The Joy Formidable @ Koko, London, 27 Oct 09
I had never heard of them until I saw them open for Passion Pit at a recent gig. That was a very nice surprise. Particularly because I was in the mood for that type of music that night. Ritzy Bryan is such a good poser; I don’t know how much of a rock chick she truly is, but man does she play the part well.
They’ve made a few tracks downloadable for free on last.fm. Good stuff but their sound and attitude translate better on stage; they’re just more enjoyable live and loud.
The Joy Formidable - Austere
The Joy Formidable - Whirring
Flick set: The Joy Formidable @ Koko
Posts tagged with my flickr
“I said no photos, you little shit!” — angry Michael Angelakos bashes a fan’s camera with his mic at a recent Passion Pit gig.
….Ok, so, that’s not exactly what happened. Angelakos is too sweet a guy to be doing that. But his mic did collide with my camera. The collision was very minor and totally accidental, I am sure of it. Now, I wish I could say the same of the tiny girl standing next to me: she suddenly disappeared under Michael’s weight and when she resurfaced a minute later she looked somewhat damaged by that unexpected encounter. Ouch.
Flickr set: Passion Pit at Koko, London, 27 Oct 09
Loney, Dear @ Union Chapel, London, 10 Sep 09
When I come out of a live gig, my first thought is pretty much to compare the live renditions with the recordings. Grizzly Bear, for instance, sound as sleek, multi-layered and sophisticated on stage as they do on their albums, Deerhunter, well, not so much…Loney, Dear? So so, so much better. Simply put, there is not one song from his live set that didn’t sound ten times as good as their studio versions (big credit to his accompanying band, particularly his back-up singer and his drummer). So much so, that it’s now rather frustrating going back to the Dear John album and not being able to feel it the same way I did two nights ago.
Two highlights of the show: “Under A Silent Sea“ for its rich instrumentation and electro effects, and “The Meter Marks OK” for the goosebump inducing audience participation (there were some seriously good singers among us…I, for one, was wise enough to keep my mouth shut).
Wildbirds & Peacedrums @ Union Chapel, London, 10 Sep 09
I like Loney, Dear (his second album even more than his first) but what drove me to go see him live was that he was getting support from fellow Swedes, Wildbirds & Peacedrums. I anticipated great things from their live performance and couldn’t wait to witness their mad drumming and haunting vocals combo on stage. I wasn’t disappointed one bit. The venue being a church, the acoustic was perfect for this sort of percussion-heavy act and Mariam Wallentin’s voice carried beautifully well across the room. It got very close to a religious experience — not so much the meditating sort but more of the epileptic trance kind.
Deerhunter @ Koko, London 24 August 09
Well, I wasn’t particularly blown away by Deerhunter live, nor was I particularly disappointed. They mostly performed songs from Microcastle, which I’m not complaining about since it’s got plenty of great tracks and I’m not familiar with the rest of their discography anyway. Thing is, they hadn’t really reworked any of their songs for the stage, some of them sounding like pale copies of their studio versions. One thing I really found annoying was how Bradford Cox’s vocals were completely drowned out by the chords and drums, except for “Microcastle”, which for that precise reason was the highlight of the evening for me.
Sidenote: Deerhunter brought along two Californian bands for support. I found Crystal Antlers rather cool the first couple of songs but then I swiftly moved on and proceeded to go to my happy place and watch a movie there. It was however impossible to mentally block out Health, but I’m not sure if it’s because I found them impressive or if it’s simply due to the fact that their noise rock was so loud that it caused internal bleeding.
St. Vincent @ the ICA, London, 08 July 2009
I had never been to a concert at the ICA before; I see it more as a venue for when I feel the urge to spend three hours on a wooden chair with no room to park my legs room and endure enjoy contemplative experimental cinema. Let’s just say that I now think twice about going to the ICA to see a film. But I’ve always wondered if their music space was as small and “minimalist” as their screening room. I got my answer two nights ago when I went to see Annie Clark of St. Vincent perform there. The venue is indeed rather small: it can only hold 350 but I’d say we were no more than 300 attending Annie’s gig, which really took me by surprise. Isn’t St. Vincent bigger than this? Shouldn’t she be able to play, say, Shepherd’s Bush Empire in front of 1,500/2,000 fans? Or am I that disconnected with reality?
On the plus side, it made for an intimate show and having Annie Clark singing to my face was far from unpleasant. I’m not sure however how pleasant it was for her to have me in her face. She did lock eyes with me early on during one of her songs, only to never do that again the rest of the show. I’m trying hard not to read too much into that.
I like St Vincent’s albums a lot but what really sealed the deal for me was the couple of live performances I had seen online (this one, and that one but particularly this other one). I knew that I was going to really enjoy her perform live, and sure enough, she blew me away. I found her live set up to be quite ambitious for such a small venue to handle (the sound check took for ever and the musicians were struggling to find enough sockets to plug their gear) and between Annie’s electric guitar, her double-mic juggling, the flute, the oboe, the violin, the sax, the bass and the drums, there were lots of sounds coming out of that tiny stage, and not always in a polished manner. The vocals on a couple of songs were so muted that I wondered if that was intentional and Annie’s saturated and aggressive riffs were a bit harmful at times (with each of her short bursts of musical epileptic fits, someone’s eardrums would expire), but who cares, the energy was great and the occasional cacophony would add to the raw quality of her performance. One thing was made very clear that night: Annie is really more of a rock chick than one might think. She might look like a delicate insect but when once plugged in, she turns into a real powerhouse.
Set list: Marry Me, The Strangers, Save Me From What I Want, Now Now, Actor Out Of Work, Paris Is Burning, The Bed, Laughing With A Mouth Of Blood, Black Rainbow, Marrow, Just The Same But Brand New / the encore: The Party + Your Lips Are Red
M83 @ Koko, London, July 2009
A month after seeing Phoenix, I was back at Koko’s for another helping of French cheese. Anthony Gonzalez kicked off with a few really beautiful ambient pieces before beeing joined by the very cool Morgan Kibby and the drummer. They were really sleek, switching back and forth between dream-pop and more hardcore electronica with ease and to really good effect, and I thought the band sounded as good live as on the records. Having said all that, however enjoyable the gig was, it never quite took off for me.
After getting myself happily lost in the maze of the streets of Istanbul, I got hit with the view of the Sea of Marmara. It was hard to get moving after that: boat watching can be addictive and my ipod started playing Efterklang, which got me to sink even deeper into contemplation.
And just when I thought that I was seriously over the whole business travel routine, I got to my hotel room and got introduced to the wet room. Love at first sight. It reminded me why I liked staying in hotels so much: the walk-in shower with that gigantic shower head coming out of the ceiling. That thing can shoot water down your head with such power that it peels the skin off your skull. Sooo good.
Granted, it might be trivial, but that shower makes me real happy. The 24h room service too. (The surroundings are not bad either.)
Phoenix @ Koko, London, June 09
Perfect little gig that was. Good energy, good crowd; it started early, finished early and I left with my hair dry. It was all very civilized and yet pleasantly loud and messy.
I’m a big fan of Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix so that gig was a real treat as it showcased quite a few songs from that album. They kicked off with “Lisztomania”, which set the mood and energy beautifully for the rest of the night. They kept their energy levels and the noise up until halfway through their set when they interrupted the frenzy with “Love Like A Sunset (Part I)”, a nice instrumental interlude that gave Thomas Mars the chance to catch his breath (and have a lie down on stage). I loved the slow build up of that number and the explosive finish; making it my personal highlight of that gig. “Rome”, however, was a flop, comparatively. It’s probably the song from the album I’ve listened to most, so I was really looking forward to roming it in unison with Mars and my fellow gig monsters. Mars did try to warm us up with some clapping excercises and some “Rome Rome Rome” chanting but it didn’t work as well as the earlier “Run Run Run” and overall the crowd was simply not inclined to make that song a hit the way, say, “Too Young” had been just a few minutes earlier, and the way we were all prepared to make “1901” the climax of the night. Which we did during the encore.
Sidenote 1: The drummer tried his hardest to break his drum kit, battering his cymbals from a standing position for maximum force. He was rightly compared by last.fm’ers with Animal from the Muppets.
Sidenote 2: French peeps everywhere. There was a lot of talk about how personal hygiene was overrated and the stinkier the cheese, the better.
Sidenote 3: The guy next to me managed to give Thomas Mars a music demo of his stuff while Mars was crowd surfing on “1901”.
Florence and all the floral arrangements
Florence and the Machine @ Bloomsbury Ballroom, London, May 09
Florence doesn’t need much to rock the house: dress her as a goth queen, blow an electric fan at her so she can pretend to fly, surround her with tons of plastic flowers and tassles, throw a harp in there and ta da!.. Oh yeah, and give her a voice that blows your senses away and sends you to heaven.
There are a lot of her songs I really like (“Dog Days Are Over”, “Ghosts”, “Cosmic Love”, “Between Two Lungs”, to name just a few), there are some I can’t stand (“Rabbit Heart”) and some I’ve gotten tired of (“Kiss with a Fist”), but when it comes to seeing Florence live, it doesn’t matter which song you like and which you don’t; she makes every one of them sound like it’s the best thing you’ve ever heard. It’s her voice mainly, but also her exhuberant energy. One minute she’s all ethereal and delicate in her singing, lala’ing through the forest with the rabbits and other small furries, and then, bang, the next minute she’s turning into a ball of fire and takes a dive in the crowd.
Sidenote 1: Someone got to support her butt during her brief crowd bath. That wasn’t me. Me, when I get up close and personal with a live act, I get an armpit.
Sidenote 2: Here’s a link to a very recent live performance of “Dog Days Are Over” for a taste of the power of a live and singing Florence.
Sidenote 3: Florence was supported by the unclassifiable and very good Golden Silvers. Which was a very nice surprise, for I expected to be bored stiff until Florence’s set.
Of Frightened Rabbits and Goldfishes
Frightened Rabbit @ Le Poisson Rouge, New York, Feb 09
Frightened Rabbit are a fun bunch to watch. They did an all-request show in New York last week and what’s great about this format is that because there’s no fixed set list (in fact, each band member had a blank set list at their feet, *wink*), the gig pretty much ends when the audience runs out of requests or when the band simply can’t take it anymore. Either way, that makes for a longer set than usual, so not a bad thing.
It was rather obvious that I wasn’t the only novice at this all-request format; within the first two seconds, everybody was shouting stuff like “The Modern Leper”, “Poke” or “Keep Yourself Warm”… which cracked up frontman Hutchison “Err…Guys, how about pacing ourselves and doing a little build up instead? How about leaving a couple of those songs for the end? We’re not going anywhere”. As we went on, and seeing that we were still acting like an undisciplined bunch of frontloaders, I kept expecting Hutchinson to pull an SNL “Simma Down Now!” at any moment!… Well, in my defence, I couldn’t really strategise, considering that the most popular songs on their repertoire are actually the only ones I know the titles for. Doh. I guess I’ll have to come more prepared next time.
Sidenote: FR gave in rather quickly to our constant nagging and “The Twist” “Poke” and “The Modern Leper” got to be played relatively early. They did manage to hold “Keep Yourself Warm” till the end though.
Frightened Rabbit - Keep Yourself Warm
More photos here
Friendly Fires @ Koko
Friendly Fires - White Diamonds
Friendly Fires @ Koko, London, Dec 08
My last concert of 2008 and certainly one of the best (along with Bon Iver, Hot Chip and Sigur Ros).
Here’s a last.fm review of last night’s gig that perfectly sums it up for me (“I didn’t really have any expectations of Friendly Fires’ performance. Obviously their album is great but how would that translate to the stage? In the most amazing light and hip gyrating show ever!”).
Last night was full of out-of-synch jumping, serious headbanging, bad-but-who-cares singing along (apparently, we’re all gonna live in Paris, I promise, I’m on it), profuse sweating, camera flashing and the predicable flying beer cups. I did manage to dodge the beer (for once), but I couldn’t escape the attack of FF frontman Macfarlane’s armpits….The dood threw himself at me, not once but twice (during “White Diamonds” I think, and then again during “Paris”), and each time, my head ended up completely pressed against his chest so the only way for me to get some fucking air was to move towards the armpit area… not a smart move, I know.
Highlights: “White Diamonds”, “Jumping In The Pool”, “Paris” and Macfarlane’s dance moves (I might steal those from him).
Full set of photos here
