Live Music News & Reviews

It’s not like us at Londonvenueguide to be negative about much to do with live music, but in light of Axl Rose’s infuriating antics in the last week, which has seen Guns n’ Roses fans put up with delays of one hour and half an hour respectively at Reading and Leeds, and being bottled off at the O2 in Dublin after a delay of more than one hour, we present what can be the ten most annoying things about attending gigs.

 1. People watching the entire gig through their camera viewfinder. Why do some people pay £30 to attend a gig when they could watch blurry footage in the comfort of their own home on YouTube? And what do people think they are going to do with the footage? It’s hardly going to rival Scorsese’s Shine a Light, it can only be an example of proving you are having a life through Facebook. Obviuosly more importance is being placed on the proving than the actual having of a life.

2. Going to a gig and talking through the entire performance, especially if it’s along the lines of “I’ve not heard much of their stuff but they’re meant to be cool and a bit weird aren’t they?”

3. People who sing “their song” into their girlfriend’s ear. Out of tune.

4. Heckles to a female band member of “Get your tits out”. This was experienced a couple of years ago by Kate Nash at a gig at the Barfly, when one punter charmingly requested the singer to “Get your muff out”, prompting beau Ryan Jarman from The Cribs to hurl a pint glass at the offender. Even worse, When Florence Welch from Florence and the Machines attempted to crowd-surf at a gig in Leeds, itself an annoying gig habit, she broke down in tears when a member of the audience groped her. 

5. People who shout for an obscure early song/unreleased demo, which they know the band will never play and won’t ever play, but do it just to show how much of a OMGSUPERFAN they are.

6. One of the most annoying breed of gig goer has to be The Over-Protective Boyfriend. You’ve probably seen him, stood behind his girlfriend with his arms around her, often in the middle of a crowd of people who (can you believe it?) have the temerity to be dancing and bashing into him. When someone crashes into his delicate ladyflower he’ll say something along the lines of “watch it, that’s my girlfriend”. Yes mate, and she’s chosen to go down the front at a gig. She’s not going to snap in half if someone bashes into her and, if she is, you can both fuck off up the back.

7. People who aren’t wearing deodorant or haven’t showered that day (particularly since the smoking ban).

8. People being overprotective of space - those who are SO protective of their space they just will not let you get through at all, refusing to budge even if you are returning to the spot you left earlier with an armful of drinks.

9. People at festivals who take their camping chairs down to the main stage and arrange them in a long line with no gaps, giving dirty looks to anyone who tries to get through, and forcing them to walk all the way sideways to the end of the line before heading forward again. When the ground is dry.

10. Which brings us on finally to bands arriving late. What people like Axl Rose probably don’t understand is that modern-day gig-goers have timing down to a fine art. Enjoy a few drinks in a nearby pub, but not too many that means you will be spending the entire gig running to and from the toilet, arrive, grab a decent spot in front of the stage, and, crucial point this, check your watch and decide there is time for one last visit to the toilet en route to the bar. Which all means you are in a good spot, with drink and empty of bladder, the perfect state to enjoy a fine performance. Unless the act is late, very late in the case of Guns n Roses. Which leads to inevitable internal debates, should I get one more drink? Do I have time to dash to the loo? This in particular may explain the bottles of “unknown substances” - according to a joint statement from the venue and promoters (urine, we suspect) which were hurled at Guns n’ Roses early on in their set by angry gig-goers, forcing them to walk off after four songs.

Bombay Bicycle Club Union Chapel

Last night Bombay Bicycle Club brought their acoustic tour to the Union Chapel in north London. The venue was a perfectly fitting setting for the delicate sounds of their new acoustic album Flaws. This has to be London’s most characterful venue, where bands play from the crypt, the music echoes up to the high ornate wooden roof and you can purchase a cup of tea or coffee for 50p in a selection of unmatching china mugs as you settle down on your pew for the evening. In a nice touch, tonight the crowd were also handed a hymn sheet containing some of the lyrics to Bombay Bicycle Club’s newer songs. 

We managed to catch the second support act, Melodica, Melody and Me, who were superb. The Brixton 6-piece are a folk act who are full of charm, with beautiful lyrics and fine vocals from the male and female singers Huw and Anna. Their debut single Piece me Back Together is out now.

Bombay Bicycle Club themselves appeared to an appreciative crowd and began with Flaws opener Rinse me Down. From hereon in they barely put a foot wrong, and singer Jack Steadman’s tremolo voice sounded superb, as the band swapped banjos for guitars and an ever-rotating parade of musicians joined and left the stage to either provide accompaniment on the celtic harp, drums or, in the case of Lucy Rose, backing vocals.

Highlights included the delightful single Ivy and Gold, the catchy Many Ways, Evening/Morning from I Had the Blues, and a short but very sweet solo set from Steadman, which further emphasised his delicate voice but was also something of a revelation in terms of his guitar playing not to mention his sheer guts.

There is no doubting that Flaws proves there is a lot more to Bombay Bicycle Club than just another indie band. Not being a huge folk fan myself however, I did wonder how much of this I could have coped with had it not been for the fact I was sitting amongst a friendly and hushed audience in a beautiful church. Part of me does hope this is a temporary experiment from BBC, given what a good indie band they are, and this is somewhat borne out by the tremendous reaction Always Like This got from the crowd, as BBC played a stripped down version with backing vocals from a 7-piece choir. It is a truly great song, and given their barnstorming Glastonbury set a few weeks earlier, I do hope they return to that in the future.

However for the time being, they are making some sweet folk music which is perfect for those quieter moments in life. What’s more they seem to be really enjoying it. 8/10

U2 likely to pull out of Glastonbury

U2 have confirmed they are pulling out of Glastonbury after Bono’s doctor advised he should not perform live for 8 weeks, meaning the entire US leg of U2’s tour plus their Glastonbury performance would have to be cancelled. The singer recently hurt his back and has been advised to rest.

Rumours had been circulating that Dizzee Rascal, who is due to play before U2 on the Friday night at Glastonbury, was being lined up to replace U2 as headliner if Bono didn’t recover in time. That would surely disappoint festival-goers though, on what many this year have already been labelling a weak Pyramid line-up - this despite the promises from the organisers of something special for the festival’s 40th anniversary year. The pressure is now on the Eavis’ to  find a big-name replacement. A call to Chris Martin is likely in the next few hours.

This year Suede (or the London Suede as they were known in the US) reformed to play a well-received show at the Royal Albert Hall in the Teenage Cancer Trust series, and they are also scheduled to play the O2 Dome in December 2010. Coincidentally I had recently been listening to their debut album, Suede  for the first time since listening to it to death upon its release 17 years ago, and had come to the conclusion that it is one of the best British debut album ever released.

Suede may be something of a forgotten band of Britpop, particularly when compared with the cartoon personas of Jarvis, Damon and Liam, but that is probably because they hit their peak at the very onset of the movement they helped create. Lest we forget, the early 90’s were dominated by grunge bands from Seattle, very little of interest was happening on these shores, and then along came Suede, with that famous Select Magazine cover which saw Brett Anderson draped in the Union Jack. The last time an artist had played with the flag so blatantly, Morissey was shot down in flames and accused of being a racist by the NME. But here was a magazine heralding the start of a movement, a British reaction against the second-rate post-Cobain music coming from the USA.

Suede enjoyed huge amounts of hype, resulting in the album charting at number 1, but it seems strange that in those days lead singer Brett Anderson was criticisied for aping Bowie, and for being overly theatrical. Critics, for better or worse, were harsher then, things had to be 4 REAL. Suede may have been labelled Smiths/Bowie copyists, but by today’s standards they were highly original, and in Bernard Butler had a guitarist with an ear for a catchy hook and a mastery of the fretboard that followed in a great British tradition from the likes of Johnny Marr and John Squire. 

Luckily, the Suede hype was backed up by the music. Released in 1993, Suede still sounds fairly fresh, although the production values are not great. It sounds rather tinny, although partly that is Bernard Butler’s trademark scuzzy guitar sound. Butler’s extremely gifted guitar playing was they key to this album’s success, along with Anderson’s sleazy rock n’roll life lyrics, and androgynous posing.

Opener “So Young” sets their stall out early, featuring Anderson’s shrieks and climaxing with some superb guitar lines from Butler. This is follwed by “Animal Nitrate”, one of the best pop songs of the 90’s. “She’s Not Dead” is the first of five, excellent slower songs on the album, with its gentle descending riff.  Another great single, “Moving” follows, although when Anderson complains of the song sounding over-produced and lacking the energy it had live, you can kind of see what he means.

The self-pitying “Pantomime Horse” is saved by its powerful ending, as Anderson sings “Have you ever tried it that way” and the guitar ramps up before the song closes with a few sparsely struck high strings. Debut single “The Drowners”, one of the album’s rowdiest and strongest tracks, is followed by the sparse “Sleeping Pills”, one of my favourite tracks on the album because of the atmosphere it creates, despite the somewhat unsubtle lyrics about suicide. This is topped by Breakdown though - this song is all space and sparse guitar effects, and at 6 minutes long, by far the longest track on here. Another classic piece of Butler riff-making is highlighted in “Metal Mickey” and “Animal Lover”, before the staggering closer “The Next Life”, featuring Anderson’s best vocals on the album as he sings over a gentle piano riff.

This record brought inspiration when it was desperately needed. It paved the way for a movement, on which, to some extent, the jury is still out. But more than that, it is a superb debut album by a band who never scaled those heights again.

LCD Soundystem played a triumphant gig in Brixton on Friday night, despite having technical problems at the outset. Owing to the keyboards not working, the band played opener Us v Them twice.

LCD Soundystems had made a huge effort to make the gigs, flying to Madrid and then taking a long overland journey to London to beat the volcanic ash flight restrictions.

Highlights for me included the new songs “Pow Pow”, with its superb David Byrne-esque lyrics and chorus, and “I Can Change” as well as old favourite “Losing my Edge”. James Murphy is a master at crafting slowbuilding songs, which makes for great live performances.  You get the feeling he is something of a control freak as he prowls the stage adjusting knobs and switches on his bandmates’ equipment, and the complete replaying of the first song seemed a little unnecessary, but when it results in music this good who cares? The only disappointment for me was hearing just 3 songs of the excellent “This is Happening”, which Murphy explained was because he used to hate seeing bands who played too much new stuff when their new album wasn’t even out yet. Perhaps it was punishment for those that had illegally downloaded the album (Murphy recently pleaded on his knees for fans not to download the leak at a New York gig). Whatever the reason it was hard to complain too loudly when they finished with Daft Punk is Playing at my House and New York I Love you…during which a hundreds of white balloons were dropped onto the crowd.

The true anal-retentive can start planning their Glastonbury weekend now:

http://www.clashfindergeneral.co.uk/s/g2010/

The line up for 2010 has finally been announced on the Guardian Online last night.

Our initial reaction is that the Pyramid Stage lineup is looking a bit weak, particularly on the Saturday - Scissor Sisters second from top of the bill? We had forgotten they existed! Plenty of good stuff on the Other Stage though, and as usual scratch beneath the surface and there is an enormous depth of quality, with plenty of up-and-coming alternative acts being represented such as Bombay Bicycle Club, The XX, Mumford & Sons, Temper Trap, Cymbols eat Guitars, but very few jaw-dropping acts hinted at by the organisers for this 40th anniversary event. Nice to see The Orb playing though! With a few TBC’s to fill there is time for some surprises yet.

The XX played one of their most high-profile gigs so far tonight when they began a 2-night mini residency of the Shepherd’s Bush Empire. Their superb debut has been something of a slow-burner, but after their recent appearance on the cover of the NME, and their fame spreading across the Atlantic (The XX was voted one of the top ten albums of the year in Rolling Stone’s end of year poll), this was a hugely anticipated show and the hottest tickets in town, we concluded as Daisy Lowe walked past.

Opening with the instrumental Intro, the band appeared as huge silhouettes behind an enormous white curtain before it dropped to reveal the three members of the XX dressed in black against a simple backdrop. As they began to play Crystalised, the first thing that became clear was how superb singer and guitarist Romy Madley Croft’s voice sounded, especially live, it was quite outstanding. As it dovetailed with Oliver Sim’s, who also plays the bass, it seems these voices were made for each other. However, until three songs in I was wondering whether this kind of music may be better listened to at home, or at least in a much smaller venue than the Empire.

Something happened during third song Heart Skipped a Beat though -suddenly the crowd were transfixed. Croft’s voice, the sparse guitar, deep and rich bass and sharp drumbeats combined to produce something greater than the sum of its parts. From that moment on very few people went to the bar, and you could hear a pin drop during the quieter moments as the crowd were bewitched.

As well as most of the album, the XX payed a superb version of Womack and Womack’s Teardrops, Sim warning that is was quite likely they would mess it up, although they didn’t. In fact they didn’t put a foot wrong all night, not a dropped note or an out of tune vocal. A sublime Shelter was another highlight, and the low bass during Fantasy shook the whole venue.

The XX went to the same school (Elliot School) as Hot Chip, Burial and Four Tet, and in keeping with those acts they are producing some of the most interesting music around at the moment. The crowd had come to see The XX perform an album that they had grown to love over the last six months, and they were not disappointed. I do wonder whether they would manage to hold a crowd’s attention with that pace a second time around, especially as their set grows in length, which it will have to - tonight they played for an hour. I personally feel they would benefit from extending the effective change of tempo and heavy sharp drumbeats during Night Time, which ended too soon, and applying it to a few more songs. Whether they will have to revert to a four-piece when they start to play longer sets or not remains to be seen, but for this tour at least, they are fully justifying the hype. 9/10

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With Spice Girls popping up left right and centre and Liam Gallagher being his tiresome cartoon outrageous self whilst accepting an award, it felt like 1996 all over again. The feeling of being in a time-warp was further emphasised when premier twat Robbie Williams closed proceedings by singing a medley of his catchiest (shittest) songs, most of which came from the mid 90’s. Jay-z and Alcicia Keys’ superb performance made Florence and the Machine and Dizzee Rascal look like chancers who had won a talent contst. If this is the best British Pop can present right now then we may as well slit our wrists and give up.