Earlier in March I was lucky enough to catch Benjamin Francis Leftwich at an intimate gig at London’s age old Borderline. It seems in this instance venue and act were perfectly aligned both exuding comfort, intimacy, and a down to earth feel.
Leftwich managed to slink on the stage almost with out the crowd’s detection. He spoke about his first and problematic Pedicab ride En route to the gig and then quietly began. His live performance is just as you’d want it to be, soft, personable and very understated. Undeniably, his songs follow a certain blueprint and they merged easily into a seamless set.
Leftwich occasionally broke rhythm by performing songs in a whispered tone that almost fell below human hearing. Whilst the variation was welcome, and the crowd were willingly quiet, the backdrop of bar noise proved to be a little too much competition for my liking.
This aside it was an incredibly humble performance from a rising talent. If you’re fiesty enough to fight your way to the front I’d definitely try at catch him at the Camden Crawl, later this month.
A few weeks ago I caught the JDSamson, of LeTigre fame, fronted MEN live for Ladyfest. My friend was practically the only straight girl in the venue, I was practically the only man, we both loved it. The trio’s electro pop champion gay rights, critique economic policy and the general oppression of individualism without ever losing their catchy upbeat streak.
Whilst MichaelO’Neill and Ginger Brooks Takahashi lay down riffs that make the band’s live show enthralling the aforementioned JDSamson is a real live wire and true talent throwing moves and interacting with the crowd at every occasion. Best still, a true sense of camaraderie is felt between the three on stage.
With their debut full length ‘Talk About Body‘ due early next year and European and US tours already scheduled from February through April planned for the new year MEN could well become your party band with a political Conscience for 2011.
Here are the photos from that show on the CougarMicrobesflickr account.
Postponed due to Icelandic volcano activity, fans were put on tenterhooks in anticipation of the Crystal Castles‘ live appearance at London‘s Heaven on 19th June. And their fans are very die-hard, to put it mildly, piling up as close to the stage as possible two hours before the set began as if waiting for the messiah.
The MESSIAH crawled on stage on all fours with a savage expression on her face; part woman, part beast, part machine. Disciplined by the stern beats of ‘Fainting Spells‘, the opener from the Castles‘ self-titled second album, the creature arose to euphoric applause and started to thrash about like a harpooned shark. It was Alice Glass, the humanoid CC singer – would she dive into the crowd despite plenty of frictions with bouncers and broken up gigs in the past?
It’s fair to say that Alice spent more time crowd surfing than she did on stage. The crowd were grateful, passing her around and holding her up like the female Iggy Pop incarnation that she was. Producer and synth player Ethan Kath is the glue that prevents it all from falling apart, motionlessly hunching over his synthesisers and exercising a somewhat sinister authority over the proceedings.
Crystal Castles might play a dance based, retro-futuristic 8 bit version of noise music, but make no mistake: this is a hard-boiled punk band through and through. Coupled with their epilepsy-inducing lightshow, the manner in which they thrash through material such as the mighty ‘Crimewave‘ or the more Ladytronesque ‘Celestica‘ is of such intensity this author can only imagine it’s like a Stooges gig circa 1970.
Ultimately, AliceGlass‘s not-of-this-earth stage persona is a wonderful testimony to the power of human expression. Catch them live if you can!
Edward Sharpe & Magnetic Zeros have received loads love here at Cougar HQ since I caught them live in London. The band has been on the road for what seems like forever and you’d be hard pressed to find a harder working band.
Almost a year to the date I first heard the track, ESMZ‘s released a distinctly vintage feeling video for the amazing ‘Home‘. With the hot weather hopefully approaching again there is no reason for it not to become the anthem for this summer too.
My appreciation for The Kissaway Trail was established on the live stage and their performance, opening the main stage at Wireless Festival in 2006, was the basis for one of the early posts on this blog.
It seems incredible to think it has been nearly 4 years since that performance and the release of the band’s debut album but the tracks on that album still sound fresh today. Just as I began to think the band had dissapeared off the face of the earth news begun to filter through of an upcoming release ‘SleepMountain’ on hip us label Bella Union.
The Danish 5-piece kicked off an ambitious tour which seemingly brought them through London every other week and I caught performances at the Lexington, the Barfly and fiitingly stumbled across their show at the Hoxton Bar & Frill, just as I had done back in Hyde park.
Some of these venues where smaller than the actual bar stand at Wireless Festival and I was looking forward to hearing the bands repertoire, old and especially new, in such an intimate setting. With their chiseled looks and Nordic cool the band looked the part and received an appreciative response from the ever present Danish contingent before they even hit the stage.
Tracks from their debut sounded brilliant, obviously benefitting from the experience gained from years on the road; managing to be polished and magnified. Better still, the new material showed matured songwriting approach with co-frontmen Thomas and Soren developing a penchant for sweeping instrumentals and dramatic melodies. All this built on the foundations of a solid rythmn section lead by impressive skills of drummer Hasse.
Over a few nights I witnessed The Kissaway Trail put in a dependable shift and win over audiences big and small. With Sleep Mountain being released just recently I hope it is not another 4 years before I see and hear from them again.
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club burst onto the scene in 2000 with ‘B.R.M.C.‘, a rollicking, reverb-drenched, fuzz laden album of face punch rock. “Love Burns” from that LP still has the capacity to send chills down my forearms. Their follow up LP, “Take Them On, On Your Own” offered more of the same power that could steam-roll you flat if you weren’t bothering to pay attention, but offered little departure from ‘B.R.M.C.’ and fell flat for me.
And then along came ‘Howl‘, an album that if I hadn’t seen them perform live, I wouldn’t believe it was even the same band. How a band can go from the Jesus and Mary Chain to some back country gospel and blues in 2 years I will never know. It’s unabashed departure from their first two LP’s is so drastic that I’m very skeptical they could really mean any of it… an inside joke where they laugh a little on the inside when they coo “I will walk with Jesus, till I can’t go any more.” But that album is shit hot, inside joke or not.
‘Baby 81‘ offered a return to their original sound, but unfortunately the old sound resulted in an album of forgettable haze and noise, an average 90s throw-back album in modern day 2007. Enter ‘Live‘, a 2 DVD set with a bonus live CD. The CD covers three 2007 sold out shows in Berlin, Dublin and Glasgow and is basically just a random selection from the DVD, which is the real draw here (and which has been getting some solid reviews). Now, my idea of a solid live album is one that captures something that a studio version cannot: energy, showmanship, and a continuous stream of songs exactly as they appeared in concert, with the misplaced distortion, the occasional amplifier feedback, the short jokes between songs, the screams from the crowd, even the annoying chatter in the background.
But why an accomplished act, whose live shows happen to be their lifeblood, resort to a mixed bag of tunes from three different nights – three nights of varying emotion and vigor, of different weather, of different lunches, of different bus rides and fans – I will never know. A random assortment of songs with no intensity is the last attribute that should be attached to the term “live”. The songs that make up this album offer no heart and very few tracks should be repeated multiple times. If I want to hear the real BRMC, I’ll go back to the original studio cuts or to another live show.
My ideal BRMC album includes their trademark distorted melodies, with a heavy dose of their “Howl” inspired folk. Word on the street is that we’re going to get that from their March release ‘Beat the Devil’s Tattoo‘. I’m looking forward to the new album and hoping to forget ‘Live‘.
I have a confession to make; for a while now I have been staying up late desperately trying to stream videos filmed live and broadcasted from someone’s dark Arizona basement. Before you start worrying I should clarify: the videos I have been watching don’t star a peroxide blonde girl doing her best pretzel impersonation but rather one of my favourite bands finding new and exciting ways to interact with their fans.
I first saw Jimmy Eat World supporting Weezer at the Shepherds Bush Empire in 2001 and they completely blew me away. I had heard bits of their repertoire before but didn’t expect to fall head over heals for them. Since then they have become the one band I have seen the most times live gradually observing their career go from an intimate gig at the smallish Scala, through performances at Reading Festival on to glorious shows at Brixton Academy which literally left me speechless.
This year JEW set out on a tour to celebrate the 10th anniversary of their seminal 1999 album ‘Clarity‘. At first I was expecting to be in The States for the New York leg of the tour but sadly had to postpone my trip. My disappointment was slightly offset by the fact that the band had begun streaming highlights from their rehearsals for the tour on their ustream site. In addition, once the tour started the band posted photos from shows regularly allowing those of us who couldn’t make it on the night to take a little bit of the magic from these shows.
Just to prove I’m not a complete fanboy, I got home from a night out a couple of nights ago and stumbled across a live stream of the band playing their live Clarity set in its entirety. Though I was aware they were planning to release a live album following the tour I didn’t know when or in what format yet here I was in sat in the comfort of my living room watching the band tear through some of my favourite tracks. Needless to say I loved the experience and when the performance was over I got a copy of the ‘Clarity Live‘ album as my own personal memento.
Increasingly bands are embracing new technology to promote themselves and their music and yet I have seen few “established” artists interact quite so innovatively and enthusiastically. Despite being hugely successful Jimmy Eat World still look out for their fans, both new and old, and that is why they will always hold a special place in my heart.
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Earlier in March I was lucky enough to catch Benjamin Francis Leftwich at an intimate gig at London’s age old Borderline. It seems in this instance venue and act were perfectly aligned both exuding comfort, intimacy, and a down to earth feel.
