10. Idlewild at London’s ULU (3rd July)
First time catching the indie rockers, blown away. So much so that I caught them again in Bristol just a month later, they were that good. They showed just how they’ve managed to be so successful for the past decade, with energy and great songs.

9. I’m From Barcelona at London Scala (25th November)
I know I said I’d write a review and then didn’t, but things were kinda hectic with university stuff at the time. Still, I’m From Barcelona provided one of the best nights of entertainment I’ve had in a while - chaotic, crazy, they had so much energy I was finding bits of ticker tape for days after.

8. Bloc Party at London’s Apple Store (10th October)
My second Bloc Party experience of the year, hot and sweaty in the Apple Store. I was expecting a bland, boring performance but we got anything but - chaotic, Kele was on top form, crawling over the crowd, standing all over the place. I’d hate to have had the job of cleaning up the next morning!

7. Friendly Fires at Oxford Zodiac (5th October)
My second time seeing Friendly Fires, they were even more intense than the first time. Loud, energetic, and slightly chaotic - we forgot it was Sunday night and danced like it was 3am. Just immense. Watch them become huge in 209.

Read the rest of this entry »

“Everyone is being so quintessentially English and not sitting next to each other” grumbled one woman as she and her boyfriend tried to find a place to sit before the gig started. How true it was - what’s more English that sitting in a 134 year old church, on wooden pews that make your bum go numb?

However who we’d gone to see wasn’t English - oh no. He was Ben Kweller,Texas’ finest singer songwriter to hit these shores for a while. But we’ll get to that in a couple of moments.

Once we’d navigated our way to the gorgeous chapel (with some of the nicest venue staff I’ve yet to see - take note, Academy venues), we took to our pews, complete with hot-dog and settled in for half an hour of Carrick, lead singer from “Everybody Else“, an LA three piece. After being amazed and awed by how skinny his legs were (seriously, they bewildered us for a good few minutes), we slowly fell for his wistful tunes, strong voice, and interesting bow-tie.

However, we were really there for Ben, and a couple of minutes after 9 he ambled on stage, joined by Kitt Kitterman, the sort of guy you don’t want to meet down a dark alleyway. Plowing through a set full of material both from his previous albums and his forthcoming “Changing Horses”, it seemed that whilst he worked incredibly hard the crowd were a bit subdued… whether that was due to the nature of it being a church, or just the collection of people is hard to guess, but either way there was no doubting Ben’s efforts.

Throughout his 90 minutes on stage we had such gems as a cover of Neil Young’s “From Hank To Hendrix” and “Different But The Same”, which was dedicated to Kitt as “he quite likes playing it and we don’t play it that much…”. To be honest, the 90 minutes flew by a bit too quickly - I would have been quite happy to sit there for a few more hours, hearing a whole back-catalogue, however I have a feeling everyone’s bums would have been completely numb by then.

My highlight of the evening wasn’t one of the established songs that everyone knew. Nope, it was one of the new ones, “Homeward Bound”, the closing track to “Changing Horses” and written by Willie Nelson’s parents in the 1950s and one little gem that has sat around for 50-odd years before Ben recorded it. It fitted the chapel perfectly, just needing a little choir and it would have been complete.

Shortly before closing out with “Penny on the Train Track”, Ben announced that he’ll be back in London on May 15th at Koko as part of a proper tour for “Changing Horses” - definitely a date to add to your diary.

A big thanks to Megan @ C3 Management for sorting out tickets.

Pictures after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve recently teamed up with those lovely people over at the 405 and today bring you another in our regular series of guest posts from their team of amazing authors. Below is a review of Laura Marling (who we introduced you to here) live at London’s Scala written originally by Rhian Daly.

It’s been a whirlwind year for rising folk star Laura Marling. Only turning 18 a matter of days before her album release, it’s hard to imagine how the incredible talent has coped with the rave reactions to her record, the packed to the rafters gig venues and festival tents alike and, probably surrealist of all, the nomination for this year’s Mercury Music Prize – something many tastemakers were certain she’d win.

Tonight in King’s Cross there is no less anticipation or expectation than at any other point during the last eleven or so months, so much so, in fact, some sections of the audience can’t control themselves long enough to pay attention to tonight’s support act, the hauntingly beautiful Jay Jay Pistolet. Playing mostly new songs including the title track from his latest EP ‘Happy Birthday You’, his set is short but sweet; if you ignore the constant buzz of chatter from some parts of the room.

Luckily, everyone quietens down when Marling takes the stage, so much so you could literally hear a pin drop. The hushed crowd adds significantly to the atmosphere as the cropped-haired teenager appears alone for the first three songs – ‘Shine’, new track ‘Rebecca’ and a particularly spine-tingling rendition of former single ‘Ghosts’.

On stage (and on record), Marling appears wise beyond her years. In the flesh she engages her fans with unintentionally witty and supremely endearing banter in an offhand manner you would expect from someone ten years her senior. At various points tonight she is joined by her backing band, who complete the Laura Marling experience, adding another dimension to her already beautiful songs. Littering the set is a handful of new songs that are equally as good as, if not better than, anything on her first record, ‘Rambling Man’ and ‘Hope in the Air’ being prime examples of this.

As the show draws to a close, Marling’s backing band stroll back on stage for a poignant ‘Night Terror’ followed by an equally rousing ‘Alas, I Cannot Swim’, during which the whole crowd is united in song for the last time this evening and, indeed, tour. Many people have already predicted great things for Laura Marling, looks like she’s about to prove them right.

Okay, so last night I caught I’m From Barcelona at London’s great Scala. Quite honestly, it blew me away. It was similar to the Polyphonic Spree’s show at the Astoria, but gone European, and much more spontaneous.

A full review will follow, but let’s just say for now that they had more confetti, more fun and more balloons on stage than any band I’ve seen for a while.

After the jump: setlist. Full review by end of the week (hopefully).

Read the rest of this entry »

“What do you guys call boogers over here?” Marshall Davies, lead singer of Farewell asked the audience at Oxford Academy part way through their set. This question along with other comments built up the gaps between the songs as they grew more comfortable in front of us.

The set was opened with “Stay Pretty”, a song that has just the right amount of energy to get everyone to start dancing. The song was immediately followed with a typical American “what’s up?” and a small introduction of themselves with a big thank you to the audience for coming. From there they leaped into a lively set involving the audience and getting everyone moving.

As to be expected, there were was a plentiful dose of screaming teenage girls, but the Farewell lads took it in their stride and kept going - like all good gigs getting everybody hot and a little bit sweaty.

The half way point of their set was the track “Hey Heather” at which point they introduced the song by asking who was in the room that was called Heather. A few hands went up and from there the boys jumped into their song with the last words being “Well this ones for you then.”

From there, Farewell said they were going to do a slower track that was also on the album, and if we have the record, can we sing along. If not then “buy the record!” Marshall joked - though people obviously had been buying up copies as they were completely sold out before the group had even got on stage.

The penultimate song of their set was their latest track to be released: “Eighty-Eights” (out since 20th October); however nobody mentioned that it was their latest release. Despite having given the set their all so far, the lads kept going giving a bubbly rendition of the track followed by giving everything to the last track of the set: “First One On The Blog”.

For a band’s debut tour in the UK, Farewell have clearly built up a good following over the internet and by word of mouth as many of the people at the concert recognised them and knew the songs - despite mainly being there to see YouMeAtSix who Farewell were supporting throughout the tour of England. Their performance exceeded expectations however, this was probably down to the fact they’re well through their tour now and getting close to going home. If you can catch them before they hop back over the pond to America, I would.

Read the rest of this entry »

Normally the words shoegaze, pop, 80s, rave and enjoyable shouldn’t be put next to each other, let alone used to describe the same 90 minutes. However, those are just the words I’m going to use to describe last night’s M83 gig at London’s Scala.

Taking to a stage coveredwith enough cables to give even the most seasoned of electricians a heart attack, Anthony Gonzalez (who’s much smaller and more elflike in real life than I had realised…) made it clear it was his night, and with the help of a few supporting artists ploughed through an impressive selection of his work from the past 7 years.

Naturally, the focus of the evening was on new album Saturdays=Youth, with tracks like Couleurs, Graveyard Girl and Kim & Jessie getting some of the biggest cheers of the night. However, whilst his new pop direction was the reason Scala was so packed, he didn’t forget the diehard fans from his early days (and there were a few…), throwing in some harder dancier numbers which culminated in the encore with an almost full-on rave. Well, for about 5 minutes.

Shoegaze was the theme of the evening really though, with many songs blurring into one, and for the casual fan (like myself) it was easy to lose yourself in the music for 10 minutes, totally entranced by the teamwork and the skills of everyone.

M83 is out on the road again in December, supporting the Kings of Leon, which should be interesting - be sure to get there early if you’ve got tickets.

After the jump: photos, photos and photos.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ever since Academy Music Group have taken over Oxford’s Zodiac venue, I’ve had the chance to catch some amazing bands there - Wombats, Delays, Friendly Fires and tonight, Team Waterpolo. Granted, it wasn’t sold out - far from it - but they still put on a fast, frantic and pretty darned good show.

Defend Moscow opened up the evening, with glorious tunes that reminded me of a mixture between Canada’s Stars, Denmark’s Alphabeat and a few other bands that I can’t quite get my fingers on right now. Surprisingly good for a support act, they really are a band that I’ll have to check out again.

20 minutes later and Team Waterpolo come out - ready and raring to go. Opening with their introductory song “We’re Team Waterpolo”, they plunged their way through a 45 minute set of songs that are just begging to be heard by a bigger audience than the one they got this cold Sunday night.

“We came here to Oxford on the NME tour and just had to come back… you people are gorgeous. We were on the bus on the way in just looking at people thinking “wow”!” joked frontman Fred Davis after their first song. “Sorry if we look a bit sweaty - we got like no sleep last night as me and Lex had a bit of a heavy one!” To be honest though Fred, we’d never have noticed if you hadn’t have told us.

Current single “So Called Summer” was the penultimate song of the night, almost inspiring a mass singalong as Ruggero Lorenzini let off small cannons of confetti. Closing the set with a chaotic “Sink This Ship”, triumphant Team Waterpolo certainly won their match, but will they be back for the new championship next year? Only time will tell.

After the jump: Photos.

Read the rest of this entry »

Usually, instore gigs are quite fun, but a bit tame - the crowd are divided by stock and shelves, crammed in, and slightly peeved off by an incredibly short set. However, last night’s Bloc Party set at Regent Street’s Apple store was anything but tame. As part of the iTunes’ “Live from London”, Bloc Party played a full hour long set, blasting through 13 tracks and sharing banter with a crowd of competition winners and Apple employees.

“So, is everyone enjoying your black Friday?” smirked Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke after opener One Month Off, “We certainly are!” It was all the more relevant when you considered that one of Iceland’s largest banks have their offices just above Apple’s flagship store.

Amazingly small and cozy, somehow Apple managed to fit 600 people into the back of their store, which whilst tight was amazingly special to see a band who has sold out Olympia twice play to such a small crowd, and we knew it. Drummer Matt Tong joked about the “different” surroundings by commenting in perfect in-store tannoy voice: “And next week you can catch Bloc Party in your local BHS!” to much amusement.

Mostly playing their new material from third album ‘Intimacy’ (”We do have a new album to promote!” joked Kele), many songs hadn’t been played live before, as shown by their nervousness before tracks like ‘Ares’ and ‘Ion Square’, but made it all the more raw.

As “Mercury”’s chant swept around the gathered hordes, Kele took to the crowd, climbing over the theatre chairs, signing things as he went. Messy and sweaty, he joked “wow… sorry if I inappropriately exposed myself to anyone!”

Closing with old favourite “Helicopter”, I suddenly realised that the floor actually bounces - slightly scary, but at the same time worthwhile - any inhibitions were thrown out the window as everyone (even some security) started bouncing.

Enjoy a setlist and photos after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve seen Friendly Fires before, at Hydro Connect just over a month ago, where I fell in love with them… since then I bought the album and last night finally got to see them again, this time headlining Oxford’s Zodiac Carling Academy, one of my favourite venues to see bands.

After the Justice-lite warmup from Dublin’s Jape, Friendly Fires bounce out onto stage, lead singer Ed Macfarlane sporting a bodywarmer which was quickly removed about 10 seconds into the first song, and by the 30 second mark he’d already started his rather exberant thrusting which would put most sex addicts to shame.

Blasting their way through their debut album, the songs feel as fresh as the day they were written - it may be the case that they’ve played them just about every day for the past year, but we certainly couldn’t tell.

Ending out the set with Paris before a two song encore, Ed went into the crowd, providing security with a small headache, mobbed by a mixture of teenage girls and sweaty old school ravers a bit past their best. This may have been the case, but he really didn’t care, blasting through chorus and verse as normal…

It may have been a Sunday night, but nobody had told the rather full Zodiac - come the end of their 45 minute set it felt as good as 4am on Saturday morning. This is how live music should be - it leaves you sweaty, stinking, covered in beer, and a smile on your face that you just can’t wipe off easily.

After the jump: Pictures, pictures and more pictures….
Read the rest of this entry »

Hydro Connect Festival was my first proper music festival, and quite possibly one of the furthest away from home we could get. After a 9 hour drive leaving home at 5am on Friday morning, we arrived at one of the most beautiful festival settings I think you’ll find this side of Coachella.

After the horrible trek from car park to campsite (we were warned it was 20 minutes, but we’d suggest you double that if you’re carrying a tent), we set up our tent and went out to explore the main arena.

First up were Noah and the Whale and Ladytron on the Guitars and Other Machines Stage (otherwise known as the second stage for those of you who are Glastonbury / Reading / Leeds fans), before a wander around to see Amy MacDonald sporting a rather fetching kilt. I’ve never been a huge fan of her Radio 2 - lite tunes, but the Scottish crowd certainly loved the Glaswegian girl.

Manic Street Preachers were up next, and were on absolute fire as they did an amazing set. I’d heard people rave about them, but now I really can understand why - they were amazing. Kasabian headlined, but frankly were nothing on the Manics. Tom Meighan is an amazing frontman and certainly can whip everyone up some, but frankly they don’t have the tunes that the Manics do.

After an interesting night in the campsite, we slowly started our Saturday in the Speakeasy cafe on the sofas, listening to some amazing acoustic music. Quickly time rolled around and we had to amble back to the Media tent to catch a quick chat with Paul from Glasvegas and Kele and Matt from Bloc Party. After coming down from that little bit of excitement, we went to catch Friendly Fires on the Guitars and Other Machines Stage. We knew they were good having stumbled across them several times around the blogosphere, but weren’t expecting the amazingly high-energy set they provided us with. Black Lips disappointed, failing to energise the rather small crowd. Glasvegas had one of the biggest mid-afternoon crowds of the weekend, and provided the anthem of the weekend around the campsites.

A bit of food, and back to the main Oyster stage for the evening. We had high hopes for Grinderman, but simply didn’t appreciate Nick Cave’s new project, with it sounding largely inaccessible to us. Paolo Nutini I wasn’t holding out high hopes for, but he plain and simply blew me away, with his songs providing some great sing alongs. Oh, and his cover of Will Smith’s Fresh Prince of Bel-Air? AMAZING.

We’d been excited about Bloc Party since their confirmation as Saturday night headliners, and with the announcement of their new album, Intimacy, just 10 days before the festival we were all the more excited. Kele and co didn’t disappoint, blasting through everything we’d hoped for and a bit more.

Somehow getting almost 6 hours sleep on Saturday night, we were woken by the pouring rain on Sunday morning, and took the decision to put our tent back in the car to prevent it from floating away in the increasingly boggy waters around our tent. Making the way back to the main arena we couldn’t decide who to catch, so caught snippets of a few different bands. Santagold looked rather out of place in a metallic blue dance suit compared to the muddy audience, but none the less was amazingly good, with her indenti-kit backing singers coupled with her backing band providing some surprisingly good tunes.

I’d heard about the Levellers from friends, but never actually caught them live. They were a true festival band, getting everyone moving, and really warming things up a bit. Elbow I’ve never been a huge fan of, however they again surprised me. Lead singer Guy Garvey was decidedly chatty, commenting that “this is my sort of weather - I don’t like the hot weather ‘cos people take off their clothes and it isn’t pretty from here! In Manchester just about every beer garden looks like it has about 2 dozen red eggs in it anytime there’s a mildly warm day!”

Goldfrapp were so-so. I’ve never been a huge fan of their stuff, on the basis lots of it is a bit too arty-farty for my liking. Plus, I was simply excited for Sigur Ros, who were next up and closing Hydro Connect 2008 for us. They didn’t disappoint.

With that, we left leaving Franz Ferdinand to do probably much what they did last time I caught them, and to make an exit from the car park (with the help of some amazingly nice girls who pushed us out of the mud).

What was hot:

• Amazing setting
• Great food at good prices
• The lineup… simply amazing for a festival so young and small
• The speakeasy tent with its comfy sofas and free newspapers
• Friendly and helpful security

What was not:

• Mobile reception was always hampered by “network busy” responses… if Hyde Park can cope with having upwards of 40,000 people all with mobiles, why can’t Connect? This was also the reason for a big lack of live updates from Connect - we didn’t take a laptop, and had been planning on there not
• The hideously long trek to and from the carpark
• A massive lack of toilets and washing facilities on the campsites.

Overheard:

“I now know where they let the oldies out to: we were by far the youngest in that tent!” (joked two mid-20 somethings on the walk back to the campsite)
“When you fail to perform, it really knocks your confidence… then you just can’t perform next time!” (overheard one morning at the campsite… you can only guess what it’s regarding!)
“This is SO overrated!” said by a guy completely covered in mud after wrestling his mate

Want more coverage?
Why not check out these Flickr Streams:
jjbuchan’s flickr stream
Taburetka’s flickr stream
Foofango’s flickr stream
Aaron Bassett’s flickr stream

… or these other reviews:
NME.com’s review
Sunday Herald’s review
The Lancashire Herald
The Independent
The Times

Thanks go to:
Lee and all at Burt Greener Communications for looking after us so well and sorting out the tickets.
Dan for the photos and putting up with me for a weekend.

Roll on Hydro Connect 2009 is all we can say!