Yo La Tengo, Roundhouse, 08/11/09

I have finally got round to writing up my recent visit to the Roundhouse to see Yo La Tengo.

I opted for seats as opposed to standing and feared the worst when I realized there was a huge column partially blocking my view of the stage. Euros Childs provided support – not solo as I had imagined but with a small band. His vocals still sound as great as ever, and seeing him behind the keyboards brought back memories of seeing Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci in the late 1990s & early 2000s. He started off with a version of Lady Fair. I haven’t really followed his solo stuff as much as I could have so the remainder of the set was fairly unfamiliar, seeming to be more ‘pop’ and upbeat, although my initial impressions were that it was sadly still some way short of the standard of the music he made with GZM.

Yo La Tengo started off in usual fashion with a long, layered guitar opener before playing tracks from their latest album, the very fine ‘Popular Songs’. A small string section accompanied the band for ‘Here To Fall’ and ‘If It’s True’. ‘Periodically, Double Or Triple’ was completely dismantled and reconstructed with brilliant keyboards and segued straight into ‘Stockholm Syndrome’.

We were treated to a beautiful version of ‘Tears Are In Your Eyes’, before possibly my new favourite from the new album was played – ‘I’m On My Way’, a very pretty little song sung by James. Another new favourite, ‘When It Gets Dark’ also made the set (although the equally brilliant ‘All Your Secrets’ missed out). They closed with ‘The Story Of Yo La Tengo’, probably my favourite of their long, feedback-infused, drone-y album closers (and slightly surprisingly the only song played from last album I’m Not Afraid Of You And Will Beat Your As$).

The encore was very enjoyable – a beautiful, tender, moving, whispered version of ‘Our Way To Fall’ (which firmly lodged itself into my mind for the next few days) and an equally pretty version of George Harrison’s ‘Behind That Locked Door’, Georgia’s vocals being heart-meltingly pretty as always.

The set list went something like this:

My Heart’s Reflection
More Stars Than There Are In Heaven
Avalon Or Someone Very Similar
Periodically, Double Or Triple
(segue)
Stockholm Syndrome
Here To Fall
If It’s True
Tom Courtenay
Tears Are In Your Eyes
I’m On My Way
When It Gets Dark
Autumn Sweater
Nothing To Hide
The Story Of Yo La Tengo

Encore

A very raucous, thrashy cover featuring Georgia on guitar
Our Way To Fall
From Behind That Locked Door

The High Llamas, The Luminaire, 07/11/09

I was at the Luminaire last night to see The High Llamas, the second time I had seen them play that venue in 2009....and, unsurprisingly I guess, they played a pretty much identical set. Obviously, very enjoyable but it would have been nice to maybe hear some more tracks from 'Hawaii' or 'Cold And Bouncy'. The highlights were Three Point Scrabble and Harper's Romo, which just continues to sound as brilliant as ever. Interestingly, they chose to play two instrumentals in their encore.



I think the set list went approximately like this: (I think it is missing a couple...)

Doo-Wop Property
Harper's Romo
Bach Ze
Triads
Go To Montecino
Nomads
Old Spring Town
The Hot Revivalist
Three Point Scrabble
Cookie Bay
Leaf & Lime
Calloway
The Track Goes By

Encore

Glide Time
Janet Jangle

Damien Jurado & John Vanderslice, The Borderline, 03/11/09

I was at The Borderline last night for a double bill of American-acoustic-indie-folk-guitar-power-pop.

After leaving work I headed down to the South Bank to enjoy a couple of hours in the Royal Festival Hall Members’ Bar. Had a very enjoyable first listen to Max Richter’s re-released ‘Memoryhouse’ album. Atmospheric, strident post-classical soundtrack music at its very best.

I pulled myself away from the beautiful views of the RFH balcony (photos to follow another time) and headed over Golden Jubilee Bridge, past St. Martins-In-The-Fields and up the Charing Cross Road before going into the Borderline with JP.

First up was John Vanderslice. I had seen him headline this venue last year. Surprisingly he only played one song from current album ‘Romanian Names’ (‘Too Much Time’), preferring to concentrate on older material. Not often you can say that. His set included ‘Trance Manual’ and ‘Angela’, the beautiful meditation on how an escaped pet can result in the questioning and reassessment of a human relationship (and incidentally, one of my top 100 tracks of all time, as recently compiled on my iPod playlist – separate blog post to follow on this). To end, JV left his position on stage and entered the crowd, getting a member of the audience to hold a small hand-held torch and playing 2 songs from the Borderline floor, the first being a rather lovely version of ‘Keep The Dream Alive’. As JP astutely observed, “very Death Cab”. Reminded me of a gig by Godspeed You Black Emperor at the Scala in 2001 (?) where during an already monumentally brilliant show, the drummer left the stage and walked through the crowd playing his drum, almost causing your correspondent to experience something close to an epiphany. Tonight maybe wasn’t quite the same in terms of the intensity of experience but it is always something I enjoy and should be encouraged in my humble opinion. Just remembered that Kurt Wagner started his gig last year at The Borderline by doing likewise.

Soon up after was Seattle singer-songwriter Damien Jurado who played a hushed, stripped down acoustic set full of trademark intimate, low key songs. The first part of his set consisted of songs from his yet to be released new album, followed by some old favourites. ‘Tether’, ‘Abilene’, ‘The Killer’. All brilliant. He seemed genuinely pleased and surprised to have a full Borderline to play for. A few self-deprecating anecdotes were interspersed between songs, including some funny observations on driving in London.

One of those great evenings that reinforce my love for The Borderline, live music and the wonderful city of London.

“This country will know us by name….”

Grizzly Bear, The Barbican, 31/10/09

I was at the Barbican on Saturday to see Grizzly Bear perform with the London Symphony Orchestra. I have been enjoying the soaring, widescreen sound of two albums ‘Yellow House’ and ‘Veckatimest’ recently, with their intricate, layered melodies so was particularly looking forward to this gig. I was quite hopeful that the meticulous construction of these recent albums could be replicated live.

Support came from St. Vincent – a two person guitar/violin act who played a nice, varied mix of tight, hard edged guitar lines to ethereal ambient pieces all underpinned by Annie Clark’s mellifluent, looped vocals. Nice.

The Grizzly Bear / LSO collaboration was promoted as being something more than your usual indie band / orchestra link up – with feted contemporary-classical composer Nico Muhly preparing a special arrangement to complement the songs but not supercede in any way. Things got off to a decidedly understated, restrained start in terms of orchestral score – opening track ‘Easier’ sounding pretty but slightly pared down compared to the fully sound on ‘Yellow House’. Next up was my favourite from ‘Veckatimest’, ‘Cheerleader’. On record it sounds brilliant, the choral backing vocals lifting the song to another level. Disappointingly, the orchestra wasn’t really able to reproduce this live, the strings struggling to make themselves heard against the fully amplified band. The rest of the gig followed in similar suit. The orchestral arrangement seemed very light – almost too respectful of the songs, strangely unable to transform them into the grander version they could have been. It was almost as if Muhly was too disciplined in trying keep the songs intact. The versions of ‘Knife’ and ‘Central And Remote’ were decent reproductions of the songs on the album but again could have been transformed into something else. One thing which came across just as brilliantly live as on record was Ed Droste’s voice – a uniquely muffled, enjoyably garbled sound unlike pretty much anything else out there.

At the start of the year I went to see Elbow record a version of ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’ with the BBC Concert Orchestra and even though arguably I think ‘Veckatimest’ could just be a fractionally better album and Grizzly Bear a potentially slightly better band, but on that occasion Elbow did the guitar band / orchestra collaboration thing so much better, each song sounding notably different and vastly improved as a result of the orchestral backing. Sadly, in this respect tonight’s gig didn’t really match this, although it was an enjoyable concert, just not as spectacular as it promised to be.