they're getting better every time. There's more quality material for them to choose from and they seem slicker each time - but without losing that charming science-teachers-let-their-hair-down vibe. Alexis' voice sounds even more soulful and fragile but seems to have more power than ever, and they all seem more relaxed and playful than they used to be.

The big party songs had the crowd going as bananas as they always do at HC gigs -there's always such a sense of joy and fun when tunes like Over & Over come on. And all the songs from the new album (which I reckon is their best yet) worked really well. By the time they played Ready for the Floor for their final encore and the ticker tape exploded all over the crowd (see below) the place was going completely mental. All told it was a triumph despite the odd niggle (let's not even talk about the 45 minute cloakroom queue at the end of the night...)

Tue 14 Apr – David Byrne

I had modest expectations of tonight, I really did. I'd been given the ticket (thanks again NigeyB!) and was on my own, the gig was all seated, the audience looked middle-aged and a bit smug, frankly, I'd read disturbing reports of choreographed modern dancing involving the ironic use of tutus, and I wasn't sure if I'd know all the music or even like some of it. I was a medium-sized Talking Heads fan and I really like My Life in the Bush of Ghosts and Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, but I feared there was a whole lot of solo stuff I wouldn't know.

I wasn't particularly encouraged by the first few numbers either. The band all wore white from head to toe (uh-oh, I thought: messiah complex). DB was a bit tentative, nervous even. His head bobbed back and forth like a feeding bird, and he spoke in curious halting blurts. As if to encourage him a woman on the balcony called out "We love you David! ... well, I do anyway", prompting polite middle-class chuckles all round.

Although the singing was good from the outset, from Byrne and his three backing singers in particular, the band as a whole didn't sound all that tight and the sound was a bit muffled I thought. But then it all grew. The sound seemed to improve, the band gelled, Byrne relaxed a bit, and the music just got better and better. Most of the songs came from the two Byrne/Eno albums and the illustrious Talking Heads best-of catalogue so I knew pretty much all of them. I expected the Talking Heads stuff to do it for me but what really surprised me was how well the more abstract Eno collaborations worked. The dancers really added something too - the choreography was wonderfully loose and silly but always watchable and, dare I say it, fun. I think that's what surprised me the most: everyone on the stage was obviously really enjoying themselves - and no one more so than Byrne himself. As the audience's enthusiasm grew and people started dancing (why on earth would anyone make a gig like this all-seated? madness...), so his smile and his energy and his playfulness grew. He actually seemed to get younger as the show went on - by the time they'd reached the encores the band all looked knackered but Byrne was fired up like a hyperactive kid, whooping and pumping the air with a huge grin on his face. And his voice doesn't sound any different to me than it did 25 years ago - he didn't miss a note all night.

The 11-strong band played three encores - the best of which was a barnstorming Burning Down The House that had the whole place jumping up and down. It made me realise how much I love the old Talking Heads songs and how privileged I was to see them being performed with such passion and energy so many years after they first came out. I don't know how the old fella invests so much of himself into songs he must have sung thousands of times but all I can say is, I'm glad he does. What a fantastic gig!

Thu 19 Feb – The Walkmen, Gloria Cycles

Sometimes blind gigs just rock. I had no real idea what to expect from The Walkmen - was encouraged to go by a friend who's fallen in love with their latest album, You & Me. I'd heard a few tunes on Blip & Spotify and liked them but thought there was something missing...a kind of core or soul of the band that defined them somehow.

But now I know why I couldn't identify it through the random tune or two I'd heard - they're /really/ hard to categorize. One minute they're belting out a moshpit thrash of a tune like The Rat, the next they're slipping into a Tex-Mex shuffle. There's blues, country, psychedelia, prog rock, indie, garage and god knows what other influences at play, but underpinning all that variety is rock-solid musicianship from all five band members, in particular the excellent drumming of Matt Barrick and the guitar of Paul Maroon. There were moments when the singing stopped and the combined guitars and keyboard created a fantastic wall of sound that reminded me a little bit of Radiohead in full flow - and which I could have done with a bit more of actually.

But soaring above everything else was the extraordinary voice of Hamilton Leithauser, whose larynx must be made of titanium. He seemed to sing everything from the throat, and gave it absolutely everything for every song - howling at the very limit of what he was capable of but never faltering. He seemed equally comfortable throughout his range, from a kind of theatrical Elvis-style baritone warble right up to a falsetto shriek that would give Axl Rose a run for his money. I was convinced he'd have to take a break at some point for a nice warm cup of honey & lemon or a Strepsil or something but he seemed just as capable for the blistering encore as he was at the outset.

Awesome stuff - and highly recommended.

Wed 3 Dec – Alabama 3, Buzz

Saw Alabama 3 at the Concorde 2 in Brighton last night (Alabama 3; Concorde 2..reminds me of the football results on Saturday afternoons).

I'd not seen them before except briefly and from a great distance at the Secret Garden Party a couple of years back. It was that glimpse that convinced me they'd be a good act to see live - I've never been a huge fan of their music but they seemed to have the swagger, the sleaze and the sexiness to really cut it on stage.

And they really did cut it. The combination of Larry Love's snaky-hipped rock star charisma, The Very Reverend Dr. D. Wayne Love's smart-arse sleazebag pronouncements, and Devlin Love's throw-away sexiness and belting voice worked a treat, whipping the incredibly varied crowd (students to grandparents; clubbers to bikers) into a proper sweaty frenzy.

Good times guaranteed for fans of political country acid house blues everywhere.

Thu 28 Feb – Hot Chip, Matthew Dear

I returned to the scene of my first ecstasy experience for some Hot Chip action last night.

The Corn Exchange in Brighton is like a scaled down, cosier version of Alexandra Palace -- long and thin with ornate windows and fancy ceilings. When I saw Orbital there in November 1994 for my epiphany, they'd built this scaffolding structure dripping with lights and technology in the middle of the room. The Hartnolls strolled in wearing those headlight specs and climbed into their control centre, from where they proceeded to rock my world to its absolute core and fundamentally change my perception of music, nights out and getting wasted. But I digress...

I'd not been back since that night so it was quite an emotional experience walking into the place. Matthew Dear and his band were on when we arrived and I kind of regret we weren't there earlier to catch the full set. I was expecting minimal techno but they were actually much more conventionally bandish, and very good too -- although I was amused at one point to note that, despite the impressive wall of sound coming from the stage, the three guys on it were actually just playing a bass and shaking two sets of maracas (albeit spangly high-tech ones). The unassuming little Mac laptop on the side was clearly doing most of the work.

Hot Chip came on to a slowly-building crescendo of noise and backlit drama. The scale of the sound had gone up considerably since MD's departure -- that heart-fluttering bass! -- and it was impossible not to feel a thrill of excitement as they walked on to the crowd's howled delight. The opera of their entrance served to underline their endearing geekiness..when the noise and the lightshow faded a bit, there they were - five of the unlikeliest heroes you can imagine: the geography teacher, the computer nerd, the bearded uncle, the Belgian and the 2nd division 80s popstar. Bless.

But fuck what they look like! Listen to them! Since I saw them 18 months or so ago they've got slicker, louder, more varied, more confident..just better. I remember being amazed by the scale of their sound last time -- particularly the phatness of the bass. This time I was swept away by their authenticity -- this is a proper band! -- and the joy it clearly gives them to be up there looking out on a frantically bouncing crowd. Their big songs are better known now and there was a huge swell of excitement for tunes like Over And Over and the irrepressible Ready For The Floor, which were both executed perfectly, both sending the crowd completely over the top (I looked around me during Ready For The Floor and saw nothing but huge grins and unselfconscious dancing...took me right back).

It wasn't perfect -- at times the magic disappeared and I was left looking at five geeks, lots of noise and a great lightshow. In particular they lost it a bit for me around the end, when they took us right down from an amazingly high plateau and then didn't really bring us fully back up again to go out on a high, but then they redeemed themselves with a seamless working in of bits of New Order's Temptation to their last number, which really worked.

Hot Chip won't break your legs, or snap off your head. But they'll bring a fucking big smile to your face and make you dance like a loon. And you can't say fairer than that :)