A blog on gigs, music, art and London.

Friday 22 July 2011

The Flaming Lips, Dinosaur Jr & Deerhoof, Alexandra Palace, 01/07/11

Earlier this month I was at Alexandra Palace to see The Flaming Lips perform The Soft Bulletin. It was a rather amazing gig. It is one of those albums that holds quite a special place in my heart. I have memories of listening to it at length in 1999/2000 whilst working in an uninspiring job after leaving university. This and Deserter's Songs by Mercury Rev really made quite a big impact on me at the time and arguably contributed to my desire to move to London to see more gigs.

Deerhoof played first, performing Milk Man in full and sounded fantastic. Satomi looked sensational and showed off some excellent choreographed dance moves. I think I may have tweeted that it was the best live show I had seen so far in 2011. Dinosaur Jr played Bug afterwards and were also very good (and very loud).



Before taking to the stage with the band, Wayne Coyne came on to introduce the album, delivering quite an emotional speech, saying how much it meant to them, prompting tears in some members of the crowd. When it came the entrance was pretty spectacular, each band member arriving on to the stage through psychedelic coloured eye on the semi circular video screen. After the penultimate band member came down the ramp, it was removed to reveal Wayne Coyne in his deflated space bubble which slowly began to inflate. He made one journey down the length of the venue and back before extricating himself from it and launching straight into Race For The Prize. I can't remember many other moments quite as euphoric and joyous, especially in the seconds after the opening drum beat. It genuinely felt like the entire crowd was jumping and singing along to it.





A Spoonful Weighs A Ton sounded great also (and featured the Teletubbies on the video screen). The Spark That Bled saw WC wear a giant pair of hands that projected coloured laser beams on the discoball above the stage which were then cast out over the hall. The lyrics to What Is The Light appeared on the video screen, another moment where the crowd significantly helped Wayne out on vocals. Waiting For A Superman was quite poignant, tonight cast as a plaintive piano ballad. The Gash saw a large gold gong wheeled on to the stage for Coyne to play. 

He spoke to the crowd frequently throughout which I didn't really mind at the time but clearly limited the time they had to play any other songs after completing the album. He encouraged the crowd throughout, quite often lovingly referring to us as 'motherfuckers'. For me it seemed like a genuine plea for support, a sign of endearing insecurity, especially during Slow Motion, which he said they had rarely played live before, and Feeling Yourself Disintegrate, which he suprisingly revealed to be the track he thinks is the worst on the album (he's wrong). The latter prompts another mass singalong from the crowd. A really moving moment. 

Visually it was a great show, coloured balloons, confetti and a set of backing vocalists on each side of the stage dressed as characters from The Wizard Of Oz. They came back on to play a wonderful, elongated version of Do You Realize? This show confirmed them as one of the best live bands around in my opinion. Even a protracted journey home from Alexandra Palace couldn't tarnish the night. Well done to ATP for organising such a magnificent show...

The following links have some excellent photographs of the concert...

Jonny, The Borderline, 27/06/11

I was at The Borderline last month to see Jonny (for the second time after seeing them at Water Rats in January). Tonight they played as a full band as opposed to earlier in the year when it was just Euros and Norman. The slightly nervous performance of the show at Water Rats had been replaced by a much more assured set this time.

I had listened to the album a fair bit in the run up to this show and love how the songs can generally be divided as Euros songs and Norman songs each bringing their own distinctive qualities to the sound. Both were on fine form throughout. Played live, many of the songs sounded even more Beatlesy and 60s inspired.

Norman introduced Waiting Around For You as being "our Revolver song done in the style of Chas & Dave”. The Goodnight saw them sound quite close to Pentangle and Cave Dance finished with a saxophone/flute outro (sadly not quite as good as the heavy pyschedelic keyboard wig-out played at Water Rats). Continental could be more Beach Boys if it arrived in the venue on a surfboar, while Candyfloss has already established itself as a power-pop classic. 

For the encore they came back on to play Ursula's Crow, When I Still Have Thee and Heywood Lane. Lovely to hear a different Teenage Fanclub song and even better to hear an old Gorky's Zygotic Mynci song (on earlier shows it seems they played Spanish Dance Troupe).

Penguin Cafe, Hackney Empire, 09/07/11

I recently went to see Penguin Cafe at Hackney Empire. The below review originally appeared on musicOMH.

When Arthur Jeffes announced he was to continue playing the music of his father Simon’s seminal band Penguin Cafe Orchestra, as well as composing new music under the Penguin Cafe name, there was a slight worry that it may have resulted in a diluted version of the latter’s unique and uncategorisable sound. However, the release of the album A Matter Of Life earlier this year and shows like tonight’s in the beautiful surroundings of Hackney Empire have emphatically dispelled these kind of concerns.

Jeffes has assembled a gifted, young band possessing the high levels of musicianship required to play the near-avant-garde music of his father. Tonight he fronts a ten-piece ensemble (that includes Suede man Neil Codling) and they display the intricacy, finesse and understanding you would usually associate with a chamber orchestra. They open in cautious style with two older tracks, Dirt and From The Colonies, both ever so slightly tropically imbued, with mandolins and ukuleles to the fore. The raucous, accelerating violins of Swing The Cat signals a brief change in pace before we get to hear the first of the four new tracks aired tonight.

It is these new tracks that come across as the most affecting pieces tonight. It is hard not to be struck by how each seems to have been individually descended from older Penguin Cafe Orchestra tracks (an observation the album further confirms). It is this what is so particularly moving about them, a familial, congenital quality running through each. An additional testament to them is how they seamlessly sit alongside the older material, retaining the curious ability to pull at the heartstrings. That, Not That is full of Steve Reich-esque piano sequences, as is following track Landau. On the latter the Northumbrian pipes of the album version are tonight successfully replicated on melodica, over more lines of pleasingly uneven piano.

The remainder of the set sees them concentrate on older material. Prelude & Yodel is sensitively reproduced as is Air A Danser, bobbing melodies skipping along and periodically tripping over themselves before regaining composure and continuing their musical journey. The use of Penguin Cafe Orchestra music in the soundtracking of films and television programmes has not dulled the vibrancy of pieces like Music For A Found Harmonium and Perpetuum Mobile. Tonight the former sounds like an Irish folk tune that has been inhabited by Philip Glass, and the latter’s encircling strings and piano motifs sound as beguiling as ever. Similarly, Telephone & Rubberband, quite ahead of its time in its employment of found-sounds and samples, sounds just as eccentric a little miniature as it did 30 years ago. Meanwhile the brittle acoustic strands of Paul’s Dance practically dance off the stage and the oblique, slowly rising strings of From A Blue Temple exhibit a darker, more ominous side to the ensemble.

They return to play an encore of two tracks, one new and one old that show just two of the sides to their multi-faceted sound. Jeffes takes to the stage alone to play Harry Piers, a piece of glittering, cascading solo piano that reaches several little apexes along the course of the four minutes, also recalling the quiet intensity of recent Nils Frahm releases. Salty Bean Fumble closes the show on a swaying, quirky note. Effectively, it is a microcosm of the evening, part profound beauty and part carefree fun and shows that with Penguin Cafe Arthur Jeffes is very much keeping the original spirit and character of his father’s outfit alive.

Penguin Cafe played: Dirt, From The Colonies, Swing The Cat, That, Not That, Landau, Prelude & Yodel, Air A Danser, Paul’s Dance, Music For A Found Harmonium, Southern Jukebox Music, From A Blue Temple, Sheep Dip, Perpetuum Mobile, Telephone & Rubberband, Giles Parnaby’s Dream, Bean Fields Encore: Harry Piers, Salty Bean Fumble