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.

Shonen Knife

August 15, 2011

Given that in their 30 year career Shonen Knife have only managed to part me from the cash for a solitary 7”, it’s safe to say that I’m aware of their existence and not much more. Tonight then could therefore either reinforce my indifference or end up costing me shedloads as I rush to fill the gap in my collection with their back catalogue.

Having it seems not managed to soundcheck beforehand, the sell-out crowd are initially treated to a few thumps and strums as the clock ticks past the scheduled start time. Once that’s out of the way though the diminutive queens of Japanese pop-punk pull no punches as they launch into an overdriven, fuzzed out assault on the assembled ears with ‘Konnichiwa’. Moshing, pogoing and punching the air with Satan’s fingers for all they’re worth, they’re clearly running on Duracell tonight.

Their effusive thanks and obvious enjoyment (first witnessed on an Edinburgh stage when supporting Nirvana in the Nineties), not to mention the frantic pace they keep up throughout, earns them rapturous applause continually. New album Free Time is represented in the set with ‘Perfect Freedom’ and ‘P.Y.O’ (which owes a debt to ‘Old McDonald’) whilst elsewhere in the set sits the singalong of ‘Sushi Bar Song’, ‘Supergroup’, ‘I Am A Cat’ (featuring drummer Amy on vocal duties), ‘E.S.P.’ and ‘Pyramid Power’.

Unable to leave the stage at the end of almost sixty minutes of frenzied activity, they encore with a Ramones medley culled from the upcoming release Osaka Ramones (surely one for completists only) so in quick succession we get ‘Sheena Is A Punk Rocker’, ‘The KKK Took My Baby Away’ and ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’ before they head the short distance to the merchandise table to happily sign stuff and chat to the fans. Quibbles about the covers album aside, this was an excellent show from an extremely likeable group who’re clearly still on top form.

Support tonight came from The Low Suns and whoever decided on them as the opening act in front of tonight’s audience must have been having a laugh. Style-wise the two bands are poles apart (not least in the sense of clothing – a simmet and suit jacket is never a good look at the best of times) and after four songs I actually had to leave the room. Looking at the notes I jotted down at the time I see I’ve written some pretty cutting words in the heat of the moment. I won’t bother fitting them into this review but sufficeth to say that this was entirely the wrong forum for the quintet to play.

Austra

July 7, 2011

As I entered what could only be compared to a cave like enclosure in Shoreditch’s Cargo, it seemed like the perfect venue for the enchanting Canadian band, Austra. With the beautiful vocals of Katie Stelmanis, I was intrigued to see how they would measure up in comparison to their strength on the debut album Feel It Break.

Their support was Bright Light Bright Light who got the crowd ready for Austra. Even though they weren’t to everyone’s liking, their pop songs and homages to the nineties got people bopping. Even though Rod Thomas had suffered from hayfever, he still delivered vocally (even if he did lose his voice a couple of times).

Now it came the time for Austra to perform and for me to see if they would meet all my expectations. They opened with ‘Darken Her Horse’ in which Katie Stelmanis’ vocals hit me (in a good way). Her voice was extremely strong, powerful and clear – it looked effortless. It was an ideal choice for an opener, especially in this particular venue which created a haunting atmosphere for all to experience.

As well as the original line up of the trio – Katie Stelmanis, Maya Postepsk and Dorian Wolf – they had an additional 3 members for the live shows, two of which are made up from the twin duo Tasseomancy who act as Stelmanis’ backing singers (and dancers), and they provided the eerie harmonies that created such an amazing ambience in the intimate venue. There was a moment that really touched me during their performance, which was not planned or rehearsed – Stelmanis had accidentally kicked over a water bottle which had left a puddle by her feet, she bent down and stared at her reflection for a good couple of minutes and you could see how pensive and deep she was whilst performing. It really showed how focused Stelmanis was on giving an intense and beautiful performance even if the band’s crowd interaction was not up to par.

The band ended their show with a cover of Joni Mitchell’s ‘Woodstock’ which they definitely made their own. And that’s really the beauty of this band and with the voice and sound of Austra as a whole – they’re captivating and keep you wanting more.

By Genevieve Torabi.

Wild Beasts are all over the place at the moment, touring behind their widely praised third album Smother. They’ve found time to shoot the video for that album’s next single though – you can watch the performance clip for ‘Bed Of Nails’ below. Meanwhile, check out the band’s tourdates below – they’re being supported by Braids or Dutch Uncles, and they’ve added extra shows in Manchester and London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire.

Fri 5th Aug The Big Chill Festival
Sat 6th Aug London Victoria Park – Field Day Festival – MAIN STAGE HEADLINE
Fri 2nd September Dorset - End of the Road Festival
Thu 10 Nov Birmingham: HMV Library
Fri 11 Nov Oxford O2 Academy
Sat 12 Nov Leeds Constellations
Mon 14 Nov Edinburgh Liquid Rooms
Tue 15 Nov Aberdeen Lemon Tree
Wed 16 Nov Manchester Cathedral – SOLD OUT
Thur 17 Nov Manchester Cathedral – EXTRA DATE ADDED!
Sat 19 Nov Bristol Anson Rooms
Sun 20 Nov Nottingham Rescue Rooms
Mon 21 Nov Southampton University
Wed 23 Nov London O2 Shepherds Bush Empire – SOLD OUT
Thu 24 Nov London O2 Shepherds Bush Empire – EXTRA DATE ADDED!
Fri 25 Nov Cambridge Junction
Sat 26 Nov Brighton Concorde II – SOLD OUT