Jenny & Johnny - The Luminaire

Sadly one of my favorite London venue's The Luminaire on Kilburn High road announced recently they'll be closing down in the new year. Still I got to enjoy the place one more time with a much anticiapted Jenny Lewis and Johnathan Rice show to promote their recently released Jenny & Johnny album.

I'd read online they were a bit funny about delving into their respective back catalogs during these duo shows. True to their word - the main set featured 10 of the 11 songs from the Jenny and Johnny album. I've actually had that record on high rotation for a few weeks so it was actually a blast to hear chunky live versions of the album. They also had a big set-up for a 200 person room so the show was loud!

Not surprisingly, the any subtle quieter songs tended to be a little lost, but the rockier material, particularly opener "Comitted", a blistering "My Pet Snakes", and "Big Wave" all sounded great. New song "Just One of The Guys" was also very good.
For the encore, we did get a small dip into the back catalog with "End of the Affair" from Jonathan Rice's 2007 album 'Further North" but the highlight for me (and most of the crowd) was a few selections from Lewis's 2008 second solo album 'Acid Tongue' including "Next Messiah" and a show closing "Carpetbaggers" with Rice taking on the Elvis Costello vocals. The clear highlight was however was a spine-tingling "Acid Tongue" with the female duo from support act La Sera adding gospel-like backing vocals. Mesmerizing!

Full setlist:
01. Committed
02. Scissor Runner
03. New Yorker Cartoon
04. My Pet Snakes
05. Just Like Zeus
06. Straight Edge of the Blade
07. Slavedriver
08. Switchblade
09. Big Wave
10. Just One of the Guys *new song*
11. Animal
12. The Next Messiah
13. End of the Affair
14. Acid Tongue
15. Carpetbaggers

Darren Hanlon - The Horatio, London

Nipped across town with my buddy Justin to see Darren Hanlon do a short-notice solo show in London. I'd not been to the Horatio before, but it seems like an ok room providing most of the crowd is respectful of the performer (as they were with Dazza) but less so with support act Dan of Green Gables.
Kicking off with 'Electric Skeleton', Darren was in great form despite picking up a cold while in the UK. I'm absolutely loving Darren's new record 'I Will Love You At All' - I think it's easily the best record he's made - so it was great to hear "Buy Me Presents", "Scenes from A Seperation" and an excellent version of "Home" in stripped back format.
A friend of Darren's (sorry missed the name but she had an outstanding voice) joined for the duet "All These Things" and stayed to take on lead vocals for "Fire Engine".
Promopting for requests, the mostly Australian crowd got fairly rowdy and pushed for a lot of older songs like "She Cuts Hair" and the main set closing "Falling Aeroplanes".
It was also great to hear a cover of The Go-Between's "Lee Remick" and I really enjoy the banjo-heavy cover of "Pinball Millionaire".
Unfortunately with a lot of chatting between songs, the show was too quickly at an end, leaving only time for a short one-song encore of "Folk Insomnia".
Full setlist:
01 Electric Skeleton
02 Buy Me Presents
03 A-Z
04 Spend Christmas Day With Me
05 Scenes from A Seperation
06 She Cuts Hair
07 Lee Remick
08 Home
09 I Waited for the 17
10 Fire Engine
11 All These Things
12 Pinball Millionaire
13 Elbows
14 Punk's Not Dead
15 Falling Aeroplanes
16 Folk Insomnia