Apple’s iTunes festival is now in its third year, each outing seeing it attracting bigger names at better venues. This year, they’ve filled 31 nights at the Roundhouse, and I caught the fifteenth night, with Friendly Fires and Magistrates. The best bit about the gigs? All the tickets are given away to competition winners, which makes everyone even more up for it than normal.

Magistrates, fresh from playing the NME Radar tour in May, opened things up, playing a captivating set that had everyone dancing and the first crowd surfers of the evening going over. After a short break, Friendly Fires came to a smoke filled set, blasting through their entire debut album and new single “Kiss of Life”.

Lead singer Ed Macfarlane was dripping in sweat from the first song, as he gave his best dad-dancing to the packed Roundhouse. However, they were clearly aware of the carnage in the pit, asking everyone to “just dance, none of this moshing” that had seen 20 crowd surfers flung over. Sounding as fresh as they did when I first saw them last August, it’s surprising considering just how hard they’ve been touring of late (and partying, if you believe The Sun).

Closing out with the customary extended version of “Ex-Lover”, all too soon they were done, and it was time to go, watching some very drunk Camden-ites air-drumming the finale.

After the jump: setlist and photos.
Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve had quite a busy week here at TGTF, lining up some great things we’ll be covering later this year. In the mean time whilst I’ve been all busy and stuff, it seems it’s all been kicking off in the music industry.

First up, The Boxer Rebellion (one of those band names you know, but can’t pop your finger on any of their tunes, and pictured top) have suprisingly had their second album spring high up the iTunes chart, catching everyone by suprise it seems. Having been signed by Alan McGee who released their first album, they were dropped leaving them to self-release their second album, Union, which is currently riding at number 6 on the iTunes chart (but has been as high as #4) and doing rather well, thank-you-very-much. Think hazy rock that needs to be played in a smoky dingy backstreet pub. Part The Music, part Editors, part early Verve, expect darkness and hairy men. If that’s cool with you, check out the first single, Evacuate, which is available from iTunes free at the moment as their “Single of the Week”.

You’ve probably all been reading about the claim made today by the “industry big boys” about how “95% of all music downloaded is not paid for”. However, I found an interesting quote from Steve Purdham, the CEO of free music service We7, commenting that “It would be more scary if current revenue forecasts showed that the 5% paid for was the real size of the market – what the 95% shows is the absolute phenomenal demand for music delivered via the digital ‘interweb’”. Nice way of looking at it, and good to see some industry bods actually accepting this fact.

Finally, I’ve had one tune in my head recently – Passion Pit’s Sleepyhead (below). Wait until about 1:20 when it really kicks in – it’s amazing. Almost reminds me of a coat zipper flying up and down, but that’s just my slightly crazy little mind.

Photos of Boxer Rebellion are from Tessa Angus

The amount of emails we’ve been getting this past week has been quite something – so many new opportunities, great bands getting in touch, and some quite bizarre questions too (including one genius who asked if TGTF was a “music website”…. erm, last time we checked it was!)

First up, Daniel Merriweather (pictured top) has a new single out on February 2nd. Recognise the name? Yes, it’s him from “Stop Me”, Mark Ronson’s massive hit. He’s got a great voice, and he’s embarking on a solo career at the moment, starting with “Change”, the first single to be taken from his forthcoming “Love & War” album. I have a feeling I’m gonna have this stuck in my head, much like “Stop Me”. Watch the video below, and fall in love with him…

Some of you may have spotted that iTunes have announced a new flexible pricing scheme for their music, and (perhaps the biggest news story) have ditched the irritating copy protection from their songs (Guardian news story here). It seems to have been hailed by just about everyone, with Popjustice commenting “Does this DRM-free thing mean that people have now totally given up on the idea of revenue through music sales?” (Twitter). We7’s CEO Steve Purdham (who we first mentioned last week) hailed the news by commenting that “the spectrum of choice for music lovers is now greater than ever before and the stage is set for 2009 to really open the boundaries of digital music consumption”. Couldn’t have put it better myself.

Coming up on There Goes The Fear, we’re going to catch a preview screening next week of a new MTV show about Pete Doherty, and we’ll be bringing you a live review of the Kerrang! Relentless tour after the 20th when we catch the tour in Oxford. We may also be catching Keane in February, and possibly the Gaslight Anthem too. Yes, it’s all go.

As ever, if anyone wants to write for TGTF please don’t hesitate to contact us – tell us a bit about yourself, and we’ll take it from there.

This review originally appeared on Londonist.

On Monday night I caught US indie supremos Death Cab for Cutie at Koko in Camden as they played as part of the month long iTunes festival at the venue. Needless to say, after having a number one US album, appearing on the OC back when it was good, having a platinum selling big-label debut and selling out two nights at Brixton Academy in the past two years, getting to see them at the relatively intimate Koko was an amazing opportunity that we just couldn’t pass up.

The tricky task of supporting Death Cab went to Das Pop. Normally if you play the hottest pop band to come out of Belgium in a few years to a room full of indie Death Cab fans you’d be seeing a mass exodus for the bar. Somehow though, they managed to win just about the whole auditorium around, with their catchy tunes that sound like Alphabeat songs done by Iggy Pop. Led by Bent Van Looy who looks like Alex Kapranos (of Franz Ferdinand), but with the energy of Mika, the four piece hurtled through 45 minutes of pure pop bliss. Culminating in a mass sing along at the end to “I can’t get enough of your love” and then current single “Underground”, we realised that although we’d come to see Death Cab for Cutie, they’d got a tough act to follow.

Bursting onto the stage from behind a very plush red velvet curtain, Death Cab for Cutie arrived and plunged through a mixture of old favourites and newer tracks from their massive selling “Narrow Stairs”. The new songs such as “Cath”, “No Sunlight” and “Long Division” fit just perfectly next to old classics such as “New Year”, “Crooked Teeth” and “Soul Meets Body”. A few technical troubles blighted the band throughout the set, prompting lead singer and chief songwriter Ben Gibbard to joke “I feel like I’m in a movie and I don’t know what’s going to happen next!” as he introduced “Movie Script Ending”. One of the biggest cheers of the evening came for the epic “I will Possess Your Heart”, an 8 minute rock out that looks set to be one of the best things the band have done, and a chance for them to stretch their legs musically.

Closing out the main set with “Sound of Settling”, Ben came back on his own to do an enchanting version of “I will follow you into the dark”, featuring everyone singing along for a proper hairs-on-the-back-of-your-neck moment. To finish was the classic “Transatlanticism”, a slow builder that builds into a frenzy, a fitting ending to an evening with some of US indie rock’s biggest stars of today.

Okay, so I’ve been slacking a bit on the posting front recently. I know, shocking. But, thankfully very few new tours have been announced in the run up to Christmas. Expect a newly redesigned TGTF come January (if I pull my finger out…)

Anyway, moving on.

One of my hottest tips for 2008, Yoav, has announced his first tour of the new year, seeing him playing some smaller venues around the UK.

His new single, “Beautiful Lie” is this week’s single of the week on iTunes last week, so why not click here and download it for free until Christmas Eve? (That’s in just two days for all you not-so-bright ones out there!)

Yoav plays the following dates in January. Tickets for the Manchester and London dates go on sale next Friday, 4th January, when no doubt you’ll all be nursing huge hangovers and a rather large credit card bill, but he’ll clear up your January blues for you!

Monday 14th January – Brighton The Albert
Tuesday 15th January – Cardiff Clwb Ifor Bach
Wednesday 16th January – Glasgow King Tut’s
Saturday 19th January – Lancaster Music Library
Sunday 20th January – Liverpool Korova
Monday 21st January – Manchester Night and Day
Wednesday 23rd January – Oxford Jericho Tavern
Thursday 24th January – London 93 Feet East
Friday 25th January – Nottingham The Bodega Social