Noah & The Whale, London Somerset House
Noah & the Whale
July 10, 2010
If I was Charlie Fink, I’d be pretty pissed off with Marcus Mumford. The fella comes along and nicks his girl Laura Marling, and then supersedes Noah & The Whale with his own band, Mumford & Sons, who seemingly came out of nowhere and become leaders of the nu folk scene, whilst the former were locked away in a studio. Both bands are doing the rounds of the London summer gig extravaganza, with Mumford & Sons playing the Roundhouse, and Noah & The Whale playing this Saturday evening at Somerset House.
On this balmy summer’s evening, the band have left the studio to see the light of day for the first time in aeons, and run through their back catalogue. Prior to their entrance, the crowd are whipped up into frenzy by an orchestral version of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, which then segues into Michael Jackson’s ’Black Or White.’ It is a pretty nifty trick, and it turns the crowd into a chanting mob before the band have even hit the stage.
Whereas Noah & The Whale were once cherubic skinny waifs, the band are now all grown up, with more defined figures and the sprouting of some slightly quirky facial hair. The diversity of the audience, really is a testament to how far they have come. The crowd comprise of a mix of twee boys and girls, with their cloth bags and NHS spectacles, commercial indie fans in Kasabian T-shirts and a fair smattering of token oldies.
The band take the stage and launch into a pretty heartfelt version of ‘Blue Skies’. Between the preceding Michael Jackson intro song and the bass player’s all-white suit, it is hard to take the emotional sentiment of the song seriously. But that doesn’t seem to be a concern of the crowd, who are here to party.
The first half of the set is heavily slanted towards material from the band’s most recent album, First Days Of Spring. During ‘I Have Nothing’, Charlie Fink summons up the general feel-good factor of the crowd by mentioning the World Cup and recalling an anecdote about when the band played at this same venue two years ago to the Zutons, and beat them in a five a side football match.
The recent studio-bound fatigue of the band is revealed during the opening of this song, when Fink forgets the lyrics and has to start over again. This is subsequently greeted with rapturous applause from the crowd.
Finishing off the set with a smattering of material from their debut album, it is clear that the band’s two records are not the easiest of bedfellows. While the songs from Peaceful The World Lays Me Down are arguably stronger, Fink casts off the songs very much as an after thought, and in his words are tunes to get the crowd dancing.
A particular standout is ‘Rocks And Daggers’, which turns into a full on hoedown. For a few minutes, it feels like we are in Tennessee, rather than the confines of Somerset House.
With the band’s two albums each having a very different sound, it will be interesting to hear what their next effort sounds like.
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