Scissor Sisters

By Nia Thomas

May 16, 2012

Scissor Sisters returned to the stage at Shepherd’s Bush (or “Shepherd’s Minge” as Ana Matronic lovingly referred to it) last week to preview songs from their new album Magic Hour.

Support act Little Boots kicked off the evening with a set of old singles alongside songs from her next album. Opening with the song that brought her to early attention, ‘Stuck on Repeat,’ and first single ‘New in Town,’ both receive an enthusiastic response from the audience. It’s a shame that the crowd’s enthusiasm is not matched. Little Boots, known for her skills as a songwriter as much as a pop star, doesn’t seem to be completely comfortable with herself onstage which is where so many of her contemporaries excel. She then performs two new songs ‘Headphones’ and ‘Every Night I Say a Prayer,’ the latter sounding like a great Kylie song with handclaps galore. Both showcase a more disco direction. Songs like ‘New in Town’ and ‘Remedy’ remind the crowd that Little Boots knows her way around a great song even if she doesn’t make an original mark on them. She closes with ‘Shake,’ similar, in many respects, to ‘Stuck on Repeat’ in its icy electro flavour, which suits her more than the pure pop she co-writes so well.

Scissor Sisters, on the other hand, have everything from stage patter to old songs perfected and they burst with infectious energy when performing their new songs. The band bound on to the stage with frontman Jake Shears dressed like a sexy bee performing ‘Any Which Way.’ New, Pharrell Williams-produced track ‘Inevitable’ makes its mark and is followed by ‘Take Your Mama,’ a big singalong moment, during which guitarist Del Marquis sounds incredible. After premiering ‘Let’s Have a Kiki’ a week before, it’s exhilarating seeing a song that’s been an obsession for merely a few days performed perfectly with a dance routine, headsets and backing singers/dancers (‘Matronicons’) joining them at centre stage. Azealia Banks collaboration ‘Shady Love,’ which rhymes Obama with Madonna has the same cheekiness that oozes throughout Kiki. Ana Matronic’s solo performance of ‘Skin This Cat’ is unexpected but excellent, with the Matronicons dancing either side. This is followed by Jake performing ‘Mary’ by himself, providing a more downbeat moment in the middle of the party atmosphere. Their encore consists of their latest single, the Calvin Harris-produced ‘Only the Horses’ and debut album-era fan favourite ‘Music is the Victim’ and the set finishes without a dull moment.

April 28, 2012

A few beautiful snaps from Bombay Bicycle Club’s recent headline show at London’s Alexandra Palace. Support on the night came from Lianne La Havas and Rae Morris. All photos by Alex Kavanagh. More of Alex’s work can be found at http://www.alexkavanagh.com.

Lloyd Cole

By Matt Brown

March 15, 2012

When referencing back pain and disappointing t-shirt sales as the enduring memories of this tour, Lloyd Cole tends to perpetuate the perception of a ‘grumpy old man’ persona. However with a bucketful of charm and self-deprecation he treads effortlessly on the right side of endearing without veering off into self-pity.

A thoroughly enjoyable, light-hearted 2 hours spent with a man with a guitar in a church didn’t sound on the cards, but Lloyd Cole has obviously spent his years building experience in how to disarm your audience. Granted, his guitar playing sticks to a workmanlike busker style, but he has developed a voice warm in tone that seems to have lost some of the self-conscious affectedness of the ’80s. Prone to the occasional bum chord and lyric amnesia, it takes a loveable character to not just keep the crowd on your side, but appreciate his fallibility.

Starting off with tracks drawn from the recent Broken Records album, the first half of the show highlighted his current country and folk leaning which his residence in the US seems to influence. It’s a more direct style than the wordiness of his earlier output many would be used to. More immediate and more open than the songs of a man 25 years ago jangling his nerves in time to a guitar.

Quips over getting back for the babysitters and the awkwardness of spending time with roadies fill the gaps between songs. Dead-panning the audience before the interval (“I’ve been the warm-up act, and after the break…..I’m headlining”) and launching into a very passable Tom Waits impression during the end, Cole knows his audience well enough to risk a joke.

By the time we’re nearing the end he’s casting out ‘Forest Fire’, ‘Perfect Skin’ and ‘Lost Weekend’ like some playlist playthings. Reverential gasps come from the church congregation. Book-ending the show with his two songs referencing Amsterdam (‘Past Imperfect’ and ‘Lost Weekend’) was a nice touch picked up by many. Didn’t quite conclude in tears, but I’m quite sure I spotted a few moist eyes in the house.

The Black Keys by Julia Stryj

By Julia Stryj

February 4, 2012

Last Saturday I woke up with a huge smile on my face in anticipation of what should be a fantastic gig by The Black Keys and Band Of Skulls in the evening. When it started snowing just before lunch time I was getting worried I might not make it up to Edinburgh for the evening, but gladly the snow stopped and I set off early to get there in time for doors opening.

The Corn Exchange isn’t the greatest of venues. It feels and sounds like a huge factory hall, but I and the rest of the audience were still hoping for a fantastic evening. Armed with a drink to calm my nerves I waited for Band Of Skulls to come on stage so I could get to the photo pit for the first three songs. I had only recently come across the band through (believe it or not) Radio 1 and I was looking forward to seeing them live after having enjoyed listening to their first album for the past few weeks. The English three piece was a more than suitable support for Ohio’s The Black Keys. They started with ‘Sweet Sour’ – the title track of their upcoming new album and continued to play lively rock songs in a contrasting outwardly calm way (apart from the drummer, Matt). It almost seemed as if they needed all their inner calm to perform their flawless alternative rock set, finishing with ‘Death By Diamonds And Pearls’. Both vocals, Emma’s and Russell’s, worked well together and on their own: Go and check them out if you get a chance!

When The Black Keys came on stage the two other photographers and I were allowed into the photo pitch but were told to stay to the side of the stage for the first song. Even with my earplugs in the bass sounded worryingly harsh and almost burst our heads. Gladly the sound got better throughout ‘Howlin’ For You’, one of my and, judging by the atmosphere, the audience’s favourite songs. Dan Auerbach (vocals and guitar) and Patrick Carney (drums) managed to keep us on the high throughout the 90 minutes set especially when the two additions to their “live band” (Gus and John on keyboard and bass) left the stage for a few songs in the middle of the set. It looked and sounded as if there was even more energy going on when it was just Dan and Patrick on stage. At times, Dan seemed to almost improvise and the two of them managed to create a more intense, raw blues rock sound. Still, there was not one song that didn’t get a strong reaction throughout the whole evening – some, like the current single ‘Lonely Boy’, stood out if only for the great reaction of the normally quite reserved Edinburgh audience.

Talking about the audience: One thing I noticed was the lack of camera (phones) being held up throughout the entire gig. Of course there were some now and again but far less than we have now become used to in most gigs. For me that was a sign of the audience’s appreciation of the music and stage performance. They were there to experience great rock’n'roll music without any distractions. Getting a free Band of Skulls promo CD (Electric Blues EP) when I left the venue was the perfect end to one of the best gigs I have been to.

All photos by Julia Stryj

D'Angelo

By Joel Stagg

February 3, 2012

Back last autumn when I purchased tickets to see D’Angelo at the slightly generous price of £40 a pop, the normal feelings of excitement and anticipation rubbed shoulders with some less usual ones. D’Angelo’s so-called sabbatical since the year 2000 when he dropped Voodoo, inhabited by well-publicised dalliances with drugs, alcohol abuse, rehabilitation in Antigua and dalliances on the wrong side of the law, led to a certain morbid curiosity and also a sense of trepidation. It seemed I wasn’t alone when the comedian Kojo, who hosted the evening, asked of the audience – “How many of you came just to see if he still looks the same?”

There were a few bad omens. The tour had been somewhat opportunistically labelled the ‘Occupy Music’ tour, the announcement of the gigs around the same time as the Occupy movement’s peak media coverage obviously setting off a few lightbulbs in the D’Angelo camp. Secondly, the tickets came emblazoned with ‘D’Angelo for One Night Only’ across them, surely designed to lure in as many fans as possible, but somewhat optimistic and contradictory considering the ‘3rd & 4th Feb’ sign on the front of the Brixton Academy. And at the gig itself, the crowd grew restless after two warm-up segments from Kojo, a spritely three-song opening slot from Bluey Robinson, and a public service announcement calling for more black bone marrow donors, all seemingly leading into an imminent D’Angelo appearance which eventually took over an hour more to happen.

But needless to say, within seconds of gracing the stage, all doubts, morbid curiosities and restlessness were obliterated. In what remains in my mind one of the most intense and exciting opening sections to a gig I’ve ever witnessed, he and his band tore through a Voodoo heavy-set featuring the likes of ‘Playa Playa’, ‘Devil’s Pie’, ‘Feel Like Makin’ Love’, ‘The Root’ and a particularly high-powered ‘Chicken Grease’. D’Angelo struck an enigmatic and energetic figure, yelping and wailing and getting the crowd in hysterics, one removed item of clothing at a time, whilst still managing to sound like one of the most powerful and competent soul singers of our time. It’s for good reason that he can disappear for so many years and come back like this. The band was tight as they come, the man himself was electrifying, and the crowd were in raptures.

Momentum like that would always be hard to maintain for an entire show, so around the point in the gig where it dawned on those in attendance that the 20-minute breakdown flitting between drum solos, space organ funk-outs and bass jamming was actually still part of ‘Shit, Damn, Motherfucker’, it seemed we had descended into the perhaps-expected overindulgent side of things. Or, as my accompanying friend pointed out, it was also plausible that D’Angelo had just wandered off for a bit, as he was noticeable by his absence for a short while. Similarly indulgent moments of D’Angelo attempting some solo blues guitar jams upon his return also detracted from the initial, blistering energy.

But the closing section of the show, with D’Angelo sat alone at a keyboard perched on a raised platform, restored the equilibrium. He played one continuous piece, easing effortlessly in and out of numerous hits like ‘Me And Those Dreamin Eyes of Mine’, ‘Brown Sugar’, ‘Africa’, ‘One Mo’ Gin’ and ‘Jonz in My Bonz’. With the crowd firmly in the palm of his hand, he theatrically hit the opening chords of ‘Untitled (How Does it Feel?)’, but just before he opened his mouth to sing, stood up and away from the keyboard, gazing out into the crowd and looking playfully nonchalant. He sat down moments later and picked straight back up where he left off, and needless to say, the crowd sing-a-long that ensued was deafening.

Owen Pallett

By Stef Siepel

Eindhoven is radiant due to all the city lights that have been placed for the Glow festival. Massive amounts of people are ant-like finding their way through the city center, which is bending if not breaking. In the midst of it a huge church is crowded by a throng of people, who see light coming from the House of the Lord and think, Well, maybe there is something in the church that has to do with Glow. So people hoard around the entrance, most of them being told that, in fact, this is a ticketed event. A gig, no less. It is, namely, the end of Owen Pallett’s two-and-a-half year world tour, which he concludes with orchestra.

It has been a long odyssey for Owen Pallett, formerly known as Final Fantasy before he renounced that guise as to not to clash with the popular video game series. Using his own name he released the album Heartland, which earned quite some plaudits along the way. So well-received it was that he has practically been touring it non-stop, and as its finale he is playing with the Noord Nederlands Orkest, a Dutch orchestra. So instead of having to loop everything, now he has a backing band of tens of people behind him to do some of that for him. That’s called moving up, and delegating while you’re doing it.

There has always been something slightly queer about performing Heartland in a church. It is, after all, a tale with a homoerotic taint and an anti-authoritarian feel. For, in the end, it is a young man breaking free from the clutches of some upper being that has been leading his life. With an orchestra though, the acoustics of the building might be a matter of importance even more so than it has been in previous gigs. And it does sound tremendous. The thing about having an orchestra behind you is that it really fleshes out your sound. Not to say his live shows have been sounding thin, but an orchestra has this wave of warmth from all these violins and other instruments that just washes over you.

Pallett basically plays Heartland from A-to-Z. After having played the album he asks if there are any questions, and when there are none he launches into a few oldies but goodies to draw the evening to a close. With the orchestra he doesn’t always need to have the violin in his hands, but during the last song he picks it up again as to, according to him, not feel like a French chansonnier. I feel like I need some Celine Dion moves, the Canadian singer adds. And singer he is, for his voice is quite accomplished. Though not shabby on album, live he really shows the range and the composure he has vocally. During the closer of Heartland, ‘What Do You Think Will Happen Now’, he performs the song admirably even without the opera singer he enlisted for it on album.

I’ve read some opinions that argued that the orchestra didn’t really do much and that Pallett was inaudible. I’m not so sure about that. I thought the orchestra created a fuller, richer sound that you just don’t get without twenty people working the strings. True, you could expand on the songs and orchestrate it, but when you only do a handful of shows this way is it worth it?  I also think it drew people in that normally don’t see an orchestra or people who haven’t heard of Owen Pallett. For that latter group, yes, the album is quite the narrative, and I contend that such a narrative is always hard to follow if you hear it for the first time. Maybe they could’ve provided a booklet with lyrics, but I do think it is not down to Owen Pallett’s singing but more down to the scope of the story. A repetitive pop chorus is always easier to understand than a conceptual narrative.

So could it have been better, yes, probably it could have been. It always can. I’m just happy that these kinds of projects, where “pop” music is mixed with other elements of the arts (in this case an orchestra), are being put on and that they put the effort in. And it does create a different live experience, and that without the ticket price going up. For those coming in on a whim as they were just visiting the Glow light festival, there were indeed some light effects going on, alternately coloring the church red, or green or whatever.  So Heartland played in its entirety, with an orchestra, in a big church, with (some) light effects, and in the midst of the Glow festival of light: tours have finished with less fanfare I reckon.

Twin Sister, By Kenny McMurtrie

By Kenny McMurtrie

Keen as mustard to be on stage for the capacity crowd here tonight Twin Sister delivered note perfect renderings of such numbers as ‘Champy’ and set closer ‘All Around And Away We Go’, along with a couple (including the encore) of duets between just Andrea (looking a tad over-dressed for the event) and Eric. Undoubtedly a nice bunch, their music comes across well in a live setting but one couldn’t help but feel that it would be even better appreciated without having the band actually visible as a point of reference.

Uber-chillout as the music is the act of standing and facing the quintet felt at times anathema to the sounds being produced although you could I suppose go and groove away in a corner to yourself if so minded. Either way, this was a solid and relaxed show from a young band with much more to offer who’re revelling in the moment and who fully deserve their bite at the cherry. Top marks too for returning my own level of enjoyment to the heights it had dropped from during the middle part of the night.

At the start of the night it looked like we were on for an enjoyable time all the way through when first support act The Machine Room took to the stage. Their singer was apparently ripe for a cuddle in the words of one audience member whilst their blend of White Lies, New Order and shoegaze alone was enough to warm up the rest of us lucky enough to make it along for the start. Songs such as ‘Your Head On The Floor Next Door’, ‘Camino De Soda’ and the particularly robust ‘Picking Holes’ showcased a talented bunch of relative newcomers spawned from the fertile ground of Edinburgh College of Art.

The night’s early promise was unfortunately dealt a hefty blow though by touring support Holiday Shores. After a rather pastoral beginning reminiscent of Kings Of Convenience the quartet managed to combine the bad bits from a number of musical styles into blocks of time that could only loosely be described as songs. For the most part they brought to mind Truman’s Water – a band concept that fairs better on paper than in actuality. Like an Eighties band dropped into the 21st century and trying desperately to assimilate the musical advances of the intervening years, not even their guitarist’s interestingly hideous jumper was enough to soften my heart (and how often in Florida do you need to wear a Barbour?). It has to be pointed out in the interest of fairness that that they did garner a decent amount of applause along the way but for my money they try too hard and more often than not fail to gel. A college band who won’t be around post-graduation, albeit three quarters of them could probably go on and do better.

Sigur Ros - Inni

By James Blake

Sing along with Sigur Ros is a game enjoyed by friends and I. You play the track of your choice and try to keep up with frontman Jonsi’s angelic, soaring vocals. Admittedly, the game is often short lived. Primarily because Icelandic isn’t any of our first languages, but also the fun almost instantly fades into silent appreciation for the etherial quality the band possesses.

With Inni, our game becomes impossible. In a move away from the jaw dropping expanses of Icelandic scenery of 2007’s Heima, this live double album and film captures the raw essence of the band during a show at Alexandra Palace in 2008. The performance consists of the four original members without the usual accompaniment of strings and brass, revealing their emphatic energy in an analogue black and white.

Where Heima aimed to contextualise the origins and growth of Sigur Ros, Inni (literally translated as inside) captivates the audience and personifies the intimacy of a band who have perfected their live show. Right from the delicate openings of ‘Ny Batteri’ to the euphoric, first-glimpse-of-new-music-for-three-years climax of ‘Luppulagid’, abstract angles and graphics deployed by director Vincent Moriset transport the viewer to an other worldly setting where Sigur Ros run free amidst their own brand of articulately sculpted aural mayhem.

Woven throughout breathtaking live footage lie hidden gems of background material unveiling the origins of the name (don’t worry non-super fans, I wont spoil it) plus backstage antics to wonderfully characterise those behind music. Alongside this, interviews reveal a band who are still generally misunderstood by the media. The awkward silences of drummer Orri Páll Dyrason and Kjartan Sveinsson that follow questions on how they describe their sound and whether they started out writing ‘normal’ music are clearly not a language barrier. Instead they show a band who have no intention of being suffocated into a mould, whose music will be appreciated for what it is rather than where it fits in your record collection.

If Sigur Ros’ back catalogue already holds a special place in your heart you’ll need no introduction to this selection of greatest hits on show as Inni spans across their discography. What you will be in awe of however is just how effortlessly Jonsi and co. bring these works into hauntingly well crafted life. Visually and sonically, Inni captures this spectacle perfectly, portraying the majesty of the music but simultaneously identifying the playful innocence of those who produce it. This release may not be ideal for the next Icelandic karaoke hero but for anyone seeking a mouth-watering taste of one of the most understated live bands going, Inni is by far your best option.

EMA

By Russell Warfield

September 14, 2011

As much as I’ve loved EMA’s debut record over the last few months, I must admit to having had some worries about whether the album’s dank, crawling atmospherics would result in the live concert equivalent of being tossed off by a freezing cold fist. In the event though, I wasn’t stood with such a tense wince across my face as that, and that’s because EMA’s live performance necessarily translates through a lateral move into more of an organic incarnation of instrumentation and delivery.

This is made instantly clear by the opening performance of album highlight ‘Marked’ – a song which, on record, proudly boasts the shrill squeaking of fingers sliding between frets as its loudest ingredient in the mix. Tonight, however, the predisposition towards cultivating a sense of creeping dread through production and mixing tactics is replaced by a far simpler (in a subtle sort of way) vocal-guitar-drums rendition of the song. Sure, we lose something in the menacing vocal filters which originally sold her gravelly drawl of ‘marrrhrhked’ so perfectly, but – as a live performance – the simpler arrangements, and the more human feel, allows the song to breathe in a more suitable way for the occasion.

Throughout the set, the loss of what was gained by deliberately murky recording technique is simultaneously a blessing and a curse. With the epic ‘The Grey Ship’, we lose, of course, that neat little moment of switching from digital to analogue in a climactic triumph, but we still retain plenty of the song’s colour thanks to preserved violin embellishments and the more readily engaging force of hearing four tight musicians bash through the strident, spiky mid section.

What I’m perhaps getting at, in a round about way, is that (fairly unsurprisingly, I suppose) EMA sounds much more like a band on stage than her music does on record. Accordingly, a lot of focus has been placed on her vocal performance in the live setting, and – whilst I wasn’t quite as enchanted by its purported range and dynamism as a lot of reviewers seem to have been – it undoubtedly provided a lynch pin to the whole affair. (Indeed, a set highlight came in the form of a captivating a capella number, keeping the audience in perfect silence throughout). As I’ve said, plenty is lost from the lack of subtle support from grimy vocal filters, but there is value gained from the direct emotion of simply hearing the woman sing.

To try and exactly replicate the mood of her recorded output would have been not only difficult in theory and dull in practice, but outright alienating to audiences if executed. Therefore, there’s credit due to EMA for allowing her songs to flourish more organically and nakedly tonight. However, for all of the merits of tonight’s set (and there are plenty), one can’t help but feel that the pleasures of EMA’s record resided more squarely in its feel rather than its outright songwriting prowess. Here EMA finds herself in a catch 22 where she isn’t permitted to dogmatically replicate the atmospherics of her album, and her songs don’t quite stand up without them. As good as her simpler arrangements and more connected vocals frequently are, I’m left feeling EMA to be best suited as remaining a dark, invasive headphones experience, rather than a live communal one.

Chad VanGaalen, by Kenny McMurtrie

By Kenny McMurtrie

August 19, 2011

Forsaking the Canadian backwoods for a road trip in support of the recently released Diaper Island album, proceedings tonight kick off with the final track from it – ‘Shave My Pussy’ – delivered solo with ukelele by Chad VanGaalen who, it turns out, is a veritable man mountain at something close to six foot six.

Seemingly as much of a recluse as his biogs like to make out, things look set to carry on in a vein of tightly delivered songs from across all four of his albums (through the course of the 90 minute plus set we get such highlights as ‘City Of Electric Light’, ‘Molten Light’, a somewhat impromptu but very welcome ‘Willow Tree’ and ‘Flower Gardens’) with no other interaction with the crowd until half a dozen songs or so have gone by – at this point the rider of Crabbie’s ginger beer and Red Stripe kicked in and you could hardly shut himself and his fellow guitarists up as they succumbed to the tour bus equivalent of cabin fever. After proving that you can’t really sing through your nose no matter how far you try to insert a microphone into it, the banter continued on and off much to the crowd of dedicated followers’ enjoyment and the show was lightened further by a great cover of The Pixies ‘Here Comes Your Man’.

VanGaalen likes to howl far more on stage than in the studio it seems so, live and entertainingly drunk, the performance, at least on the heavier tracks, resembled Jon Spencer fronting Sonic Youth on a number of occasions. However, there was no loss of overall quality at any time so, loud or quiet, you’d be very hard pressed to have found fault tonight (unless of course you’d expected him to be plucking out “melancholy songs on his banjo” as one Edinburgh-based mag advertised the show).

Failing to remember the name of a support band is undoubtedly a crime but as the first contact we had with tonight’s openers was a cover of some Radiohead tune that went on for ages and whose own songs were only anywhere near enjoyable when the pace of them increased, it’s maybe good news for them that I can’t advise you to avoid them in the future. Second on the bill were local group Jesus H. Foxx who I’ve failed to see up till now but have been aware of due to the catchy name. Employing an impressive range of percussion and fronted by a bloke with a rather maniacal stare (not my own impression as I’d a pillar obscuring my view) their sound owes debt to early Pulp and also Talking Heads. They’ve an album coming out in a few months time so if your bag is slow and meandering tunes that start off quietly and then for no apparent reason change to massive thrashing beasts up till the end then these guys are for you. To me they just look to be trying too hard and achieving nothing memorable in the process.