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).

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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.

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So, last night I was lucky enough to catch The Thrills and Palladium at Scala in London. I’ve already written a quick bit on Palladium for Londonist (who gave me the free tickets), but now for The Thrills, a highlight of the month for me.

I caught The Thrills for the first time last month at the Millennium Dome, and loved their short set, and now I’ve finally got to see a full set I must say they’re a brilliant live band… full of energy, pizzaz and Conor sure knows how to work a crowd.

Working their way through all of the favourites and a lot of their new album, the guys from Ireland via America bought a tiny bit of summer to a rain swept London. Introducing new song “Restaurant” Connor jokes “This is the bit the whole band hates – I’m on rhythm guitar, holding it all together, and, well, my rhythm is non-existant”. Still, the track passes without a hitch. Undoubtedly the highlights of the evening are the ol’ classics “Big Sur”, “Santa Cruz”, “One Horse” and “Corey Haim”, however “Long Forgotten Song” definitely has the chance to join the favourites, sounding brilliant both on record and live.

After the jump find some pictures and the setlist. If anyone wants any of the pictures bigger just shout or leave a comment.
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“This is a slower song – hope you don’t mind” Palladium’s Peter Pepper says before launching into “White Woman”. The audience certainly didn’t, as it gave a welcome respite from the scintillating pace they’d been playing at for the last twenty minutes.

Opening up with their new single “Happy Hour”, they quickly set out their manifesto: fast, friendly and frantic pop. Racing through 7 songs in 30 minutes, they worked the crowd well and had more arms flailing down the front than The Thrills did half an hour later for the main set of the evening.

Whilst trying to think of a band to compare them to, this Londonista really couldn’t decide, in the end settling on Klaxons fronted by Patrick Wolf playing Delays and Sunshine Underground. They really are an oddball group of people that really shouldn’t be in a band together, but somehow it just works.

There were three songs in the set (their opening two and closing song) which were very promising, easily able to outshine most of the current crop of pop-wannabes; however the middle of the set did seem to largely be filler that started to sound very similar. Their energy may have been unstoppable, but it’s no good if the tunes all sound similar but slightly re-jigged.

Peter Pepper (if that is his real name…) introduced the last, and perhaps best, song of their evening, Hi-5, by giving the record company spiel about buying their new single in a decidedly boring and un-Palladium like way… they might as well got the guys from EMI to do it themselves. This is one band where they should leave the music to do the talking for them.

Whilst at the moment Palladium are only playing small venues supporting bands at the moment, expect in time them to be playing their own palladiums and theatres near you

Palladium support Amy Winehouse at Somerset House tomorrow, then play Lovebox on Sunday and a headline show at the Barfly on Thursday 2nd August.
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