Bombay Bicycle Club at Union Chapel Islington (22/07/10)
Friday, July 23rd, 2010
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