Sparklehorse - Queen Elizabeth Hall

This was the first time I’d been to the Queen Elizabeth Hall, part of the Royal Festival Hall complex in South Bank – so I was more than impressed with the theatre, in particular it’s acoustics (the sound for the show was first class) and the great view we had from even our fairly poor seats (I go tickets late so we were in LL).

The night kicked off with Sol Seppy – an interesting combo led by the very Australian sounding Sophie Michalitsianos. The short set was reasonably diverse, from the solo piano opener – to a full sample driven closer. Still the most dominant impact for me was how much Sophie’s vocals sound like Angie Hart, of long-defunct Melbourne pop-combo Frente.

It’s been many years since I saw Sparklehorse perform a few shows in Australia – and I think at the time budget restrictions meant it was a scaled-down version of the band that was presented down-under.

I was pleased when we returned from interval to see the stage set-up for a full combo of guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, pedal steel, a sampler, and even a glockenspiel.

That said – despite the diverse instrumentation – my one criticism of the show was it was something of a one-note performance – with leader Mark Linkus concentrating on the slow and mid tempo material. Although when this includes such cracker songs as “Good Morning Spider”s ‘Painbirds’ and “It’s A Wonderful Life”s ‘Eyepennies’ – their really isn’t a lot to complain about. Still it was good to hear a change of pace with the ‘Hammering The Cramps’ towards the end of the main set, and “Pig” to close the first encore.

As anticipated, their was a focus on material from the just released “Dreamt For Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain”, of which ‘Don’t Take My Sunshine Away’ was the stand-out for me.

Although somewhat surprisingly, the show still features mostly material from the Sparklehorse debut “Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot”: ‘Gasoline Horseys’, Sad & Beautiful World”, and Sophie from Sol Seppy joining for harmony vocals on “Tears on Fresh Fruit”. ‘Spirit Ditch’ opened the first encore, and ‘Homecoming Queen’ as the soul second encore. A great show – with the intricate sound extremely well matched to a venue.

The Good, The Bad and The Queen - The Roundhouse

This was a great night. Part of the BBC's Electric Proms - a contemporary version of the classical proms with the broad goal of featuring new or reinterpreted work.

The Good, The Bad & The Queen was the world premiere of a new album from Blur/Gorillaz main-man Damon Albarn. It’s all a bit strange, but seemingly the band is nameless, so the night was named after the album – which the played in its entirety, in order – but the album won’t actually be released until January 2007.

The pre-show publicity has also talked The Good, The Bad & The Queen up as a kind of cross-generational supergroup featuring Albarn, Paul Simonon of The Clash on bass, guitarist Simon Tong of The Verve and Gorillaz, and Fela Kuti drummer Tony Allen.

That said – it was fairly apparent from the way Albarn called the shots on the stage (including getting the band to re-start ‘Kingdom Of Doom’ and ‘Three Changes’ because he wasn’t happy with how they were being performed) and the flavor of the new material – that this was very much his project, with the others invited along as special guests.

The material is all themed around London – again in some of the pre-show interviews Albarn has gone so far as to describe it as a sequel to Blur’s seminal “Parklife” album.

Musically it falls somewhere between The Gorillaz and Blur – following the mash-up composition style of the former, but utilizing more tradition rock instrumentation of guitar, bass, drums and piano/keyboard of the latter.

Highlights for me where the menacing ‘Kingdom of Doom’ (Albarn seemed particularly fiery after having to re-start the song again), and the ballads ‘Behind The Sun’ (dedicated to the late, great John Peel) and ‘Greenfields’.

After spending much of The Gorillaz live shows silhouetted on keyboards in the back, Albarn also seemed to be relishing the opportunity to be out-front of a band again – “it’s good to be back” he commented at one point. Hopefully a good sign for anyone who, like me, is anxiously awaiting a new Blur record and tour.

You Am I - Bar Academy Islington

I’m loving the new You Am I album ‘Convicts’ so I was pretty excited to be hearing it live at this Saturday night show at the reasonably intimate Bar Academy.
Things kick off with a “Thuggury” that sounds much harder than on record. Followed by “The Sweet Life” and double-header of “If We Can’t Get It Together” and “Baby Clothes” from the awesome ‘Hourly Daily’. “Friends Like You” – one of the highlights from the new album – is also given a harder edge than on record.
I’m not sure if it’s because they’re a long way from home, or just a sign of getting older and playing so many shows – but these days it seems You Am I don’t worry about subtly in live performance. It’s either rammed down your throat or strummed quietly so you can barely hear above the mostly-drunk Australians getting reacquainted. There is no middle ground.
“Mr Milk”, the greatest slice of faux-retro-British-pop this side of XTC, gets the best reaction from the crowd so far – with most of the 600-strong audience joining in the “ba, ba, ba” in the chorus. “Cathy’s Clown” another crowd favourite.
A solo electic guitar version of ‘Hi Fi Way’s “Handwasher” from Tim Rogers changes the pace a bit, before the band re-join him for one of my favourite You Am I songs ‘Sound As Ever’s “Jaimme’s Got A Gal”.
The band clearly enjoy themselves on a cover of Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers “Born To Lose” – before it’s back to the new album with “It Ain't Funny That We Don't Talk Anymore” – for me, the best song on ‘Convicts’ – and “Constance George”.
“Billy” from the often overlooked ‘Number 4 Record’ is good to hear because it sounds great and reminds me what a great song that one is (this album will be getting dug out over the weekend). ‘The Applecross Wing Commander’ is good as always. ‘Berlin Chair’ brings the house-down, and leads into main set-closer “Thank God I've Hit Bottom” with a guitar-less Tim Rogers shouting the ‘Convicts’ album opener from the lip of the stage.
The band return for a quick encore of ‘Hi Fi Way’s “How Much Is Enough?” and “Jewels & Bullets” before closing the show with a mid-tempo run-through “Heavy Heart” ending the night with a drunken crowd singalong.
With most of the new record played (although disappointingly not ‘By My Own Hand’ – one of my favourites) together with a mix of interesting and obvious selections from You Am I’s “illustrious back-catalog” (as Tim Rogers conceitedly referred to it at one point) plus a rock n’ roll cover – I don’t think you could ask for much more from a You Am I show.