Doves at the HMV Forum: 19/03/09
Wednesday, March 25th, 2009Doves returned to the live scene last night to preview songs from their forthcoming album Kingdom of Rust, their first release since 2005’s Some Cities.
Their sold out perfomance at the HMV Forum wasn’t without its hitches - they arrived onstage to much cheering and promptly left without playing a note after a technical cock-up, but 10 minutes later they were back to open with new song and album-opener Jetstream, with its sparse intro and swirling keyboards building up to a metronomic keyboard break. A low-key Snowden from Some Cities followed, and it wasn’t until Pounding 4 songs in that the gig kicked to life.
Black and White Town predictably got the crowd jumping, but new song 10.03 also made an instant impact, it’s driving beat owing much to Doves early incarnation as Sub Sub. Whilst sounding great live, Doves do not have a huge stage presence, so it was just as well they were playing in front of a projector displaying graphics such as maps of Manchester on old B side “Northenden”. This display really came into its own on penultimate song “Here it Comes”, which featured superb vintage footage of people dancing at one of Wigan Casino’s legendary Northern Soul nights.
Doves finished with Their Goes the Fear, one of their finest songs, which climaxed in the band members playing cowbells and drums to the backdrop of Rio de Janeiro carnival scenes.
The new album is a strong one - more uptempo than the somewhat understated Some Cities. It’s been a long time coming but it’s worth the wait - Doves seem to fill that gap between the type of ramshackle indie music that is too lightweight, and the unbearably ernest anthems from the likes of Coldplay just prefectly. If you haven’t already then you should get tickets to see Doves at Brixton Academy.