Remember when going to a gig left you feeling dirty afterwards? The sweat dripping off of you, your glasses knocked from your face, beer thrown around, and stinking like a cigarette factory? Well, tonight featured a return to those times (minus the cigarette smell) when Londonist went to see Idlewild at ULU in London.

Choosing to save us the (occasional) torture of a support band, they decided to support themselves, playing two sets, first of all an acoustic set, before coming back to play a full electric set after “a little break in the room back there”, in lead singer Roddy Woomble’s words.

Their first acoustic set featured such crowd pleasers as “American English”, “No Emotion” and “El Capitan” as Roddy and the rest of the band warmed up, however quickly we realised that they were on top of their game, and we were in for a classic main Idlewild set. 15 minutes later the Scotsmen ambled back on stage for a set which was heavily B-sides and rarities based, which was great for the hardcore fans and not so great for the casual fan that had come out for a greatest hits set.

However, we did get some classics such as “Little Discourage”, “Love Steals Us From Loneliness”, “Out of Routine” and “Century after Century” along with one of the highlights by far of the evening, “Roseability”. The chorus call and response, “Gertrude Stein said ‘that’s enough’ / I know that that’s not enough now,” featured all 800-odd of the crowd yelling along, and the first of many crowd surfers, as the band returned to their harder sound of the first few records, before the folkier tinges of recent works.

Leaving a lot sweatier, and feeling like we’d just been trampled by a herd of elephants, Idlewild managed to show us that, even though they’re approaching middle age, they really are one of Scotland’s greatest bands.

After the jump: setlist and more photos

Read the full story

Massive “event” gigs currently seem to be in favour at the moment, with Live8, Live Earth, Princess Diana’s concert, and last night saw one of the biggest to date, and most worthy: 46664, to celebrate Nelson Mandela’s 90th Birthday and also to raise awareness of his AIDS charity’s work.

You’ve probably heard about it in the press - the whole Amy Winehouse will she turn up / won’t she turn up situation, the issue over whether Nelson Mandela was even going to go himself. Then there was the impressively long list of stars attending: Gordon Brown (seen chatting to Nelson Mandela through Simple Minds’ frankly tedious performance - we would have done too, if we could have without shouting at each other), Will Smith, Quincy Jones and Lewis Hamilton actually turned up, whilst others could only be bothered to send a video (including Victoria Beckham, who got one of the most savage boo-ings known to man-kind).

In amongst the notable guests was some of today’s (and yesterday’s) best (and worst) performers, culminating in a show-stopping five song set from Queen that showed they still have what it takes to wow a huge audience. We also saw amazing performances from Amy Winehouse (who still has the power to wow with her voice after all she’s been through recently), Will Smith and Zucchero. A lot of artists were ones that we weren’t familiar with, however certainly opened our eyes up and featured a lot more variety musically than the rather biased Live8 and Live Earth events.

After the jump: a blow by blow account of the evening

Read the full story

“We’re only two songs in and already Paul’s broken the drums!” smirks Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos as drummer Paul Thomson attempts to re-assemble his broken kit. This turned out to be a recurring theme of the evening, as later on Nick’s guitar amp and strings gave up the ghost. However, regardless of all of that it was nice to see a stadium-filling band play a tiny boat in Bristol’s harbour and deal with the problems of playing a tiny stage and going back to their roots.

Kicking off the evening was Chilean five piece Panico. At first I was sceptical - South American party band supporting British indie kings? Really? But somehow, it worked. Starting off carefully, they quickly began to woo the crowd with their CSS / Gogol Bordello / Ladytron / The Music mixture of sounds, and energy laden front-man in the shape of the (ingeniously named) Memo.

Initially I was going to compare them solely to CSS, the Brazilian party stars of 2007, but realised pretty soon that that would be doing Panico an injustice. They’re much more talented, and their songs have more depth, and a sense of urgency that would put others to the test. The gorgeous Carolina held it all together more than capably on bass, providing some calm next to Memo’s crazy shapes. Whilst Carolina held it together, each member clearly is quite talented, and collectively they’re definitely ones to watch in coming months and years.

Lyrically they switch between Spanish and English, which certainly makes for interesting listening, and a more exotic feel than a typical British evening in inner city Bristol. By the end of the set they had everyone bouncing, and were the perfect warm up for Franz Ferdinand - everyone was ready to party.

9:45 rolled around and Franz marched on stage, self assuredly and immediately plunged into a new song, “New Thrill”, which went down a storm, and got them off to a good start, before peppering the rest of their set with newer tracks.

“Tonight, we’re going to play you some new songs, some old songs, and…” “some songs!” yelled a heckler as Alex was introducing themselves, to much laughter around the venue, and smirks from the band. “Yes, yes, we’ll play you some songs, if you want, they’ll be good ones!” smiled Alex, clearly in his element and enjoying the intimate surroundings of the Thekla.

Many of the older tracks sound just as good now as they did when they first arrived on our airwaves back in 2004. Take Me Out has renewed vigour, and surprisingly didn’t have the crowd bouncing the most. That award went to the set closer, This Fire, which saw the Thekla start to sway quite scarily as the boat rocked in the water with 350 people bouncing to the encore closer.

Keeping the set short left us all wanting more from the headliners, though Panico surprised me and could be ones to watch for the future.

After the jump: setlist and pics

Read the full story

A half –full Zodiac at the Oxford Academy played host to up-and-comers Royworld last night as they embark on their debut full UK tour ahead of their album release next month.

Support came in the form of Oxford based band Cand Electric who were obviously nervous, having clearly just landed the biggest gig of their lives. Perfectly competent, they just lacked any oomph – they could play, but no personality or songs that grab you by the neck and say “LISTEN TO ME”. Quickly followed up by The Rushes who were much more capable of the supporting roll, dispatching hecklers with one-line put downs, and having tunes that with a bit of tweaking may get a couple of plays on late night XFM.

However, 9:15 and the main event soon rolled around, and Royworld unassumingly took to the stage. Opening up with recent single Elasticity they hammered their way through 45 minutes of material from their upcoming debut album. Usually, throwing in their new single and their old single in the first three songs would be a recipe for people walking out, having heard what they wanted. However, not tonight. Oh no. As the four of them get into their stride a bit more, it became clear that their singles are just the beginning of the road for these lads..

Smoke machines and extensive strobe lights gave the night a feel of a (slightly dodgy) 80’s pop video, however this more than complimented their rather unique brand of music – a sense of yearning for times gone by is immediately made clear, listening to their lyrics.

“Man in the Machine” was the last of the trio of songs that most of the audience had wanted to hear, before they closed with the duo of songs of “Tinman” and “Brakes”, showing off that Royworld are no one-trick ponies.

After the jump: Photos

Read the full story

“These shows are always far too short” moaned Tom McRae as he brought down the curtains on almost 3 hours of non-stop music that, frankly, would put most lesser artists to shame. In those 3 hours, we’d seen beard shaving, mass-singalongs, surprise special guests and more off-the-cuff jokes than most comedians manage in a year. All for a mere £15 too.

This was the second time that the Essex-based singer/songwriter had bought over his motley crew of artists from the US to play the Hotel Cafe tour, named after the famous venue in LA which plays host to a range of a wide range of artists for a cabaret-like performance where anything can happen. As they showed, anything really can happen when they decided to shave the beard of lead organiser Jason, live on stage towards the end.

Each playing one or two songs, Tom introduced each one with amusing tales, and before 9:30 had even swung round we’d already hurtled through three Tom McRae songs as well as songs from Catherine Feeny, Brian Wright, Jim Bianco, Cary Brothers, and Greg Laswell. Poor Greg hobbled around after spraining his ankle in Brighton whilst drunkenly chasing a fox, much to the amusement of the audience.

Part of the tradition of the Hotel Cafe shows are special guests - two years ago we got Aqualung, this time round Turin Brakes played previous single “Dark on Fire” and old favourite “Pain Killer”.

Tom then came back, joined by the rest of the performers for a rousing version of “Dose me Up”, which was quite amazing to hear everyone looping round the haunting chorus of “So dose me up / Once is not enough / I can still see the ground / And from this high rise view looking down on you / Im not the one wasting my time”. Personally, that was my highlight, but with time getting on the performers got back into the swing of things with renewed passion - Jim Bianco’s “striptease” routine provided a moment of amusement as his “smoky backroom” voice fitted the setting perfectly. Greg told us stories of his family, with tales of his Mum and Dad’s worries about him, and Catherine just played amazing songs whilst adding a sexy element to the male-dominated proceedings. Brian, well, what more can I say. The man can play. And has facial hair that would make lesser men weap, it’s so thick. Cary Brothers was the musical genius that needs more credit - amazing songs, he should be able to tour the UK more.

All too soon 11:30 had rolled around, and with one more sing along to “Silent Boulevard”, they were gone - too quickly for my liking, but still - £15 for 3 hours of brilliant entertainment - amazing.

After the jump: A video of Cary Brother’s “Ride” and pictures. If you want large versions of any of the pictures, just yell and I can sort that out for you

Read the full story

This review originally appeared on Hit40UK.

“Now, that’s why we played Swindon!” smirked Luke Pritchard of The Kooks as the band finished their smash-hit single “Naïve” midway through their set. He was having fun, and not afraid to show it as the Brighton four piece played the second night of their UK Tour.

Rewind two hours and Brighton co-residents The Rivers opened up the evening as the hoards of people piled into the gym of Swindon’s Oasis Leisure Centre for what felt like a special after-school treat. Quickly followed by the marvellous Kid Harpoon who bought their British-Decemberists sound to the masses, managing to turn a few sceptics into fans (though that may just be because of the lead singer, who looks distinctly like Mackenzie Crook from a distance!)

Whilst the support acts were good, there was no hiding who we were there for: the Kooks. Lights go down, the backdrop falls to the ground, and we have an empty stage, as a huge sign above the stage glows neon blue announcing “KOOKS”. Then, just as we though the screaming couldn’t get any louder, on swaggers Luke and co, plunging straight into their single “Always Where I Need To Be”. 3,000 people chanting the chorus of “Do do do dododo” is quite a sight to see, and came to be something we saw quite a lot of through the evening.

The first part of the set was mostly their new material, which whilst it received a good reception it was really the stuff from their first album we wanted to hear, and it showed. “We’re feeling a bit fragile, so be gentle!” commented Luke before they hurtled into “Eddies Gun”, though to be fair we’d never have guessed – their post-gig hangovers clearly not that bad on the second night of their tour. “Naïve” saw the first moment of everyone being word perfect, which showed the lads that their old material is still their best loved. All too soon it was time for them to go, soon to be replaced with a footie-style chant of “Kooks! Kooks! Kooks!”

Coming back on his own, Luke did two of the highlights of the night: acoustic versions of “Seaside” and “Jackie Big Tits”, which had us all wishing for savoured moments on Brighton Pier in the summer, and that special someone respectively. Finally, they closed with new song “Do You Wanna?” which saw things get a bit “hot ‘n’ cosy” as crowd surfers galore went over, Luke joined the crowd down the front and general last-song excitement.

Leaving the stage, we knew that Swindon had made its mark on the Kooks, and that they’ll be coming back for more.

It’s always nice when a band play a venue a lot smaller to those they’ve grown accustomed too, which was exactly what happened this afternoon when Southampton foursome Delays graced the miniscule stage of Camden’s Lock Tavern for Clash magazine.

Spending the best part of an hour wowing the assembled fans, media and curious regulars they ripped through a selection of B-sides, covers and old favourites. Everything was stripped back to the core, and whilst the electric bass and guitars were kept, Aaron’s synths were kept well away, leaving him to look a bit lost with a tambourine.

Thrown in halfway through the set was a brilliant cover of James’ ‘Laid’, however as lead-singer Greg commented “hopefully you all know it well enough to cover up the bits we don’t know”. Quickly followed by some birthday wishes for some lucky fans, “…and the lucky bingo numbers!” joked Greg, clearly enjoying doing a more stripped down, laid back set.

A quick jog down memory lane with ‘Nearer than Heaven’ and time is rapidly running out, so Panic Attacks from their recent ‘Love Made Visible’ EP is given a complete makeover, becoming a sensational crowd sing-along, raising the roof of the tiny pub, even getting a few of the smokers outside on the patio looking in. Closing out was a cover of Neil Diamond’s ‘Cherry Cherry’, which they recently played on Dermot O’Leary’s Radio 2 show.

All too soon their set was over, leaving the Long Blondes to DJ out the night at the Lock Tavern. However, for those of us lucky enough to be there will testify: if they can bring down the Lock Tavern in such style we’d hate to think what they can do to Koko in May.

After the jump: More photos

Read the full story

Remember when indie bands had a want to succeed? A desire to achieve? Not many bands have it in this corporate day and age, toeing the line, saying what they’re told (yes, Scouting For Girls, we’re looking at you), however one band seems like they may just be able to break the mainstream, and still have the desire to achieve massive things.

Their name? Parka.

This Glasgow via London quintet played the “Bollocks to Poverty” event at London’s Borderline, along with The Krak, LR Rockets and Toy Guns. After two rather solid performances from LR Rockets and Toy Guns, it was Parka’s turn, the first band to really get people dancing. Granted, their tunes aren’t completely innovative, they just use a tried and tested formula of guys and guitars (and in their case, a saxophonist too) to make good lads-down-the-pub music. The path trodden by Boy Kill Boy, the Fratellis, the Ordinary Boys and Madness before them is repeated, re-hashed and re-built into some instantly hummable tunes.

Looking like a lo-fi Klaxons with day-glo braces, lead singer Matty guided the fivesome through an impressive set, talking little just plain straight-up guitar tunes. “This is a slower song, so you can dance if you want, or just beat the crap out of each other. If you chose the latter, do it gently, it is a charity gig” commented Matty with a smirk on his face, before plunging into “Closing Time”.

It’s surprising how, with only two released singles, they’ve got such a strong set, culminating in a stage invasion by The Krak ahead of their headlining slot later in the evening. Drunk, yes, but with so much, well, oomph, they could be a force to be reckoned with should the likes of Radio 1 get behind them.

After the jump: Photos.

Read the full story

Isn’t it nice when a band not only manages to blow you away when you see them live, but also manage to blow themselves away? That was just the case tonight at London’s Koko, when Stars commented “y’know, I think this might be one of the reasons we love London so much” grinned frontman Torquil Campbell. You can tell he wasn’t lying either, each of the members looked generally pleased, shocked, and amazed at the response they got at the sold out venue.

Let’s rewind first a couple of hours to when the second support came on, Stars’ labelmates Apostle of Hustle. At first glance they looked like a bunch of mechanics on a night off having a good time down the pub, however quickly showed us otherwise, having some incredibly strong tunes and missing a brain cell or two to make them quite so brilliant. They seemed to genuinely get along with Stars, so much so that they came back and joined Stars for their encore.

Soon enough Stars came on, opening with my favourite, Ageless Beauty, before launching through a collection of songs that crossed their full back catalogue, however the focus was (understandably) on their latest release, In The Bedroom, After the War. Sounding amazing live, their homely stage setup complimented perfectly their stories of domestic violence, broken relationships and general debauchery.

Relatively untalkative for the start of their set, Torquil went on to comment towards the end that “We’ve been playing London for a long time - probably before some of you started masturbating!! (to Amy Millan) Remember when we played the Purple Turtle? Ahhhh”

Ending off their main set with the title track of their latest album, Amy Millan and the rest of Stars seemed genuinely shocked at the response they were getting.

The only song missing from the set was my favourite from “After the War”, the bittersweet “Barricade”, however it was understandable - it would have just been too depressing to have squeezed it in as well. All together though, Stars proved that whilst they’ve taken the best part of a decade to get to headlining an impressive UK tour, they have deserved it, and look set to achieve greater things in the coming years.

After the jump: Large photos. Email me if you want more, or larger versions of pictures. Thanks.

Read the full story

Sometimes when you go and see a band you have the mis/fortune of seeing a support act who are actually just as good as the band you’ve paid out to see – tonight at Oxford’s Carling Academy was just that, when Alphabeat eclipsed Palladium’s headlining set.

My first night back at the Carling Academy since its costly refurb, I was impressed at just how nice it had turned out – no more whiffs of the loo if you’re near the front of the stage. Still, the nicer surroundings didn’t help the first band up sound any better, The Anydays. Sounding like a reasonably competent Battle of the Bands winner, they were reasonably strong, however had a sensation of going through the motions, and frankly, not that memorable.

Next up were a band I’d been waiting to see for a considerable length of time, Alphabeat. The Danes who I profiled at the weekend didn’t disappoint, putting in a fine showing, even though the crowd was rather meagre. Performing as if their lives depended on it, what they lacked in words they more than made up for with their enthusiasm. Rattling through the majority of their self-titled debut album, they managed to get everyone humming along, even the drunk guy behind me conceeded at the end that “they’re pretty f***ing good”. Indeed they were Rory, indeed they were.

Finally came the big moment, Palladium. I’d previously seen them support the Thrills last summer, and had a series of brilliant songs, which still are brilliant. However, the rest of their album material does sound very much like filler to go between such pop-greats as “High 5″, “Happy Hour” and “White Woman”. Peter Pepper was distinctly untalkative, and the rest of the band seemed a bit hurt at the low attendance, but if we’re honest, it’s a Monday night in January - is it really going to be packed? Ending with a new song wasn’t their brightest idea, instead penultimate “Happy Hour” was my personal highlight, and one that almost got the whole crowd going. Well, some people take some warming up, others were so drunk they danced all the way through.

They’re certainly ones to watch, but after tonight Alphabeat are a better bet for me.

After the jump: More photos.

Read the full story