GRINDERMAN

Venue: The Coronet, London.
Words: Phil W and MMT.

For years I just never really GOT Nick Cave. I know that that’s a controversial statement but I just didn't GET it. Most of all I just didn't really think it was my thing, in the same way I'm still not sure Bob Dylan is really my thing. I am fully aware of all the things that are there to appreciate and I can hardly knock either artist, they are both very good at what they do whether I like them or not, but I just wasn't sure I really GOT Nick Cave.

Then one evening a few years ago while loafing around the Monkey Kettle offices, Nikki told me if I didn't really GET Nick Cave then maybe I'd GET Tom Waits, that might be more my thing. Apparently people often like one or the other, but in that moment my brain knotted the two artists inseparably together despite them both having wildly different styles and backgrounds and yet I still wasn’t sure EITHER was really my thing.

In fact it wasn't until I heard Scarlett Johansson’s solo album that I really began to appreciate the genius behind Tom Waits’ songs and I began to suspect it MIGHT actually be my thing. It was the lyrics; it was all about the lyrics, and suddenly Nick Cave's “Red Right Hand” entirely made sense; the words, the imagery; he was creating his own world in the lyrics, he was telling stories, drawing out characters and it was his lyrics that often provided the strongest hooks rather than the guitar. And now I got it all. Of course Matthew had been talking about Nick Cave for years; I'm a relative newcomer to his work.

Dude, I GET Nick Cave. Oh man, I GET him. Right about here.

The first time I GOT him was in 1992, when I saw him on “The Chart Show”, of all places! It was the video for “Straight To You”, the first single off “Henry’s Dream” – coincidentally my favourite album by yer man Cave & The Bad Seeds. And when I dug deeper and BOUGHT that album, I was hooked for ever. Intricate and evocative lyrics, like you mention. An accomplished writer who was also cool enough to be the stick-thin suit-wearing frontman of an astonishingly tight band of stick-thin suit-wearing hench-musos. And my avid love for his – and their – recorded output subsequently stretched out in both directions to span now more than 30 years. From the sinister garage thrashings of The Birthday Party, through his clattery blues phase, his indie-goth darling phase, his razor-sharp pop rock phase, even his mournful religious piano ballad and his upbeat gospel phases! I have dug it all, and been lucky to see him play live several times over at least two decades. I’ve got his novels, his books of poetry, even him reading his own latest novel across a 7-CD box set. He is, in a very real sense, one of my absolute heroes.

Anyway… can we go and see Grinderman now please?

There's no support tonight, at least none that we come across. We got in early and grabbed a couple of seats on the front row of the balcony with a perfect view of the stage. It’s exceptionally dark and mellow inside the cavernous Coronet, a former music hall and cinema that was converted into a music venue in 2003. We're several beers down when Grinderman take to the stage with riotous opener “Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man” that’s also the first track of their new album “Grinderman 2”. Up to now I've only heard the first Grinderman album but the new material sounds fantastic live. The exceptionally tall, waif-like figure of Nick Cave darts around the stage, gleefully attacking a guitar or craning over the adoring audience while the impressively bearded Warren (Ellis) constantly threatens to upstage him and even sets off chants of "Warren, Warren" at one point during the set, which Nick Cave joins in with. I've not seen Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds live but tonight Grinderman defiantly felt like a complete band with all members met on equal terms. The anthemic “Get It On” barrages through like a steam train, “Depth Charge Ethel” rocks the pews while “No Pussy Blues” sounds triumphant as well as helpless. The evening closes fittingly with the eponymous “Grinderman”.

If I’m being totally honest, I almost don’t count Grinderman as a separate band – despite what Cap’n Caveman clearly wants us to think. All four members are, after all, IN Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and for all the fuss about the loudness of the guitars on their two albums, it’s still not a million miles from their other recent albums – except with slightly louder guitars. Even the NC&TBS album which comes in between “Grinderman” and “Grinderman 2” (“Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!”) sounds like Grinderman. But none of this is the point.

The point is the smiles on the heavily bearded faces of these men in their forties and fifties. The point is the FUN they’re having, the playfulness in Cave’s lyrics – his best in years, and that’s saying something. The point is that you CAN do both, be BOTH the best writer of mournful religious piano ballads of your generation AND rock out with a ridiculous moustache. The most telling moment of any of Grinderman’s output is the self-revelatory “Damn!” in their best song, “No Pussy Blues”. Says it all.

If I was looking to fully understand Nick Cave then in the live setting I found what I was looking for; it’s Nick Cave's self-mocking humour that really steals the show in the end. That he can be both cool and funny, self mocking and serious all at the same time is at the heart the genius behind his act. “No Pussy Blues” makes not getting laid cool, he tells you he's tried sucking in his gut and he’s trying to stay up late and he's still just so cool about it and we end up smiling about the problem of growing older and still wanting to rock. From the way he leaps around the stage on his impossibly slender frame, you'd never know he was in his fifties and yet his lyrics don't pretend he's still twenty and angst ridden. He's middle-aged and coping fine, he's the Grinderman but that’s okay. It’s a better place to be than six feet under, he sounds like he's okay with it. He's not hiding anything and he still looks so damn cool about it. And now I know this is definitely my thing.

Man, I hope I can still leap about like that when I’M 53 years of age. I bet he feels it in the morning. But yeah, that’s it in a nutshell – he’s clever enough, talented enough, and shrewd enough to surround himself with way talented kindred spirits to do BOTH. Absolutely fantastic – a great gig by a great band… DAMN!

DUM DUM GIRLS

Venue: XOYO, London.
Support: Mazes, Wild Palms
Words: Phil W.

"Bhang Bhang, I'm a Burnout" begs to be sung along to, "It Only Takes One Night" thumps along like a demented banshee with a hangover while "I Will Be" plays like the Latin-infused soundtrack to a Tarantino movie. The ballad "Baby Don't Go" pleads with your heartstrings but it’s the utterly beautiful "Rest of Our Lives" - a song written by band leader Dee Dee to her husband - that's really the stand out moment of the set. This is the sound of Los Angeles-based four piece girl band Dum Dum Girls, one of a host of bands leading America's new lo-fi scene across the Atlantic.

Perhaps it all started a couple of years ago with the brilliant Vivian Girls, brilliant and brief in every way. The Dum Dum Girls even share the same drummer in their live line-up. But on record, the Dum Dum Girls are only Dee Dee (aka Kristin Gundred) and a drum machine. In the same month Dee Dee's debut album "I Will Be" hit the UK shelf’s so did fellow California-based lo-fi act Best Coast with their debut album "Crazy For You" but in the age of the Macbook the lo-fi sound that infuses these records is more of an aesthetic of choice than a forced necessity due to the limited accessibility of technology or money. The Dum Dum Girls sound raw and noisy because that’s how Dee Dee wants it. She wants the album to sound like it was recorded on an eight track in the walk-in wardrobe full of tatty shoeboxes her mother is photographed standing in on the front cover of the LP. There's a selfconscious cool in these records, these bands care very deeply about appearing not to care from behind their impenetrable shades and their stories of Californian shores and half forgotten romances. There's a passion behind their basement recordings and carefully assembled pop songs, aside from the fact Dee Dee’s album probably was recorded in her back room and Best Coast probably did record their album live in a band member's basement - even if The Pixies “Come On Pilgrim” never sounded as under-produced as this.

Back in London's effortlessly cool new basement club XOYO, seemingly the perfect setting for a new generation of deep thinking slackers, the very noisy Mazes sound like Pavement meets Weezer and sum it all up with the line "I never wanna get out of bed, I never wanna do what you say". They may be a decade too late but they could also be a couple of years too early, because if this is coming back then that'd be awesome! Wild Palms brought in a host of influences from New Order to Arcade Fire and won me over in the end but then it was all about the Dum Dum Girls.

The Dum Dum Girls' set is short and tight, all four of them in black dresses and fishnets, gently rocking back and forth and looking distantly cool. Their songs are all over in under three minutes and sound like the Rolling Stones played on a buzz-saw with vocals lazily applied where needed, and I dug the vibe. Like I told Dee Dee after the show: "awesome show by the way!" "Thanks", she replied shyly from under her mop of jet black hair as she arranged a small stack of Sub Pop 7"s and cassette tapes.

SUMMER ROUND-UP - Phil

Review: Phil

Live From London: A Gig Round Up, March - August 2010

Kaki King - March 10th - Scala, Kings Cross:
Guitar wondergirl Kaki King returned to the UK with her new live band to perform another stunning set heavy in songs from her new album "Junior". It really doesn't get better than this. Anna Calvi was once again in support with her own impressive guitar skills, she's got a well overdue record out soon apparently and it can't come soon enough.

Hole - May 5th - Brixton Academy:
Courtney Love dragged herself on stage like a washed up lounge singer for her long awaited return. The new songs with the new band sounded tired and messy but there was still something very special about Love's crow on classic "Violet". A bigger highlight was her support acts, alterna-rock newbie Tiffany Page and the ever brilliant punk blues duo Little Fish.

She and Him - May 7th - Koko, Camden:
The irresistibly cool Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward rode into town with their sixties inspired pop and country songs spilling out of their saddle bags. Zooey bounced around on stage like a kitten on catnip, oozing enthusiasm and charm. And The Chaplin Sisters provided strong support with their country-infused harmonies and Zooey bounded on stage toward the end of their set to further fill out their sound.

Tegan and Sara - 24th June - Roundhouse, Camden:
Twin sisters Tegan and Sara returned for a magical performance at the Roundhouse in Camden. Read the earlier Dudebox review for more.

Kaki King - 13th July - Dingwalls, Camden:
Kaki King was back again, this time backed only by long term collaborator Dan Branagan on the Electronic EVI Synth, for another mesmerising performance. No support tonight, just more than two hours of Kaki King wonderment with a set heavy with songs from her earlier albums and lengthy improvisations. It was like peeking through from behind the door on her private jam session and it was pure magic.

Redfest - 23rd July - Redhill:
Just south of London in the middle of a farm, Redfest happened in the midst of the gorgeous summer weather. Without a doubt my favourite act of the day was mesmerising punk blues duo Little Fish. Imagine PJ Harvey meets The White Stripes. But other highlights included techno-punk act Subsource fronted by a double bass wielding vocalist and on the acoustic stage Twin Brother, a melodic five piece with a country pop sound that invoked Arcade Fire and The Shins.

The Dandy Warhols - 8th August - Koko, Camden:
Underrated American indie stalwarts The Dandy Warhols returned for another epic set, playing songs from right across their 15-year career and ending with a rare performance of "The Dandy Warhols Sixteen Minutes Rave Up" from their first record. Awesome as always.

TEGAN & SARA

Venue: The Roundhouse, Camden.
Support: Hesta Prynn
Reviewer: Phil W

It was a hot evening in Camden Town, the sun still high on the early evening streets and the throng of colourful bohemians and the steam of street food pouring from vendors along the canal. It had been hot on the tube too, the air stifling, heavy and thick.

From the entrance opposite Belmont, right down to the old horse hospital, a long queue of predominantly teenage lesbians had formed, huddled against the walls of the old Victorian viaduct. A girl at the end of the queue was handing out flyers and I asked her if this was the queue for Tegan & Sara. “Yes,” she replied, “you’ve got a bit of a wait.”

The Roundhouse is a truly unique venue; built in 1847 as a railway roundhouse with turntable, it has been used as an arts venue since the 60’s. The feeling is very different from the old music halls that litter the London area though are no less spectacular.

I was up on the front row, elbows leaning on the steel railings to the right of the stage. Support act Hesta Prynn, lead singer from New York band Northern State, was here on a solo outing backed by a guitarist/bassist/fiddler with a looping Macbook and a drummer. The music was deeply pop-infused dominated by heavy drum and bass and Hesta strutted her stuff with aspirations of pop diva stardom that’s currently so vogue. But she won me over by the fourth song and I was almost tempted to buy her EP.

In 2008 I saw Tegan & Sara at the Shepherds Bush Empire. I’d only recently discovered them, via Kaki King who’d played guitar on one of their songs on their superb album The Con released that same year. At the time I remember thinking it was one of the best gigs I’d seen that year but two years later I’d been trying to remember exactly why. This question was quickly answered in what turned out to be a truly magical gig. These twin sisters are just so good! It’s in the simple, well written pop, the touching lyrical insights into life and love and their off key but emotionally grounded delivery. It’s the combination of Tegan’s straight forward punk songs and Sara’s quirky pop musings. Sara’s best moment is at the start of the set with an acoustic rendition of I Just Want Back In Your Head, Tegan’s best moment is in the set closer, the epic Nineteen, and everything inbetween was pure electricity. Their songs come alive on stage as the likable Canadian twins work the audience with a smile and a nod, oozing sincerity, and introducing songs with conversational back stories. The final encore and also the oldest song in the set, Tegan’s brilliant country infused Living Room proved to be the final highlight of another brilliant show. It was over all too soon.

Outside, the air was still warm in the night-time streets of Camden Town as revellers moved in and out of The Stables and across the canal. Queues of teenage lesbians heading for the tube.

KAKI KING

Venue: Scala, London.
Support: Anna Calvi.
Words: Phil W.

Standing alone between metal barriers at the entrance of the Scala in Kings Cross I began to suspect I may be Kaki King’s biggest fan. I had a whole twenty minutes to ponder this before anyone else joined me in the queue.

First one inside, I eagerly ascended the stairs and being a seasoned veteran of the front row, my first port of call was the bathroom. Last stop before I spend the night pressed up against the front of the stage with no room for escape! As I leave the bathroom, Kaki walks past me down the corridor and we share a momentary glance. I wonder if she recognises me from the Jazz Café. No, it’s unlikely; there must have been hundreds of gigs and hundreds of fans since then. I watch her glide away like a spectra into the bowls of the building.

There’s still no one in the main hall, everyone’s still at the bar and I take my place at the front centre of the stage. There’s no barrier tonight between the audience and the stage and I’m able to perch on the stage to chat with the people that join the audience behind me. We talk music and musicians - we’re music geeks, that’s the kind of gig this is, the kind of fans Kaki’s stuck with. We talk guitars, effects pedals, session musicians and obscure albums.

Once again Kaki is supported by the superb Anna Calvi. She opens with a massive five-minute guitar solo and it’s all up from there. Deep reverb guitar solos and passionate Latin infused vocals. As Anna’s packing away her effects pedals after the set I lean over the stage to her and ask her about CDs; there’s an album out in August apparently. It’s long overdue.

Kaki open’s with ukulele driven Spit It Back In My Mouth from the new album Junior before ploughing through a two hour set of material from all five albums. There’s a beautiful full band version of Jessica. Part way through the gig Dan and the new drummer leave the stage and Kaki dazzles us with her solo instrumental work including the epic All The Landslides Birds Have Seen Since The Beginning Of The World and the fantastic Carmine Street from her first album. “Its been a long time since I played that one!” she tells us. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched footage of her playing that song on YouTube but to see her play it live now is mesmerising. Other highlights include a full band version of Pull Me Out Alive and an epic version of You Don’t Have To Be Afraid. For an encore she performs Gay Sons Of Lesbian Mothers on the lap steel and then closes with the heartbroken Sunnyside from the new album.

After the show I said hi again (I’d meet Kaki King again in July). It was another superb gig from the guitar wondergirl but what can I say, I’m a fan! Can she really be the artist I’ve been waiting for all these years? Just when I thought I was done with being a fan, an artist comes along that truly is everything I’ve been looking for. The answer may well be yes.

THE PIXIES

Venue: Brixton Academy
Reviewer: Phil

Sepia-toned images from 1929 burn like stubble on an autumn morning against requiem violins. A man stands among giant, rusting machines; he carefully sharpens his razor. A well groomed wife takes a seat in the next room, her face tranquil and poised. The man stands behind her, taking her face in his hand, he parts the lids around her right eye. He takes the sharpened razor and holds it at her eye level. In one clean move he slices through the eyeball. Un chien andalou - an Andalusian dog.

"Do The Manta Ray!" cries Black Francis from the centre of the stage to rapturous applause. The Pixies open with four b-sides all culled from their 1989 album Doolittle before playing the album in full and in order. Black Francis sounds better than he ever did on lead vocals as he hollers, yells, barks and screams his lyrics, one minute soothing, the next shattering. Kim Deal wears a huge grin throughout, her brief words to the audience forming the only banter from the band to the crowd, her surprisingly intricate base lines providing the melody to Black Francis's sparse chords. Joey Santiago plays a mean lead guitar, occasionally grinning, looking cool and like he hasn't aged a day since the band first split in 1991. David Lovering, drummer and magician, keeps the band together with solid yet unlikely rhythms that change fluidly with Black Francis's eccentric song structures.

The Pixies Live

To be performed on a large stage. Deal plays bass, Francis plays lead vocals and guitar, Santiago plays lead guitar and Lovering drums. Behind the band a large screen projects images that correspond with each song.

Darkness. Following a screening of Un Chien Andalou, the band take to the stage.

Dancing The Manta Ray.

DEAL:
B sides.

Weird At My School, Bailey’s Walk, Manta Ray.

The screen behind the band bursts into life, displaying the word Doolittle in huge flashing letters.

Debaser, Tame.

DEAL:
It’s started.

Wave Of Mutilation, I Bleed.

DEAL:
Is it a surprise to you what’s coming next? I mean, do you guys already know it or do you have it on shuffle? It’s a surprise to me! I know, but it’s a surprise!

Here Come’s Your Man, Dead, Monkey Gone To Heaven.

DEAL:
Okay, so we’re either at the end of side one or the beginning of side two.

Mr. Grieves, Crankity Jones.

DEAL:
The dulcet tones of Mr. David Lovering.

FRANCIS:
And Joe!!!

La, La, Love You.

DEAL:
Ok, so we’re defiantly on side two now, definitely on side two.

No. 13 Baby, There Goes My Gun, Hey, Silver, Gouge Away.

DEAL:
That’s it, its over! Yeah, its over, records over!

Pixies leave the stage. Rapturous applause. After a suitable pause the band return to the stage.

DEAL:
More b-sides.

Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf), Into The White.

During the song Into The White the band are almost entirely lost in clouds of white dry ice.

The band leaves the stage for a second time. More rapturous applause. The band returns. The house lights are brought up and the band looks out over their adoring audience and grin. The house lights are left up for their final two songs.

DEAL:
New record!

Caribou, Gigantic.

After the last song, performed with the house lights up and nothing on the giant screens behind them, the band put down their instruments and walk back and forth along the edge of the stage, smiling, waving, triumphant but humble. They just look like ordinary people doing extraordinary things, stripped of all rock n roll pretension; they seem almost surprised at the adoring crowd that came to see them play.

So, how many songs did The Pixies play? They played 25 songs. And what did they play? They played the album Doolittle in its entirety, all its b-sides, plus Caribou from Come On Pilgrim and Gigantic from Surfa Rosa, their first single. And why have you found it so hard to write this review? Because frankly The Pixies were everything I could have hoped for, seeing them live was a dream come true. I was there, on the front row, leaning on the bars, and they were just fantastic. They sounded phenomenal! Did they sound like they do on their records? Yes, they did, exactly like they sound on their records only better, only louder. Not because they perform live exactly what is on the record but because they put on record exactly what they perform live. And to see them live was to see their whole vision come together. In short, to see them live was to have a teenage dream of mine come true. Did they plan any new material? No, but that’s just not the point. This was a reunion gig, a chance to see a band you never thought you’d ever get to see, to see them play like its still 1989. And it’s just difficult to some up in words just how good they were or how much the whole experience meant to me. This was a celebration of The Pixies' music and that’s exactly how it felt. Dude, it was awesome!

AMANDA PALMER

Venue: Union Chapel, London
Support: Polly Scattergood
Reviewer: Phil

Prologos

“Ok, so this is really weird!” confessed Miss Palmer, two songs into her solo set. “I don’t really know what I’m doing here! I mean, I’m not on tour. I just decided to do this show tomorrow and then I added this one. And like, I’m in a church which is really amazing, but also really intimidating!”

If you’re going to go Gothic, go Gothic! The Union Chapel in Islington, built in 1874, is a breathtaking example of Victorian Gothic architecture. From the outside the Gothic facade is a mass of compromised red brick but inside the hexagonal interior is stunning, a vast monument of carved wood and stone groping for the sky. That night it was lit in soft reds and deep purples, there is a large font in the centre of a stage, a backdrop of carved lattices finishes the dark illusion. Complete with fairy lights and candles arranged around the balcony ledge, it is easy to imagine we are really in some baroque romance.

“It’s just so quiet!” continued Amanda, centre stage from behind her electronic piano. And it was, the cavernous room barely filled by little Amanda in corset and boots. “I had this whole set planned but I think I’m just going to throw it all away and make it up as I go. Does anyone have any requests?”

Behind Amanda, an artist has started work on a large canvas leaned up against the font. We can’t quite see what he’s painting but he continues to work as if not on a stage at all. After a sea of hands, someone suggests Blake Says and Amanda agrees; “Ok, yeah, I’d forgotten about that song! Yeah, I’ll give that a go!”

Strophe

A subdued atmosphere hung over the early evening throng of black clad parishioners queued up outside the Union Chapel. It was early September and wind rustled through dry leaves in lazy trees whispering the secrets of the coming autumn in shades of ochre and gold along the broad street. There were hushed whispers between unlikely revellers; subdued excitement for tonight’s dark mass. A girl in black dress with face of painted white held up a sign and looked up with mournful, lonely gaze; “Free Hugs!” A man with a black hat and a serene and playful smirk operated a Miss Palmer hand puppet - he moved along the crowd seeing that everyone got the briefest kiss. A girl dressed as Alice from Wonderland gave out small, hand crafted envelopes of red and purple, full of stars and hearts and each one accompanied by a wooden rose. As the light dimmed, a man on a piano bicycle machine rode along the crowd and played to us while a girl in a heavy dress sang.

Once inside the cavernous church, we moved quickly for spaces near the front along the pews – it was seating room only in this house of worship. The last remaining rays of the day still shone through stained glass, the atmosphere was light and celebratory. We didn’t “get” Polly Scattergood, not during her support act, and not when she accompanied Amanda with a cover of Puff The Magic Dragon. Her support set was downbeat synth-pop which could have been great but just wasn’t really, while her backing band looked bored and vaguely embarrassed. Polly’s delicate heart was broken and she let us know it repeatedly with her clumsy, humourless lyrics. We’re sorry Polly, maybe he’s just not worth it!?

Then a slender man in dark suit and sporting impressive mutton-chops announced from the stage that a talented young organist from Hereford would now be joining us and what then came to pass proved a far better interlude than Polly Scattergood was a support. His pipe organ playing sent spirals of twisting sound crawling high in the domed Gothic interior with angel wings and devilish hooves. Then Miss Palmer appeared briefly on stage before disappearing behind the font to perform her first song, a very dark and sombre number, from inside the organ console.

Antistrophe

“That was supposed to be completely seamless!” laughed Miss Palmer from her piano stool. She’d played the opened bars to Missed Me on the pipe organ before leaping from the organ console hidden behind the font, diving across the stage, stumbling, reaching behind the keyboard, and attempting to pick up the song again. She went on to play one of the standout tracks from the Dresden Dolls’ self-titled debut and followed it with Astronaut from her latest album Who Killed Amanda Palmer?. Following her performance of Blake Says, a sea of hands reappeared and she had to say “it’s ok, I have an idea.” Looking about herself with glee, at the surroundings of the church, she broke into a riotous performance of Sex Changes.

“Ok, so this is a song written by my wonderful boyfriend Mr. Neil Gaiman. He’s actually a really great songwriter!” she announced before a beautiful and amusing performance of I Google You. “So I’ve just realised, it’s September 11th and I’m in a church so I have to play this song,” she said and then broke into a heart-wrenching performance of Truce. Halfway through, she suddenly stopped playing. “Oh no…. does anyone know the next line?” She laughs and looks genuinely stumped until someone cries out “we can split Germany!” The performance becomes typical of Amanda’s easy going style tonight, performing unrehearsed songs barely remembered just as she thinks of them. It’s intimate, it’s personal, this is a naked Amanda caught in the eye of a magnifying glass but also an Amanda full of humour and optimism and magnetic personality and oozing talent and stagecraft. “This is something I’ve meant to do for a while,” she explained. “I can’t read music you see, not well, but I’ve challenged myself to play some classical piano - and if I fail, well, at least I’ll come away from this with a genuine Catholic guilt!” What came next was full of mistakes but was also a dizzying array of piano skills.

At the end of the set she was joined on stage by Polly Scattergood’s band. Amanda looks about again at the interior of the church, smiles; “we’re all going to hell!” With wild delight the band breaks into Oasis and Amanda rolls out the line “when I got my abortion!” deliciously with all the wielding pleasure of a sledge hammer to the Berlin Wall.

Epode

Miss Palmer straddled the balcony above the stage; cradling a red ukulele she dedicated a cover to Neil Gaiman. “Just to make it clear,” she interrupted half way through, “it’s just because he taught me the song.”

“Ok, so can you see this guy painting behind me?” Amanda indicated to the artist at work behind her on the stage. “It’s a two night painting!” she continued. “I think at the end of the night tomorrow we’re going to auction it off or something.” Back behind her piano, she finished her encore with a spine tingling performance of Point Of It All followed by a final punk burst of Runs In The Family. As she left the stage for a final time, after two hours of music, the audience collectively sighed and wished she didn’t have to go.

Outside the Union Chapel, a huge low moon hung in the night sky. Revelers had their photos taken beside the piano bicycle machine while others moved quickly toward buses and railway stations, disappearing back into the throng of London streets. And so we bid our goodbyes once more, farewell and good evening, until we meet again.

SONIC YOUTH

Venue: Scala, London.
Reviewer: Phil

“The guitar guy played real good feedback and super sounding riffs, he had his mild mannered look on – man, he was truly hip!” In 1995 a 39 year old Lee Renaldo said exactly where it’s at and it’s almost too incredible to believe that Sonic Youth are still the hippest, coolest, most vital, most inspiring and wildest rock n roll band on the planet. But dude, seriously they are! They never sold out, they always kept it real! They were well on their way to middle age before they even signed to a major label! For 30 years they’ve surfed the cool of the underground: cutting their own little corner, crafting their work like art students, each album advancing them a little further forward, never looking back. They are no comeback band, they never left. They’re still right there, they know where it’s at... chasing the dream fifteen albums in and from the sound of the new material played tonight, the new record sounds to be as creative and groundbreaking as the last.

Thurston Moore casually walks out onstage in jeans and sneakers and a stripy jumper and grins mischievously at the audience. The interval music is still playing in London’s thousand-capacity Scala, the house lights are still blazing, and Thurston walks on, picks up a guitar and starts tuning it like he’s an unknown from a support band. The crowd erupts and I’m right there on the front row, hands on the railings. Thurston wedges a drum stick savagely between his guitar strings and starts playing the opening of She Is Not Alone. Kim walks on stage looking fabulous and calmly picks up her bass. Steve jumps behind the skins. Lee is the last on stage; he raises a coffee cup to the audience and grins the biggest grin imaginable as the band begins to play.

Bull In The Heather thumps a steady groove and demands a call to arms, Hey Joni bowls us all over like an express train pulling you right to the here and now. Tom Violence takes us down low and Schizophrenia pulls us right back up again. There’s time to reflect on The Sprawl and time still to Cross The Breeze. Thurston Moore crashes against the PA stack, leans out over the audience and plays a wild and mean guitar solo, his eyes looking up to the gods, lost in the Sonic maelstrom. The dude’s so close he almost takes my eye out with his guitar headstock and I have to move quick. Kim Gordon is ice cold and ice cool with the longest legs for five States, her face hidden under long blond hair as she slurs out her punk poetry. Steve Shelley pummels away at the drum kit while Lee Renaldo holds together some super riffs and steady vocals. He holds his guitar out over the audience as eager fans reach up to add their own biological textures to the beat. “Speak English dude…” demands Thurston as Lee stumbles to introduce his new song I’ll Be In Your Dream If You Be In Mine, another awesome rocker that continues to push the Youth’s Sonic art forward.

The band finished on Kool Thing and all would agree that’s exactly what it was. A very cool thing. Thirty years on and the band are still right there, making the music they love, they’ve never stopped to take count of the years, like that never really seemed important or part of the plan, to get caught up in some rock n roll cliché. Big grins all around from the band members, liberal use of the word dude, unassuming cool leaping all over the stage playing wild solos and totally grooving to their own unique sound. It was just that kind of gig, just that kind of cool, just totally awesome. The other band members are gone now and we’re left with Thurston Moore walking absently about the stage, wiping the mop of hair from his eyes, pulling on his guitar tremolo, winding switches on stomp boxes, kneeling over his guitar placed face down on the floor against the frantic mess of electrical cabling, reaching like an ironmonger up to the stack, holding his guitar high above his head, grinding the fret board against the edge of his amp…..

Awesome dude!

KAKI KING

Venue: Jazz Café
Supports: Anna Calvi
Reviewer: Phil

Female guitar virtuoso Anna Calvi and her duo of co-conspirators (a drummer and a percussionist) utterly nailed the intimate crowd that had squeezed into Camden’s famous Jazz Café to see fellow female guitar virtuoso Kaki King do her thing. With Telecaster around her neck and in Russian tuning (she may be Russian, she spoke with an accent, I’m not really sure) Anna Calvi opened up the set with a huge reverb guitar solo. Her songs, about love and loss, capture images of sweaty nights in bars and shacks somewhere south of the Mexican border, of open roads across the desert and starry nights on Caribbean beaches, the smell of woodsmoke in the air. Her voice is powerful, her songs structured around blues chords and huge guitar solos drenched in deep south reverb and Latin flourishes. Think the rock and solid vocal delivery of PJ Harvey, the aching intimacy of Chris Isaak circa Wicked Game and yes, the guitar licks of Hendrix. High praise, but this is one unsigned act that really needs to be seen.

Kaki King; if you need to know more then look no further than here for the Dudebox review of her performance at the ULSU last year. The major difference this time round was that for much of the set she was joined on stage by drummer Matt Hankle and long term collaborator Dan Brantigan on synth, both of whom recently collaborated with her on her Mexican Teenagers EP. The entirely instrumental EP sees yet another stylistic shift for her with a much harder edge as she picks up the electric baritone guitar to explore the depths of hard rock and blues.

Kaki opened, kneeling over her pedal steel, gently plucking the delicate opening of ….Until We Felt Red. The synth whispered and the cymbals shimmered while the song built into an emotional frenzy of distorted chords before withdrawing back into itself. The opening three songs from third album Dreaming Of Revenge sounded much fuller with drums and synth, Kaki almost growling her vocals on Life Being What It Is, lost in her emotional break-up song while she plucked the guitar lines on her Ovation - but when she picked up her yellow baritone guitar it became clear the backing musicians were there to add muscle. Material from the Mexican Teenagers EP was played at near metal frenzy with power chords and crashing drums as Kaki moved into full on rock star mode, striking poses and throwing her guitar to the floor when she’d finished with it. “My mother must be so proud” she laughed, “having a rock star for a daughter!”

There were quieter moments of course; for a heartbreaking band performance of You Don’t Have To Be Afraid; and midway through the set when Matt and Dan cleared off stage for Kaki to run through some solo material including Magazine and Happy As A Dead Pig In Sunshine. And Kaki finished with a solo encore of Gay Sons of Lesbian Mothers performed on pedal steel with loops. Throughout Kaki’s guitar playing remained spellbinding, ingenious, creative and utterly defying expectations.

I’d love to review Kaki King objectively, I really would - but fact is she falls into a limited number of musicians I’m just utterly in awe of. I’m a fan, I’m right there. I’d like to say I could be objective but something in her music speaks so personally to me that it’s just impossible for me to do so. And I may not be the only one. After the guitar ferocity of Mexican Teenagers, the audience still fell utterly silent, hanging on her every word. She still didn’t need a microphone to speak to the audience and Kaki frequently looked slightly awed and surprised at her adoring audiences. At one such quiet moment, a man close to the stage cried out to her “marry me!”

Umm, no, it wasn’t me.

Kaki laughed and said “but you don’t even know me!” But Kaki’s is the kind of music that makes you feel like you do. In an interview when asked why more of her songs don’t have lyrics, Kaki replied that many of the songs express emotions she can’t put into words. This is the power of her music; she speaks poetry through her guitar, leaving you hanging on every note. Little surprise that when she stops playing it just doesn’t make sense to start talking, the audience expects to hang on every sound she makes.

After the encore she jumped off the stage and headed straight for the bar. Thinking about it now, that’s pretty logical really even if a thousand other performers would have headed for some backstage location. I patiently waited as half the room decided to say Hi. I wanted to be cool, I did my best. I told her I really dug the show, we hugged. Her music just means a lot to me, I feel like I already know her. You ask a rock star for their autograph - but you hug a friend, and that’s just the way it went down.

THE DANDY WARHOLS

Venue: London Astoria
Support: Fabienne Delsol
Reviewers: Dill and Phil W.

Phil, who WERE the support band? Apart from weird French people that is…

Support was provided by French singer Fabienne Delsol who performed a mixture of both covers and original material including new single “I'm Gonna Catch Me A Rat” from her latest album “Between You And Me”. She released her first album in 2004; looking at the track listing it includes a song called “My Love Is Like A Spaceship”! Not sure if she played that one or exactly how the metaphor works but it sounds like a song I'd like to hear!

Wow, that’s almost like a direct from website puff, or you really did like them? For me though, they affected my evening, as I got side-tracked into looking at the band dynamics, and I did that for the Warhols. It really did look odd with Fabienne Delsol – one side lively, having fun, bouncing around; the other side on secondment from Toussaud’s. They could well be termed ‘cute’, or maybe ‘chic’. Archetypal French peeps whatever. Do you think it was cobbled together to support her? Whatever, I think they won me over in the end.

They certainly won ME over in the end but I was far from convinced at the start of their set. As far as band dynamics go, its not too unusual for one performer to look upbeat and lively on stage while another looks like they’re waiting in line at the bank but it was noticeable here; the more the guitarist on Fabienne Delsol's right looked sullen and detached, the more the guitarist on her left seemed to be enjoying himself. But I doubt there was necessarily any pre-conceived plan behind this. Musically the band were certainly stuck in another time - somewhere around 1969 - from sound to dress sense. I'm never sure how I feel about that kind of thing, so purposefully imitating another time, but it worked for them and cute is definitely a good description of the final product both in looks and sound. Actually what stuck with me most after their set was their use of stage lights, which had them permanently bathed in simple, motionless blue and purple lights that shone down from directly above them through a permanent haze of dry ice. It rendered the late sixties vibe complete so that for a moment you could lose yourself in their own indulgence.

The lighting was possibly more to do with what was to come. I guess you’ll agree THAT was fairly elaborate…

Yeah, the Dandy's had themselves backed with banks of multicoloured strip lights; impressive but simple enough not to detract from the band themselves. Complemented with the house lights and the occasional burst of strobe, they drew us into a world of psychedelic starfields and bursting supernovas.

Hummm, maybe you saw a Black Hole as well. I just got occasionally blinded, but I don’t have your design experience to notice much else. I suppose part of the lighting was to somehow keep them in the dark. I don’t think I ever got a full-on, fully-lit sighting of Courtney Taylor, or (licks lips) Zia in the whole proceedings. Even Pete was a little obscure from 5 feet away, but then I suppose that’s his style, surly arse! It did allow Brent to get a sneaky, cheeky sniffsnort of something, however (allegedly). Age, I reckon. It’s hard to grasp the fact that they’ve been making their slightly kooky music for the last 15 years. Even though they were promoting a new album “…Earth to The Dandy Warhols…”, it wasn’t all new songs. You’d almost think they had an impressive back catalogue….

You would, except that over the last 15 years the band has quietly accumulated a VERY impressive back catalogue! I've been a proud fan of The Dandy Warhols since I first discovered them a little late on with their third album “Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia”. Psychedelic shoegazing, grunge infested power pop and unlikely alt.country.... with horns! I'm there!! The same week I bought the record, I went back to the store and bought the first two albums, both of which have outstanding moments (“Minnesota” for example), but “Thirteen Tales” has remained my favourite listen. The three song sequence that opens the album has to be one of my all time favourite album openings; sometimes I've just stopped the album after the first three songs and gone back to the start! I saw them live that same year and they were stunning, the lengthy moments of psychedelic jamming making the biggest impression on me. I never really got “Welcome To The Monkey House” but “Odditorium” for me felt like a return to form. I've ordered “Earth To Dandy Warhols” from Amazon, so we'll see if it makes it through the post before Christmas!

Whereas I really dug “Welcome to the Monkey House”, along with the rest. I think it’s because they’re musical minah birds, mimicking styles that they dig. And with “Monkey House”, they dug the 80s, Duran Duran, Simple Minds etc…. Dude, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion if they’d just come on, played their new album to us, and cleared off. Instead they gave us a real treat. How many songs was it?

I think it was probably around 28 or 29 songs in the end. At some point toward the end of the set Zia complained to Courtney they had already played 26 songs, add in the unexpected (but hoped for! – Dill) performance of “The Dandy Warhols' T.V. Theme Song” and the closer “Country Leaver” and the fact you noted on the sound desk 27 songs’ cues and it must be around that number. I'm not even sure if they played an encore, at some point the whole band did leave the stage but for Courtney who treated us to a solo version of “Every Day Should Be a Holiday”. I wondered at the time if that was actually the end of the main set but the rest of the band just couldn't get Courtney off stage! After more than two hours, Courtney had to be practically forced off stage by his band members and the house lights. It was certainly value for money and I couldn't think of many songs I would have liked to hear and didn't! Over two hours they really did plunder material from all six albums including the first song from their first album, the aforementioned “The Dandy Warhols' T.V. Theme Song”, which Zia claimed they hadn't played in fifteen years!'

All but one song of the set was original content – and even “Little Drummer Boy” they had covered way back when. Yes, I remember that they couldn’t drag him off at the end. It was too late for an encore, but what could they have done? By that time, my bladder had pushed me away from front stage, and towards the ‘comfort areas’. The crowd was so dense, there was no way back!! Which brings me back to band dynamics. At front stage (off to the side), the band did seem a bit dysfunctional to me – three separate islands of activity. Zia on her own, Pete on his depressed own, Courtney and Brent having a laugh in the middle. But when I saw them from the back, it was completely different, and they were, actually, so together. And loving it. And loving us. The crowd were bouncing all the way to the back door, and I felt somehow…. ‘Christmas-ey’. Which brings me to this…. If the whole point of a review is to make someone want to see them, wouldn’t it have been far easier just to say ‘They’re brilliant, not to be missed, go see them, now’?

I guess it would be! I mean, they were brilliant, they really shouldn't be missed, and everyone should go see them now! Except the circus has already left town, and looking at their tour schedule, the band should be back in Portland by now to celebrate Christmas with their families. So most of you have missed the show, but what a show it was! More than two hours of sonic marvelling; Zia enthusiastically shaking her tambourine with one hand while working out a bass line on her keyboards with the other, Pete lost in his own world of intergalactic guitar textures and kicking away at a myriad of multicoloured effects pedals. Brent slamming on his drums while Courtney took centre stage, hemmed inside a circle of monitors that had the effect of mounting him on a metaphorical podium. And all the hits just started rolling out: “Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth”, “Bohemian Like You”, “We Used To Be Friends”, “Good Morning”, “Godless”, “Boy's Better”, “Minnesota”, of course all of these were released over half a decade ago! Not to say the band haven't released some great music since then, but for now their chart topping days are definitely over and it’s quite possible the band are happy to keep it that way. Famously uncomfortable with their success at the time, and actually, as anyone who's seen “DiG!” can attest, the Dandy Warhols never were the band to save rock n roll. More than a decade after “Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth”, the Dandy's are playing epic two hour shows in modest venues; they are the rock n roll legends of their own particular corner of the world, knowing full well even their fans find themselves scratching their heads in confusion the first time they spin any of their recent releases. In the end, you've just gotta feel the vibe man, you've just gotta get into the groove, you've just gotta dig! And if history is anything to go by, The Dandy Warhols will be back next year and everyone should go and see them! Well, you know, if you dig!

……A sort of ‘Yes!’, then, except for the ‘Now!’…

MY VITRIOL

Venue: University Of London Student Union
Supports: Tabitha Benjamin, Satanic Sluts and Enjoy Destroy
Reviewer: Phil W.

The street outside Leicester Square tube station was heaving with police, riot vans and hundreds of woman chanting and holding up big placards emblazoned with the words END VOLENCE AGAINST WOMAN! My bro Ian and myself had just stepped out of the pub and into a feminist march! It was one of those unfathomable moments when you're not really sure exactly what’s going on but you're faintly glad to be caught up in the situation if only to get the story!

On stage, two slender females in faintly gothic attire stripped down to their leather underwear and started rubbing each other all over. The audience watched in stunned silence as a girl gave a topless lap dance to someone in a pig costume, while the maid in the rabbit mask left us all very confused. This was the Satanic Sluts, the burlesque dance troupe of Georgina Baillie fame. It was one of those unfathomable moments when you're not really sure exactly what’s going on but you're faintly glad to be caught up in the situation if only to get the story!

In the sepia-toned memory there are four of us; Ian, Steve, Anthony and myself. The Roadmender is busy, the gig had sold out several days ago but we had all managed to secure tickets. My Vitriol were poised to make it very big and had an album due out later that year. Seafood provided admirable supports but the headliners performed a breathtaking set. My Vitriol’s music was an impossibly good blend of My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth textures, Foo Fighters hooks and meticulously composed instrumentals all held together by Som’s smooth, ethereal vocals. On stage they looked slick and cool in their sharp suits and eyeliner, flanked by banks of blinding strobe lights, lasers and thick smoke. That was 2001.

My Vitriol’s debut album, Finelines, turned out to be nothing short of stunning; their massive ambition realised across sixteen tracks of shoegazing aesthetics, pop rock tunes, startling instrumentals and hook-laden lyrics. I saw the band play several times over the next couple of years; at the Roadmender, at Reading, at Glastonbury. Then in 2002 the band disappeared into hiatus to record a second album and they never came back. They didn’t break up - over the years there were constant murmurs from the studio that the band were recording. Their record label released Between the Lines, sixteen b-side tracks that played like a second album, but in the studio the band were finding it very hard to follow up their huge debut. Finally in 2006 My Vitriol re-emerged to play the London Koko, Ian and I were there, but still there was no new album in sight.

So two years later, Tabitha Benjamin opened the evening with three songs of solid singer/songwriter fair, two of which were played on a ukulele. The Satanic Sluts were, well, confusing. And then Enjoy Destroy warmed up the crowd with some hard rock guitar tones but by now everyone was waiting for Som and company to take the stage.

“This is a new song!” Som cried out to the audience as the guitar inferno of My Vitriol broke into their second song. The band had opened with the hook laden crunch of Losing Touch. Behind the band and the blinding stage lights hung the My Vitriol logo; seven years on, they may be using the same backdrop! Over the next hour or so My Vitriol worked their way through all the classics; Pieces, Ode To The Red Queen, Under the Wheels, Cemented Shoes, Grounded, Infantile, Falling Off The Floor, Vapour Trails, Moodswings, plus a lot of new material. For much of the evening the band appeared to be playing alternatively old songs and new ones and the new material sounded very strong. The band can still draw awesome waves of sound from their instruments, turning distortion into art. Live, they still sounded shockingly unique, creative and impassioned. Indeed, but for the new songs this could have been the same gig Ian and I had seen at the Roadmender in 2001. The band played like visitors from another planet where time moves much slower; barely visible behind the clouds of dry ice and cornea-burning stage lights, sharply dressed and playing with achingly beautiful distortion played several decibels louder than your average jet engine. Finally, inside the hurricane distortion of Alpha Waves, Som announced the last song and the band burst into Always: Your Way. Seven years on, the crowd still went wild, fanatically singing along to every word. When the band returned for an encore they played the extended instrumental Tongue Tied before bursting into the short, sharp rage of COR.

After the rest of the band left the stage, Som stood in front of the audience; smiling, arms outstretched, looking close to tears. Same show, same songs, but absolutely priceless. They may never have followed up their stunning debut, but its shows like this that help explain the weight of expectation on Som’s shoulders. A band this good really does need to record something very special. But if the new songs played tonight are anything to go by, Som and company have nothing to worry about. Seven years on, the My Vitriol wave is still riding high.

THE AMANDA PALMER INCIDENT

Words by: Phil W.

Amanda Plays A Small Show

Amanda, dressed in nothing but a corset and suspenders, climbs down off the small stage and into the audience. Her arms are smeared with black paint and her ragged hair is slick with sweat. In her right hand she is clutching a battered ukulele. The venue is small, the air thick with the sweat of 350 fans crammed into a tight, dark hole. It’s intimate and personal, the sweaty figure of Amanda in underwear squeezing through the audience and climbing onto the small concession table at the back of the room. Unamplified and off key, she begins to sing a cover of Radiohead’s Creep.

She sat behind her piano, Amanda in corset and paint, and gently played Hallelujah, the standard from Leonard Cohen. She gradually built up the tension, emotion tearing each verse. Appeared at the back, a girl dressed in black, wide eyed and barely nineteen. She was all long dark hair and waif like features, eyes open wide and alive. She was guided to the side of Amanda, told to sit on a stool by her feet;

“She broke your throne and she cut your hair….”

A man in black appeared behind the girl and proceeded to cut away long strands of her dark hair. Walking to the edge of the stage, he passed her locks out to members of the audience.

A backing track plays as Amanda Palmer steps out on stage for the first time. In her hands she clutches a set of hastily written cardboard signs, their words smeared down in thick black paint; Hello, I Made, A Record, This Is, Not, It, This, Is, Ben Folds, He, Helped Me, Make, My Record, I, Love Him, And, I, Love, You.

After the show I spy Amanda in the bar. She’s drifting absently between her fans, saying hi and signing autographs. I’ve nothing for her to sign. She offers me a lock of hair which I’m not sure I want; “but it’s so romantic!” she replies seductively. I tell her I really dug the show and she seems pleased. She puts her arm around me and strokes my chest. “Thank you” she says, her vivid eyes like glistening pools that dive deep into her soul.

Amanda Makes A Music Video

The lights are big and round and white and we are told repeatedly not to look at the camera once the film is rolling. There is a hushed atmosphere of excited anticipation coursing through the theatre. It’s our turn now, the cameras now fall on us. The director has been pacing back and forth around the upper tier of the theatre all morning, her expression focused. When she talks, she doesn’t need a microphone; “Ok, so what I want you guys to all do is all just act like screaming Amanda Palmer fans, just all go crazy, then the football fans are gonna come down here shouting “Leeds United”, then you’ll all be cheering together, then I want you guys to love each other, hugging, kissing, whatever, and then I want you all to start killing each other, really going for it, but comedy killing, its all got to be very over the top, people watching the video have got to know it’s a joke otherwise it won’t work…..”

The stalls are cleared and the tables are set. Inside the frosted glass illusion, this might be drinks in a prohibition era speakeasy. But beyond the illusion, huge omnipresent cameras wheel across the theatre on rails. On stage there is a huge, glowing sign; large round bulbs spell out AMANDA. In front of the sign is Amanda herself, casually dressed and loosely going through her dance moves and miming to Leeds United. It doesn’t really seem too important what she does though, she’s Amanda Palmer. It is the backing dancers which flank her either side that are getting the grilling from the dance director and who practice over and over again long after Amanda has disappeared into makeup.

Outside the venue it started to rain. Amanda’s personal assistant had a camcorder and she filmed me singing a few lines from the forthcoming single Leeds United. While most of the extras had already gone, it had become increasingly clear it would take more work to move on some of us. We had got out of bed at 5am that Sunday morning and some of us had travelled long distances to be at the video shoot. Amanda’s personal assistant took us all for coffee and filmed us singing Leeds United in a shopping mall.

Amanda Plays A Bigger Show

There is something strangely fitting about watching the show from high up in the gods of the Koko Theatre. Maybe it is something to do with the theatrical nature of her performances; the burlesque cabaret of miming and street performers, unlikely musicians, the dancers and the costumes which accompany her live show. Her music effortlessly combines Weimar era cabaret with punk and rock n roll. Her music sounds simultaneously post-modern and classical, ‘Brechtian punk cabaret’ as she self-described her music as one half of Boston-based alternative legends Dresden Dolls. Maybe it’s all those photos of bombed out theatres on the inside of the Yes, Virginia artwork, the Dresden Dolls’ second album, but it is fitting to see Amanda perform in a theatre, and watch her from a place where the existence of the theatre around you is so constantly apparent.

These are unfortunate times and when a dark cloud descends over a loved one there is often little one can do to help. It was left to Mr. Gaiman to break the sad news; from his place on the stage he reported the recent death of Amanda Palmer. Miss Palmer’s corpse, shrouded beneath a flowing white gown, was carried on stage by members of her performance troupe; freaks who perhaps would have found work nowhere else but in her travelling circus. Their heads were dipped, their queen had fallen. They placed her body behind the piano, where in life she had no doubt felt most at home…

…Amanda launches into the epic assault of Astronaut. Over the next hour and a half she ploughs through most of the songs on her new album Who Killed Amanda Palmer? and plunders songs from both Dresden Dolls records. Stand out highlights included a run through of Bad Habit and I Google You, a song co-written by Neil Gaiman. A horn section backs her for Leeds United; Guitar Hero erupts into a line dancing extravaganza with Amanda hopping around the stage in a plaster cast, having previously injured her foot. During an emotional performance of Strength Through Music, a song inspired by the Columbine Massacre, mime artists from her dance troop join her on stage dressed in school uniforms.

Seeing Amanda and co-conspirators dancing and miming to a backing track of Rihanna’s Umbrella, complete with real life umbrellas seemed unlikely but it happened - as did a cover of Bon Jovi’s Living On A Prayer. But Amanda pulled it off with style, skill and humour, her singing barely on key, her voice powerful and emotion driven, her piano playing confident and heartfelt. The show was wonderfully burlesque and just a little tongue-in-cheek. If there’s one message Amanda wanted to leave us with tonight, it seems to be that she’s no pop star. Record labels apparently made that mistake and she’s still sore about it, turning vitriol into mockery. But underneath what really drives Amanda is her songs; creative and intelligent, energetic and heartbroken, honest and theatrical, humorous but serious, and constantly twisting, refusing to be pigeonholed. Beneath the fiction there is truth, behind the comedy there is honesty. Amanda isn’t afraid to put her heart before her head, to die for her art if that art is pure. Combine that with her larger-than-life stage persona and a gig that that’s just as much a fringe theatre production and you’ve got something truly special. For now though, I still can’t stop playing her records….

Based on events occurring at the ICA London – 21st August, the Coronet Theatre – 31st August and the London Koko – 10th October 2008.

RADIOHEAD

Venue: Victoria Park, London
Support: Bat For Lashes
Reviewer: Phil W

In a vast arena carved into a London park, 40,000 people are congregating to see one of Alternative Rock’s leading stars. Strange and sinister electronica is playing through the PA and there’s nothing on the big screens. Bat for Lashes appear on stage with little of an introduction; they work hard with their astonishing array of musical instruments but somehow never quite pull together a really decent tune. Their best song has a lyrical hook about finding someone dead in a car. The beer keeps flowing; vendor vans dish out burgers at an astonishing £6 a go. The sinister electronica is back on the PA, building up darker and darker atmospherics. Down at the front, drunken fans squeeze and jostle with introverted geeks. I’m suddenly finding it hard to feel at home here, I just don’t feel anything in common with the drunken people around me. The Mighty G and his girl have already pushed deeper into the moshpit, but The French Dude and I have already assessed the situation and decided our staked-out position to the right of the stage is just fine. Looking about me, the event feels like a vast contradiction. Sinister, hookless electronica and dark, multi-instrumental experimenters are interbred with several thousand drunk radio listeners eating overpriced burgers. At a stall on the way in, Radiohead were selling t-shirts made entirely from recycled bottles. Next to the stand, Bat for Lashes were handing out free cardboard masks, 90% of which were immediately discarded by the takers and simply dropped on the floor. As we had gotten nearer the entrance, the ground was covered in discarded masks. At the gate, the security guards threw away perfectly good food and drink, informing us we could buy more inside, while UNICEF posters with pictures of starving children were plastered on steel walls. Now I scanned the horizon for The French Dude’s head... He should be on the way with the beer!

So could Radiohead be the UK’s biggest current band? Are they a modern day Beatles? Radiohead did rise to world-wide popularity with a musical style that appealed to the masses of the time. Much like The Beatles, Radiohead earned their wings in popular ‘rock-n-roll’ before entering a massively experimental phase. 2000’s Kid A saw the band put away their guitars and reduce the bass to three- or four-note riffs while Thom Yorke stripped his lyrics to the bone, leaving only simple statements and abstract concepts. How To Disappear Completely may have spoken of Thom Yorke’s deepest hope, but even when the band’s songs were at their most simple and abstract and swirling in a pool of electronic synths, they were still superb. Radiohead proved, like The Beatles and Pink Floyd before them, that pop music could be intelligent, ground breaking, critically acclaimed and appreciated on many levels. Then like The Beatles, Radiohead almost retired from touring in the traditional sense, making every opportunity to see them a rare and celebrated event. With new album In Rainbows, the band have broken from their record label and released the record on their own label, their very own Apple. And, like The White Album, In Rainbows shows a return to guitars after a lengthy period of experimentation which has been entirely unsuccessful in diminishing the general public’s infatuation with the band. Radiohead fans come from all ages and all walks of life; the band is appreciated by snobbish musos and lager louts alike.

Radiohead came to fame in the early 90’s with their indie-grunge hybrid Creep, a song that appealed to fans of guitar music on both sides of the fence and both sides of the Atlantic and went on to take in everyone else too. Thom Yorke wrote the song while studying for his degree and his band were still called On A Friday. The band actually dismissed the song at the time, feeling it didn’t really represent who they were and lead guitarist Jonny Greenwood actively tried to sabotage the recording in the studio - but his improvised blast of open guitar notes actually ended up making the song just more special. If the band didn’t like the song, producers did and so did a worldwide audience that pushed the song to the top of the record charts in Europe and the US. The band broke America before they’d even stepped off the plane. Radiohead were worldwide stars, barely into their twenties. From there, there was no going back. Creep proved to have the kind of longevity to still have pop and indie fans alike cheering in night clubs a decade later. Their follow-up album The Bends remains a timeless classic that only seems to get better with age. OK Computer went on to win the Mercury Music Prize and Kid A and Amnesiac found a band on the cusp of their creative genius. But after Amnesiac, the band started to lose their way. Hail To The Thief and In Rainbows both have standout tracks, but they’re also both full of material that just isn’t as groundbreaking as their previous material. Radiohead had a stunning run of great records, each one more surprising than the next, so it was actually a surprise when Hail To The Thief contained no surprises!

In Rainbows is an intriguing record. It has some decent enough tunes but it all feels like Radiohead on autopilot. Its simple, subtle guitar tunes and Thom Yorke’s downbeat lyrics all feel like places the band has been to before. Jonny Greenwood has perfected the minimalist approach to guitar that he’s been perfecting since Kid A, but the bare bones he reveals beneath his sparse guitar are nothing new. The album’s songs all drift into one. Where Sonic Youth managed one step forward with each new record, Radiohead made giant leaps between their records, bounding ahead and leaving the rest of the indie crowd far behind. Few artists display such a sense of history in their recordings, each album belonging to a particular phase in both their career and their artistic development. But where Sonic Youth work like fine art students, subtly progressing in their chosen media over literally decades, Radiohead sprinted ahead and now it feels like they’ve found themselves with nowhere to go but to look back at the path they’ve already walked.

Radiohead walk onto the stage. Thom Yorke is sporting a huge grin and all the band members except Jonny Greenwood look in good spirits, waving at the crowd as they pick up their instruments and take their places. Their entry isn’t grand, there is no moving stage and the grins on their faces are contrary to the band’s foreboding reputation. Up high above them, huge steel strip lights clang in the wind. “It’ll be dark soon and then we can turn on the lights,” Yorke says to the crowd. He’s wearing a shabby denim jacket and red drainpipe jeans. The band start to play Reckoner from the new album. It’s an unpretentious start, like a wind-up toy swinging into action. All the parts are in place and the band begin to play. 15 Step follows much the same path and it’s not till single There There gets under way with Jonny and Ed beating on drums that the band really start to pick up a momentum. Much of the first half of the set is dominated by cuts from In Rainbows which, while well performed, just don’t feel like they suit the massive arena. The band seem like they would be more comfortable playing in the corner of a small jazz club, where their stripped-down guitar tunes would probably have been better suited. On the other hand, the massive audience may not have felt the same way as drunk and screaming fans across the audience continued to make their presence known throughout the songs.

A surprise performance of No Surprises midway through the set caught everyone off-guard, then the second half of the set heavily featured material from Kid A. The bass and synths sounded bruised and hard, injecting techno energy into the set. By the time the band walked offstage, they had built up quite a momentum and no one could dispute the great performances of all the songs. Then back for the encore and the band flatten the whole arena when they break into a stunning rendition of The Bends. Suddenly I remembered this was the band I had come to see. And then the hits came rolling out: My Iron Lung, Karma Police and a stunning closer of prog epic Paranoid Android. It was like getting to the bottom of the biscuit barrel and realising all the jammy dodgers had fallen down there. “Thanks for coming,” Thom said to the crowd. “All 40,000 of you!”

It took an age to get home. The tube stations were flooded and police were on every corner trying to control the drunk and weary crowd. At an intersection a female police officer was shouting repeatedly for people to not walk in front of oncoming traffic. Her voice was hoarse, the crowd didn’t care. We lost The Mighty G and his girl in the chaos of the main road as the thick crowd pushed and surged in all directions. At Mile End tube station the queue went on as far as we could see and the crowd was getting ugly. A girl was shouting savagely at a police officer. Ahead of us, people were being dragged into the back of police vans. Assessing the situation, The French Dude and I broke away from the crowds and made our way through a random series of suburban back streets to find a tube station that we wouldn’t have to queue up all night at. At one point, after circumnavigating several alleyways I wondered if we might be lost. “Oh wait,” said The French Dude. Reaching deep into his rucksack, he pulled out an A-Z!

As we sat on the tube train, rumbling somewhere beneath the London streets, there was a moment to reflect on what had been; the crowds, the chaos and the human excess. The vastness, the capitalism, the cheers and the police vans. And the shining moments that gleamed like gold in the centre of it all. Descriptions of the event sound like the lyrics of a Radiohead album. But in the middle of all this excess, Radiohead did perform a decent enough set. It wasn’t amazing, and it wasn’t overly long. For a band that has a formidable reputation for live performances, tonight’s was underwhelming. The material didn’t really suit the massive scale, and leaving all the hits till the end only highlighted the weaknesses of the first half. Radiohead’s performance, like their new album, had managed to seem small and unimposing even in the centre of this wildly excessive setting. It was unpretentious; no crazy sets or costume changes. No drum kit appearing out of a glass rocket, no Thom Yorke rising up on a podium. And the band looked cheery throughout, not trying too hard, just playing some songs for us. They smiled and didn’t say too much. They just came and played their songs. After all these years, perhaps the band would like to be seen as just another guitar band, to have the limelight turned away for just long enough for them to breathe! Perhaps In Rainbows is all about being smaller and more insular, and not progressing as far but taking a moment to enjoy the moment and not worrying if you’re watching history in the making. Maybe it’s just about putting out a decent record and a decent show. So there’ll be no more surprises. You were lucky to have seen them play at all. But everything’s in its right place. And with the new record you won’t get the bends. 2+2 doesn’t always equal 5.

MY BLOODY VALENTINE

Venue: Camden Roundhouse, London
Reviewers: Phil W (bold) & MMT (italics)

As we entered the auditorium, a girl standing at the door offered us each a pair of bright yellow ear plugs. I was about to refuse them but Matthew, always a much wiser man than I, accepted a pair and suddenly I felt left out and wanted some too. I reached deep down into the bucket and plucked up one of the little plastic packets. It’s one of those unlikely moments that seems irrelevant at the time but makes so much sense later on. I’d never been offered ear plugs at a gig before and had never really felt I needed them, but looking back now it’s all very clear why we needed them.

Once inside, on either side of the stage stacks of amps and speakers reached high up to the roof of the Roundhouse. There were racks of classic Fender guitars; Jaguars, Jazz Masters, Mustangs - their key is the floating tremolo that effectively gives the player a second bridge. Rows of effects pedals surround the microphone stands, the drum kit has a special mic over the kick drum and in front of the kit sat a white bass guitar fitted with humbucking pickups. Perhaps the band may turn out to be quite loud, I pondered. My Bloody Valentine were always known to play at legendary volumes. I’ll keep the ear plugs close to hand and if it gets too loud I might give them a go…

I never loved My Bloody Valentine at the time. I was aware they were massively critically acclaimed, but somehow I could never quite get with it. To start with, they just scared me when I was fifteen – hearing them on John Peel was like the batteries in my stereo were slowly grinding to a halt, or some gremlin had got into the speakers. But when I was sixteen I bought “Isn’t Anything” on cassette in an Our Price sale, and slowly came to Quite Like it. My favourite tracks were the ones with a bit more tune, like “Soft As Snow” or “No More Sorry”. But by the time they came to be – slightly unfairly – lumped in with the rest of the Shoegazing genre that they accidentally spawned, I preferred the more structured approach of Ride, or the ace coolness with tunes of Curve. A less challenging listen than the “classic” second album “Loveless”, anyway. That’s what I wanted in 1991/2.

But almost two decades later, it’d be a foolish man indeed who’d pass on the chance to accompany Phil to Camden to see the recently-reformed noisy pioneers. And Ma Taylor she no raise no fool.

I never really listened to My Bloody Valentine until I was at university and I started out with Loveless. I’d become fascinated with the euphoric properties of guitar distortion and had become vaguely aware at some point I’d missed an entire movement known as Shoegazing. Sonic Youth had done plenty of experimentation with the guitar sound and I’ll be forever indebted to their influence, but somehow I was after something bigger and louder. Something heavily distorted but also smoother and almost blissful. Within a few spins I’d fallen in love with My Bloody Valentine’s seminal classic. It was never exactly what I was after but it has been a hugely influential album for me. The guitars sounded amazing, the production consistently fascinating. I loved the way the vocals were mixed equally with the guitars, treated no differently in the mix to any other instrument, no longer the lead. If anything, the only real problem I’ve always felt with the record was that it just wasn’t loud enough!! Legend had it that live the band were torturously loud, but they had broken up long before I discovered them and for years the idea of seeing them reform was like a crazy dream that could never be.

While Phil likes to get right in among the crowd, pushed right up against the barrier (and surely dangerously close to the speakers considering who the band were!), I’m more of a peripheral browser. Even before I became the claustrophobia-niggled bundle of nerves I am today that’s where you’d find me at the big gigs. Seeing what I could find on the edges of things. In this case it was a couple who’d brought their own sandwiches from home. I don’t think we’re at a teenage metal gig somehow, dude!

We certainly weren’t! In the thick of things at the front of the crowd, leaning on the barrier, I found myself relatively free of pushing as I mingled with the 30-somethings. On the front row I had a chat with a guy and his girlfriend about The Pixies; it really might have been the early 90s. The crowd was civilised, seasoned, and left you with that niggling concern that many of them didn’t get out much.

“Umm, hello” Kevin Shields said shyly as the band shuffled uneasily onto the stage. They all took up their instruments and for a moment all looked at each other with mild concern. There was a feeling suddenly that now, as the gig was about to start, the band were bewildered with the idea that anyone bothered to even show up at the gig at all. The band looked old, Kevin had gone grey and Belinda looked like someone’s mum. She smiled absently to herself, clutching in her hands a seductive sparkly red Mustang. Then Colm beat his drumsticks together and the band literally exploded. A tidal wave of white noise rippled across the crowd, you could actually feel a breeze coming of the stage. My vision blurred, my ear drums bulged and suddenly it all became very clear and I fumbled in my pockets for those yellow ear plugs the girl gave us both on the way in.

They kicked off with a couple of classics (“I Only Said” and “When You Sleep”) that even I with my lust for “tunes” could hum along with! And there’s no getting around the fact that the sound was immensely impressive! I could literally feel my trousers quaking with the vibrations! Visually too they’d compensated for the fact that MBV have always looked like a gang of scruffy teachers on a night off by having some cool lo-fi indie images projected massive onto the back wall: a camera whizzing through country lanes, colours and shapes, corridors. Interesting stuff.

The band played with stunning clarity and at ear bleeding decibels. It’s like watching a gig from the inside of a jet engine. Their sound is tight and fast, burning through decade-and-a-half old classics with fresh new discovery. One after another they deliver up classics I’d dreamed of hearing live, plucking up material from both albums and their EP’s. When You Sleep, Only Shallow, To Here Knows When, Blow A Wish, Soon. Feed Me Wish Your Kiss sounded like a metallic punk played in a furnace while Sueisfine would certainly have whipped up a moshpit if the audience had been ten years younger. And with each song the volume just got louder, their sound euphoric and rapturous. Asteroids burst, volcanoes erupted, geysers exploded and stars went supernova. My Bloody Valentine created a ruptured world carved with walls of distortion and feedback, of canyons and seabeds and wailing coastlines.

Cripes! :-D

Debbie’s bass rumbled through everything, pushing the instrument’s tone to previously unfound levels; always playing tightly with Colm’s drumming, the pair facing each other, driving the music with near metal fury. Kevin and Belinda’s vocals interweaved as they played their guitars, fingers clutching the tremolo bar as they strummed; tugging the guitar strings like the sea tugs the shore.

Towards the middle of the set though, I was starting to flag a bit. Having few lyrics to catch hold of, and not much to look at other than the pretty colours, my attention began to wander off. But the set-closer, a 25-minute version of “You Made Me Realise”, was enough to capture anyone’s attention right back! It came to a climax with a 20-minute barrage of riffing, feedback and chugging drums which relentlessly battered away at the crowd, building in sonic assault till it was almost unbearable. People were literally running out of the moshpit with their hands over their ears – as if they hadn’t expected it! I went through waves of enjoying it then feeling sick then enjoying it again – but there’s no denying it was an immense sensation.

The ending was immense, something stunning and incomparable. As I leaned on the barrier, earplugs in and fingers over them, the sound was still deafening. Every now and then I eased off the ear plugs just a little and heard nothing but an immense rush of air coming from the stage. As I looked about me, the people on the front row rotated as fans pushed to the front, found it too much to bear and started heading for the door. The moshpit depleted to less than fifty percent of what it had been. As I looked up to the balcony, from both sides people were pealing off and heading for the doors. All the time the band continued to play, faces to the floor, the same note over and over again in a constant barrage of sonic annihilation. On and on - a part of me never wanted it to end, wanted to let my senses continue to be so entirely absorbed with the sonic maelstrom. Then the next minute I wanted it to end, didn’t think I could bear it anymore either. But then I was back again, wanting it to go on forever in its swirling tornado of white noise, sucking up the world it had created and leaving nothing behind but devastation.

The gig ended. People cheered but no-one could hear them, we were all deaf. The few people that had lasted till the end began to politely file out of the room. There was a hushed atmosphere across the entire venue. I saw Matthew, still alive and well at the edge of the stage. He too had survived the war where so many had fallen. “Like being in a war!” he shouted from somewhere far away, “I’ve seen things man….”. We all had. Life wasn’t going to be quite the same now. Indie dinosaurs had briefly returned to the stage to shake us up and show us how it could be or could have been or once was. And we knew not to worry, one day we would hear again and be better for it all.

TEGAN & SARA

Venue: Shepherds Bush Empire, London
Support: An Horse
Reviewer: Phil W

Like, the first band were pretty cool, aye! My heart like, totally sank when only a drummer and guitarist/vocalist walked unassumingly onto the stage but once they got going we really didn’t miss a bass player. An Horse were so awesome, I totally bought their EP after the show and the band were there at the desk to thank us for all our support and to sign our CD’s. Their sound was all wild drumming and massive, chunky riffs wrapped around alternative pop tunes which quickly sucked us in. Kate’s Mustang was massively overdriven, pummelling us with huge wedges of sound for her sharp vocals to cut through. Their set was short with little room to breathe inside the whirlwind of guitar except when Kate stopped for five minutes to tell us a story about airline hospitality. “They totally gave me a colouring book and everything!” she said. I remembered being let into the cockpit of a trans-Atlantic jumbo back in 1991 and wondered where those carefree days had gone…..

Tegan and Sara Quin like, totally know where it’s at. The singer-songwriter twin sister duo have been recording their own albums since they were kids, cutting their first two albums in their school’s recording studio in 1997. Living on opposite coasts of their Canadian homeland, the pair record demos of their songs at home, fully assembled with vocals and all the instruments, and then send the tapes to each other. By the time they reach the studio they like, totally know how they want the songs to sound and play most of the instruments themselves on new album The Con. Sara’s songs tend to be meticulously assembled idiosyncrasies while Tegan sticks with punk riffs and big chorus’s and the two styles totally compliment each other. Live, each of the sisters alternate between acoustic and electric guitars and a big red keyboard set just in front of the drum kit, their untrained vocals hitting somewhere on the middle ground between cute and angry, interweaving between each other and the instruments.

The two sisters opened alone with the gentle strum of Like O, Like H. It was like, a totally intimate moment with both sisters standing side by side on the stage strumming acoustic guitars. Then the backing band filed quickly onto the stage and the music exploded with the title track from new album The Con. “I listened in, yes I’m guilty of this you should know that” Tegan cried against a backdrop of swirling acoustic and electric guitars which seem to perfectly compliment each other in much the same way as the twins differing vocal deliveries. The Quins’ tiny pop songs, most of which are dispensed with well under the three minute mark, are consistently ingenious. Are You Ten Years Ago is a whirlwind of dark synth pop, Back In Your Head is a quaint piano driven pop song, Floorplan sounds like alt-folk on overdrive, So Jealous is epic with oozing synths. In between songs the pair chatter and bicker and tell stories; Sara went into great detail about her visit to a chiropractor earlier that day while Tegan dwelled on why she’s still single and questioned if Kate from An Horse was really the band’s best friend. The situation seemed complex, but after some playful banter she devoted the glorious single Nineteen to her; a story of teenage heartbreak wound tightly to a frame of simple punk pop.

Ingenuously diverse pop songs, tight performances, interweaving guitar melodies, and all delivered with unassuming ease, their banter affording an intimacy to the gig few other performers could master. Like, they totally rocked and I dug every minute! After the show I bought a t-shirt with my An Horse EP - Tegan and Sara morphing into trees; Treegan and Sara maybe? Awesome!

ALANIS MORISSETTE

Venue: Brixton Academy, London
Reviewer: Phil W

Outside the doors, in large red letters, a sign informs passers-by the event inside has sold out. It has been for weeks. Inside an Australian dude is performing a solo set on the large stage, just him and his acoustic guitar. At first I write him off as derivative, but by halfway through his set he’s won the crowd over. He sings about convicts and fights and girls and heartbreak, his songs flexing between folk and rock n roll. His penultimate song is tender and delicate without sounding insincere or hollow, while his final number rocks with the aid of an overdrive pedal and punk riffs. In the centre of a break, his guitar howls with hollow feedback. He said his name a number of times but I never managed to catch it so you’ll have to trust me when I say it wasn’t bad at all*!

It’s been a while since Canadian icon Alanis Morissette graced our small island, even longer since she put out a relevant record. In 1995, in collaboration with veteran record producer Glenn Ballard, actress-turned-teen-pop-star Alanis Morissette went alt-rock and cut the biggest selling debut album by a female music artist ever… And according to the Recording Industry Association of America it still is, with upwards of 14 million copies of Jagged Little Pill sold in the US alone! Overnight a fame-shy 21 year old Alanis was made an international superstar, and the world either loved or hated her. The shows got bigger, the lights got brighter; fans praised her as the new voice of alt-rock, while critics labelled her a man-hating shrew and claimed Glenn Ballard as the genius behind her success. And what’s a girl to do? She escaped to India to collect her thoughts. She parted ways with Glenn Ballard, first lyrically and then musically to go it alone and prove the critics wrong. And she never put out another relevant record. She was entirely unable to follow up her debut, and alone couldn’t turn out the tunes that Ballard had honed into platinum singles. Worse than retirement, she became irrelevant.

Darkness on stage. Soft, purple lights make the stage glow as the backing band file on and begin in play. A slow ballad gets underway and Alanis performs the vocals to the first song off stage. I’m about to write her off from the start as over indulgent, then she storms onto the stage for the baroque tidal wave of Uninvited. By the time the band have surged into a superbly fresh sounding All I Really Want, Alanis bouncing across the stage and wailing her vocals to the stage floor with unexpected passion, microphone clasped in hand, I’m entirely won over. In fact at moments like these, Alanis may have perfected the art of time travel. I could have sworn it wasn’t 2008 at all; I was ready to declare the last 13 years of my life just an unlikely daydream I’ve just awoken from. It was 1995 and Alanis sounded as fresh and invigorating as she ever did! Over the next hour or so, Alanis performed virtually the entire Jagged Little Pill album; You Oughta Know, You Learn, Head Over Feet, Hand In My Pocket, they were all present and all sounded fantastic. During a particularly emotional rendition of Perfect, Alanis actually started to cry. I was unsure whether this was a good thing or not, but if nothing else, her passion and honesty for the songs was undisputed. Later cuts such as Thank U, Uninvited and 8 Easy Pieces also sounded great, and the rest of the set wasn’t bad, but there’s where the problems lay. The newer material wasn't bad, but the cuts from Jagged Little Pill were fantastic. An encore of Ironic was easily the high point of the night. I went home and put Jagged Little Pill back on my CD player, but I didn’t leave the gig with any ideas about bothering to buy the new album. The songs weren’t bad live and were performed admirably, but their lack of tunes and their complex and wordy vocals left little room for hooks or generally memorable new songs.

Alanis was and still is a mesmerising live performer with a unique voice few can effectively imitate - but since her 1995 debut, she just hasn’t had the tunes or hooks. 1998’s vast and underrated Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie was an interesting listen, but later albums flexed between the boring and the nearly unlistenable. I was pleased she played so much of her debut but it felt unfortunate that the gig simultaneously highlighted her inability to follow up that record. As with many highly successful artists that make it big too fast, it was another case of too much too soon for Alanis. At 21 she’d made the album of her career and found herself with nowhere to go but down - the best alternative to simply continue to surf the perpetual wave of her Jagged Little Pill. In the end it’s a pill that Alanis seems to have found hard to either swallow or come down from. Briefly she was the music world’s brightest new star, seemingly with infinite potential; she’s now found herself irrelevant, a relic of another time. But every now and then we’ll get her out of the box, have a listen, and remember 1995. Like Liz Phair’s landmark debut Exile From Guyville, Jagged Little Pill is a record that still sounds as fresh today as the day it was recorded and Alanis could spend her life performing it and no-one would mind too much.

* A little bit of Googling reveals it to have been a man named Liam Gerner, dude! MMT. ;-)

AVRIL LAVIGNE

Venue: O2 Arena, London
Reviewer: Phil W

Ahead of me, the darkened concrete tunnel was bathed in luminous pink lighting. I could hear screaming from up ahead of me, the sound of thousands of young voices crying out. The tunnel rounded a corner; I could see now where it led. It was dark in there, bodies moved and mingled back and forth in a vast, cavernous pit. The sloped walls of the pit moved and surged, lights of green and pink and blue flickered and waved among them. The high pitched screams were everywhere, from every direction. There was something insane going on, something huge.

On the stage, four boys pretended to play guitar while bathed in white floodlights. Behind them, a complete second band backed them. They had no spotlights. I particularly liked the big, overweight dude playing guitar just off to stage right. In the shadows he pulled off some nifty guitar licks and - after the boys left the stage - he stuck around to help out packing away all their stuff for them! What a helpful chap! I only caught the last two songs of the set; an insider had already told me it wasn’t worth catching all their set! They had a name and they have CD’s out there somewhere, but they where pretty missable boy band fodder. Kind of an American McFly. Nothing to bother going into the details of on this blog.

Avril Lavigne. Her first single came out when she was just 17 and the whole world bought into it. Her second album sold on the back of a single about saying No to giving in to sex too soon. Yes, Avril was the anti-Britney in a world where pop starlets were going head-to-head to see both how little they could wear on stage and how many sexual innuendoes they could fit into every song lyric. While Britney was sweating and moaning in a sauna, Christina was releasing albums called Stripped with singles called Dirrrty, and Flick from Neighbours was appearing in music videos completely starkers, Avril had class. She wasn’t naked and she was telling the girls to say No.

Jump to the present and little has changed. Lead single Girlfriend from new album The Best Darn Thing is playful, more giggles from the back row of the school bus than Debbie Does Dallas. Avril says at 23 she wanted to make one last fun record about being young and innocent before she thought about doing something more serious with the next one. There’s even a song on the record called Innocence. And so, from the centre of a stage bathed in pink flood lights, rising through the floor to the stomp of the opening thump of Girlfriend, is the elfin figure of Avril Lavigne, wearing skater shorts, hoodie and a huge grin. She charges down a catwalk that slices through the middle of the pit; “are you ready to have a good time?” she cries out to the audience. The audience explodes in a ludicrous frenzy of youthful enthusiasm and suddenly I’ve a huge grin on my face that won’t budge for the next hour and a half. Five minutes ago I’d been certain I’d come to the wrong gig - but now I was reminded of the immortal words of the late great Hunter Thompson; “buy the ticket, take the ride!” And this was one hell of a ride!

Over the course of the evening Avril played all the hits from all three records. Some she sung while bouncing around the stage beaming enthusiastically at the audience. For several she played her Telecaster Special. There was an interlude midway through the set in which she played a brief acoustic set, slumped over an electro-acoustic guitar, flanked either side by her two session guitarists. Cynically, it was fairly obvious at times her guitar was turned way down, but like, dude, who cares man? She’s really trying! She doesn’t have to put this much effort into her live set but she does! Later on a huge, pink grand piano is wheeled onstage and to our surprise Avril takes a seat behind it to play Innocence from the new album. And if anyone in the audience still doubted her musical abilities, toward the end of the set a pink, sparkly drum kit was brought on stage and Avril beat the skins to a rendition of Runaway, singing and drumming simultaneously. And, like, dude, it was awesome! I’ve always been impressed with multi-instrumental performers, but I wasn’t expecting Avril to be one of them!

Avril finished with He Wasn’t and then an encore of Sk8er Boi. She finished her set having sung, rapped, danced, played guitars, pianos and drum kits, and done it all without a hint of irony or snobbery or any of the other things that bog down far more credible artists. The whole thing just seemed like a lot of fun and she performed it all effortlessly and with enthusiasm. There were no signs of any backing tracks either. All the way through there was a full band backing her. Her vocals were sometimes note perfect - she has a very gifted voice - but sometimes they were off key and muddled, sometimes almost spoken, with all the swear words extenuated. But far from this being a problem this merely highlighted her live, raw vocals and, well, made it that much more punk, you know in a pink teen pop kind of way! The gig hardly had the indie credibility of Kaki King, but like Avril’s albums, it was a guilty pleaser, like admitting you quite enjoyed watching Never Been Kissed. You didn’t expect it to win an Oscar, and yes it was a bit girly - but, you know, you smiled when the dude popped up at the end of the movie to give her that first kiss, I know you did*! So, buy the ticket, take the ride, and just don’t bother over thinking the whole thing. You’ll love it!

* How well you know me, Phil! :-D MMT.