Category Archives: Rock Gigs

Courting live at the Cluny review – indie’s next big thing has room for improvement
28
Mar

The Liverpudlian post punkers’ live offering is rough around the edges and their fixation with heavy-handed autotune grates – but they do possess the sort of roof-demolishing closing number most bands can only dream of.

The Liverpudlian post punkers’ live offering is rough around the edges and their fixation with heavy-handed autotune grates – but they do possess the sort of roof-demolishing closing number most bands can only dream of.

“Everyone sing the chorus!” Sean Murphy-O’Neill ventures spontaneously in the closing stages of his band’s visit to Newcastle, eyes glinting with a boyish cockiness that rather overestimates the passion for Courting in this small crowd of mostly inebriated university students who will jump up and down to anything resembling a drum beat. Most seem to be here for the more daring shout-along choruses of the band’s debut album Guitar Music, a record filled with ample angry rap-singing and meaty bass riffs perfectly tailored to the tastes of a mostly young male demographic up and down the country. Courting aren’t quite leaders of the post punk pack (that would be Leeds’ red hot Yard Act, followed by Do Nothing and Squid) and their latest album aims for a broader indie rock appeal, but there’s still plenty of bangers to be written in this thriving subgenre. That said, Courting has some way to go to reach the mainstream, a fact that Murphy-O’Neill is reminded when no one sings said chorus. Ego visibly bruised, he hastens back to the mic to blurt out the next lyric. He needn’t fear, though – it takes a few more repeats of the refrain for the eager crowd to get the hang of the hook and soon enough Murphy-O’Neill is grinning and pointing his microphone at Fosters-wielding fans like Freddie Mercury.

You can only get such intimate crowd interactions at somewhere like the Cluny, hands down Newcastle’s finest small venue and an ideal underground cocoon to witness fresh bands like Courting navigate the early stages of their development. Discuss indie music with anyone in Newcastle and the Cluny will come up – this is where bands build their core followings before promotion to O2’s midsized venues across the country, which is why the continued loss of such venues to the cost of living crisis is such a tragedy. Luckily the Cluny, like Leeds’ Brudenell Social Club, seems to have enough word-of-mouth hype to keep it sustained for the time being, and the small dancefloor and seating area is packed by the time the five members of Courting are picking their way through the crowd and onto the stage (a wonderfully unceremonious entry you just don’t get at your local O2 Academy).

The ensuing 80 minutes is an odd mix of Courting’s contentious early punk and more recent, pop-facing indie rock tracks. Opener The Wedding is very much the latter, and despite a few earwormy lyrics (“oh, I’ve been a good boy on this track!”) never quite elevates beyond competent yet flavourless rock. The former, epitomised in a stroppy rendition of Tennis, was much better received, although had issues of its own – when there’s no melody for distraction, spoken lyrics like “You’re a night in the Holiday Inn / I’m a breakfast bar with an unusual toasting conveyor belt” just won’t cut it. What’s more, Murphy-O’Neill doesn’t even serve up a juicy Scouse accent. Instead we get the posh southern boy voice popularised by pre-2023 Black Country, New Road and, lacking that band’s immense musicality or lyrical genius, Courting end up sounding like a pale imitation of their Cambridge contemporaries.

Underpinning it all is an irritating penchant for incongruous autotune that is hard to ignore during a listen of Courting’s otherwise rewarding recent album, New Last Name. This is far from the first time Murphy-O’Neill has received this critique – earlier this tour he wrote on X that all complaints just prompt him to boost the autotune even further – but what Courting gain from the manipulated vocals besides some point of distinction from their contemporaries is unclear. They stand to lose plenty; most of the time it just sounds distractingly silly and only occasionally – like on the rousing The Hills – did the emotion in Murphy-O’Neill’s voice survive all that pitch-correction. Sure, robot-ified vocals can sound great on an electronic track, but accompanied by earthy electric guitars and a real drum kit it just sounds wrong.

Crowd work between songs was hit and miss. They introduced sparkly pop number We Look Good Together (Big Words) by asking the crowd to imagine a drunken night out in Tup Tup (after a quick poll established that Tup Tup was indeed to worst club in Newcastle) and managed to get couples to waltz during PDA (“More romantic! More romantic!”), which was just as well because the track was a clear dud that had been getting an unusually cold reception from the Cluny patrons. Less wise was a needless and unfunny attempt at improvising a story (each band member contributing one word at a time), plus the awkward silence when Murphy-O’Neill announced “we’ve only got one more song…”, the frontman not getting the consternation he’d clearly expected.

Other times, that touch of youthful insouciance injected some much needed fun to proceedings. There were brief renditions of Coldplay’s universally loved Yellow and Fun’s We Are Young (a little obvious given the demographic in the room yes, but I still wanted more), plus by far the best surprise of the night in a full cover of Olivia Rodrigo‘s riff-heavy rager Bad Idea, Right?. This rendition stripped away what little melody there was in the original and added nothing in its place, but the raucous crowd couldn’t care less – it was the track I had been waiting for to compel me into the mosh.

Bizarrely, a cover of a girly American popstar’s song would have been the highlight of the night had it not been for Flex, the undisputed jewel of Courting’s discography, which was rightly saved for the end. Murphy-O’Neill had rehearsed parting the crowd Moses-style before the song, presumably so he could get stuck into the mosh pit, but in the end he stayed onstage, perhaps surprised at just how dense and wild the crowd became. That was because Flex is a song perfectly designed for singalong hedonism, overflowing with simple, bulletproof melodies as well us some shrewdly placed quiet passages to let us catch our breaths. In its composition it deserves comparison to the ultimate indie anthem Mr. Brightside – like that Killers song, every note Murphy-O’Neill sings feels inevitable and timeless, even when the core refrain repeats rarely. Tonight’s rendition lacked the endearingly ragged trumpet solo of the studio recording, but the spine-tingling finale about partying the night away nonetheless summoned pandemonium. In the eye of the storm, I turned around to find myself surrounded by smiling faces of people celebrating their joy, their glorious freedom and, most of all, a shared love of really good indie rock song.

Flex left fans leaving on an enormous high not quite representative of the flawed songs and scrappy performances that made up most of the gig. They may still have plenty of room to grow, but there’s no denying that this band’s star is rising. Another of Murphy-O’Neill’s audience polls found that most of those in attendance hadn’t witnessed the band’s last visit to the Cluny a little over a year ago. A few more solid choruses in the vein of New Last Name and a little more (justified) confidence in their frontman and Courting will be all set to graduate the small venue stages. Let’s just hope that by the time they’re headlining O2 City Hall they’ve seen sense on the autotune front.

Squid live at Boiler Shop review – oddball post-punk casts a spell
3
Nov

Squid’s twisted, ugly brand of post-punk rock music was a perfect match for the industrial surroundings of Newcastle’s finest gigging venue for a set packed with interest and surprises, not least a theatrical twist at its climax.

Squid’s latest tour, in support of their critically acclaimed sophomore album O Monolith, begins with nothing but cowbells. Two rhythms weave immaculately together whilst drummer and frontman Ollie Judge gets comfortable on his stool, plinthed and silhouetted against a growing storm of technicolour stage lights. A buzzy, detuned synth loop arrives spectre-like, then an eerily off-kilter bass line and dizzying assemblage of dovetailing guitar lines. After a minute or two Louis Borlase lunges forward and unleashes a piercing guitar riff, his instrument scratching and screeching higher and higher, urging this monster of a song towards its startling finale. This is Swing (In a Dream), Squid’s fascinating set opener that serves as a head first dive into the strange, nightmarish underworld in which this band’s music resides, full of unhinged melodies and alien stretches of what can only be described as noise. It makes for unrelentingly challenging listening – unlike their similarly daring peers Black Midi, Squid aren’t tempted to throw in a delicate acoustic ballad just to keep the audience on their toes – but it is all utterly enthralling.

Ollie Judge’s endurance as both drummer and vocalist was impressive.

My friend Liam and I are in the thick of it. Despite arriving shortly after doors opened at Newcastle’s Boiler Shop, we’ve somehow secured the best spot in the venue, pressed against the barriers and right under the nose of a shadowy Judge, who is throned centre stage. With the masses of fans all behind us – Bristol group Squid have garnered a comparable cult following to the likes of Black Country, New Road in recent years – we can fully appreciate the perfectness of the venue, a bare and atmospherically lit former warehouse that seems built solely to recreate the dystopian future so vividly painted by Squid’s music. There’s plenty to look at on stage, too: five musicians and many more instruments. Borlase inhabits a small forest of synths on their stands; Laurie Nanivell makes use of a dedicated cowbell station when he’s not injecting songs with trumpet; Arthur Leadbetter has his own ring of synths, plus an electric cello for good measure. What’s more, it’s not all just eye-candy for music nerds like me; Squid’s ambitious compositions genuinely demand half the stock of the nearest Gear4music warehouse. It’s this vast choice of instrumentation that allows these songs to be so volatile, the band indulging in lengthy song transitions that veer towards the genre of ambient noise, full of indecipherable squeals of synth and undulating tides of electronic fuzz.

It’s in these off-script song transitions that Squid were their most daring and compelling. An early sortie in the preamble to Undergrowth was breathless, Judge emerging from a mist of guitar with a thumping dance groove that sounded like a warped version of Parcels in full nightclub mode. Then there was the song itself, with its heavy hip hop groove and sticky guitar hooks. “I’d rather melt, melt, melt, melt away,” Judge yelped in the chorus, competing with a honking trumpet amidst a superb, head-banging racket. Peel St. was another early highlight that emerged from experimental noise, the band miraculously turning what sounded like a jammed photocopier into one of the most lethal grooves they’ve ever dug their teeth into.

Louis Borlase played guitar and electronics whilst Arthur Leadbetter performed on electric cello.

It was all a bit too much for one man a few rows back from us, who used the few pauses in the music so impatiently shout the lyrics to Squid’s biggest hit, Narrator, at one point getting the crowd to clap distractingly during a quiet section of solo guitar. Liam and I saw him extricated from the crowd and awkwardly heaved over the barriers by half a dozen security a few songs later. “Sunday night… who would have thought it?” Judge mentioned quietly at one point, apparently in disapproval. Tellingly, it was one of the only things he said directly to the crowd all night.

It was a good thing that the five members of Squid were all far too absorbed in their craft to let a rude audience put them off. The crowd did at least elevate standout Documentary Filmmaker by singing along gleefully to a trumpet riff, then shouting along to Judge’s descriptions of a hot summer (“the sweat dripped off my plastic sheets”) during a suitably stifling climax. The biggest climax, however, was reserved for a deafening rendition of Siphon Song, which was helped by a more restrained use of the robot-like vocal manipulations that somewhat took the sting out of the studio recording. A patient outro that flickered like a dying ember gradually revealed Narrator, the track that many in the crowd will have been waiting for. It was a performance that was bound to fall short of the experience of listening to the original track for the first time – Martha Skye Murphy, whose blood-curdling screams in the finale make for one of the most disturbing pieces of rock I’ve ever heard, was of course not present at Boiler Shop – but Judge’s sheer vocal stamina in the epic crescendo was admirable, even if the song rather outstayed its welcome over the course of a nearly nine-minute runtime. Simultaneously drumming and singing (or, more accurately, wailing) for such a behemoth of a song was no mean feat.

Laurie Nankivell and Anton Pearson completed the lineup.

Whilst Squid’s sonic onslaught was sometimes overwhelming, they could never be accused of boring their audience. In Newcastle this was true right until the very end, with the awe-inspiring The Blades, which started with a clever reprise of the opening cowbell rhythms. Here lies perhaps the most memorable image of all Judge’s sinister lyrics: a drone operator sits alone and watches his screen that shows aerial images of people on the ground which he darkly reduces to “blades of grass waiting to be trimmed.” Judge repeated these menacing lyrics with increasingly uncontrolled yelps, as if playing the drone operator as he gradually loses his mind in the warfare, powerful trumpet melodies and wailing sirens exploding like bombs. It made for a violent depiction of mania that would be compelling even if it didn’t come at a time when war crimes are becoming depressingly common in the news.

Then came the twist. For the first time in the whole gig, Judge stepped out from behind his kit, untangled his microphone from its stand, and positioned himself at the very edge of the stage, almost within touching distance of Liam and me. “Back to bed / Another man’s hand on the joystick,” he almost whispered over dreamlike sustained guitar chords. He looked genuinely frightened, gazing nervously up to the metal rafters of the warehouse building while gradually tangling himself in his microphone cable. Judge – or, more accurately, his character – seemed defeated, lost, hopeless. It was a moment of intense theatre that would haunt me on the subsequent walk home and make me wish Judge had dug even deeper into the performance art that his evocative lyrics so easily lend themselves to. As the quiet final notes of this otherwise thunderous gig rang out, Judge stood alone centre-stage, incapacitated by his own microphone cord. The crowd had been rowdy all night, but something in Judge’s performance seemed to have genuinely struck a nerve. As the stage lights dimmed, all that was left of Squid’s concert was a stunned silence.

Penelope Scott & Lincoln live at the Deaf Institute review – agonisingly unprepared
27
Oct

A dejected, overwhelmed Lincoln set the scene for a thoroughly unprofessional showing from Penelope Scott, whose pitchy vocals and underwhelming songs made the hour feel like two.

Somewhere between Leeds and Manchester, the knot of anxiety in my stomach tightened. As the light outside the train window weakened, my apprehension of what was to come – namely a solo traversal of Manchester city centre by bus – strengthened. I am lucky to have travelled to far more exotic places than this, but something about the task of negotiating a ticket on the number 1 towards Wythenshaw from a no-nonsense Mancunian bus driver sent shivers down my spine. An egg sandwich bolted at a shady bus stop felt like battle fuel. Of course, as is almost always the case, there was absolutely nothing to worry about, although I had cut things finer than I anticipated, joining good friends Ewan and Isaac in the Deaf Institute’s bar queue with just enough time for hugs and Coke orders before the crowd cheered the night’s first performer onto the stage.

I wasn’t the only one feeling anxious that Wednesday night. Lincoln, a singer-songwriter from Ohio dealing in neatly packaged emo rock and painfully poetic lyrics, is the man responsible for what remains the finest EP I’ve ever heard, 2017’s A Constant State of Ohio. At five songs and 16 minutes long, there isn’t a single minute on Ohio where Lincoln loses his burning sense of creativity, with consistently thrilling songwriting and staggeringly stylish rock arrangements that belied the fact that it was his first – and for many years, only – official release, produced when he was still a teenager. It was this set of five tracks that caught the imaginations of 14-year-old Ewan and I, and we took to playing it in our high school’s only practice room, me bashing out the chords and bass lines on piano, Ewan playing guitar and singing along with all the heartfelt devotion that lyrics like these demand.

The fact that, somewhat out of the blue, Lincoln had booked a brief debut UK tour in support of Penelope Scott seemed too good to be true, and for those initial few minutes settling down in the beautifully restored Deaf Institute it still seemed ridiculous that this random American artist, adored by us and (more or less) us only, was just a matter of metres away from us. But there he was, plodding onto stage alone, head hung low and letting his now chest-length scraggly brown hair fall away in front of him, covering a wiry moustache that almost made Lincoln unrecognisable from the few, aged photos Ewan and I had seen of him online. Immediately, alarm bells were ringing. “There’s a lot of you here and… I’m not ready for this,” were his first tentative words, the crowd’s reaction gradually switching from laughter to intermittent cheers of encouragement as it became clear Lincoln wasn’t joking.

Right from those first words, it was obvious that Lincoln wouldn’t have the conviction to produce a satisfying support set, although circumstances didn’t help. Sat down and hunched over a guitar, he looked crushingly lonely on stage and needed other musicians not just for more visual interest but to beef out his songs – opener Smokey Eyes was a different song altogether without the spectacular drum fill intro that lights the touchpaper of the studio recording. Instead, Lincoln battled on alone, admirably pushing through what seemed like a genuine personal crisis but leaving little musical substance for the few fans like Ewan and I to cling to, even if Ewan proudly belted out every lyric in support anyway.

Lincoln had to battle through his set at the Deaf Institute.

Instrumentation aside, the lyrics remained extraordinary even if Lincoln often didn’t seem to enjoy delivering them. Lines like “quiet lies that you’re telling to those black and screaming skies” were appropriately spat out with disgust from the singer, as was Lincoln’s poetic assertion that “the sky is what we leave behind” on Downhill, which wrapped up this set powerfully as it did on the original EP. Not that Lincoln seemed at all aware of the effortless flow of his rhymes, instead rolling his eyes to the ceiling when they weren’t glued to his feet. He didn’t realise it, but they were songs that he had every right to be proud of.

It soon became clear exactly what he meant by “not ready”, too. Part of Lincoln’s apparent terror was the fact he had walked onto the stage without a plan, improvising a set list and often forgetting his lyrics. Every song seemed like a challenge to be overcome, and with awkward gap came the genuine risk that Lincoln might no longer be able summon the courage to continue at all. He needed the direct help of Ewan – easy to hear over a meek guitar intro – to find the opening line of Banks, a song that shouldn’t have been so difficult to remember; the stunning final four lines about the power and limitations of music and art in general remain etched in my memory since I first heard them years ago. As I would have the chance to insist on Lincoln later, if I was into tattoos, the lyric sheet of Banks would be my first point of call.

It wasn’t just Ewan unwaveringly powering Lincoln through this set, although they made up a big proportion of the most vocal supporters. Every song was cheered, every mumbled apology batted away with whoops and laughter and shouts of “we love you!” dotted around the room. When Lincoln cut his finger whilst strumming, one audience member even offered a plaster, symbolic of the band-of-friends atmosphere that had emerged in the Deaf Institute as we watched what felt like a mutual friend crumble in front of us. Of course, Lincoln declined the offer.

He finished the set with a subversion of the usual showman’s routine of lines like “I’m so sorry we’ve ran out of time” or “I can’t wait to see you all again soon!” Instead we got “I’m gonna get down off the stage. Can I do that?” It was a measure of the crowd’s sympathy that instead of the usual pantomime groans, the audience gave a loving, appreciative yes. With that Lincoln wiped his brow a final time, unplugged his guitar and slunk backstage.

Then something remarkable unfolded. Improbably, Ewan had acquired Lincoln’s personal email address in a thorough online trawl of the deepest corners of his elusive online presence in the weeks leading up to the gig, and had managed to persuade Lincoln into an exclusive interview for Ewan’s YouTube channel. After such a forlorn performance, the three of us wondered if he would appear after all, but sure enough Lincoln snuck out from a side door five minutes after leaving the stage, trailed by a lowkey stage manager. Venue security prohibited us from going outside, so the Deaf Institute’s atmospheric, gloomy stairwell would have to do for an interview venue. Lincoln Lutz from Cincinnati, Ohio is hardly Ed Sheeran, but meeting the creator of one of my most treasured works of art felt special. Ewan asked the questions (just as disbelieving as me), Isaac filmed and I positioned myself in a corner, trying to take it all in. Conversation veered chaotically from allusions to years of drug addiction and a sharp decline in mental health (about which Lincoln described himself as becoming “not a person”) to his newfound appreciation of the Manchester fruit juice delicacy Vimto. He was so addicted to nicotine that the transatlantic flight to the UK was a huge struggle, he would later tell me. When asked for wise words from Ewan, “don’t do crack!” was the half-jokey response, a sadness detectable in his muted laughter.

Ewan managed to grab a signature on their vinyl sleeve of Ohio before returning to the concert hall just in time for the appearance of the night’s main act, Penelope Scott. She is one of a new breed of TikTok star, unusual for having gained millions of monthly listeners with little to no mainstream coverage. Perhaps her wild success is down to just how much the Internet age dominates her music, which sounds like a corrupted, freakish video game soundtrack, restlessly lurching from punk rock to cutesy acoustic guitar to plodding 8-bit synths with a joyous disregard for the traditional rules of hit making.

There’s a limit to the mind-boggling numbers, though. The Deaf Institute, for one thing, is a humbling venue, housing just 250 fans at its capacity. Artists with her volume of streams – albeit largely coming from American shores – can at least aim for Gorilla’s 550 capacity, or perhaps even the 1,500 capacity O2 Ritz across the road (incidentally a venue which hosts the abysmally named Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs at the end of the month, a traditionally established metal band with a poxy 60,000 monthly listeners on Spotify). Alas, it seems streaming numbers aren’t everything in today’s gigging circuit. In fact, often they can be completely misleading.

Penelope Scott was in desperate need of a band to support her songs.

Scott’s lack of a backing band was perhaps even more underwhelming than Lincoln’s, largely neutering the tumultuous edge of much of Scott’s louder tracks. Feel Better, for instance, is home to Scott’s most impolite punk riff and was duly screamed in Manchester, but ended up sounding impotent with minimal support behind Scott’s vocals. More often the songs resembled a campfire singalong on a school residential trip, complete with awkward chat between songs and a proudly singing crowd that often drowned out Scott’s weedy amplification. The whiny vocals, invariably pitchy and occasionally nauseating, would have been acceptable from an overconfident middle schooler, but at a show like this were simply below the bare minimum required from a headline act. It was a shame there was no supervising schoolteacher to tell Scott that maybe it was time to give it a rest.

It didn’t help that the songs Scott was singing lacked much of Lincoln’s depth, often reading like stream of consciousness posts from a 15-year-old American girl’s Tumblr page. American Healthcare was typical of Scott’s general rage at the establishment without being able to pin down any specifics beyond scorn towards all those “corporate fucking pricks”. “I bet my shit all sounds the same to you,” she railed at an unappreciative ex on genuinely promising new piano number Cabaret, unaware that, at least when she restricts herself to plonky piano songs and flimsy mid-range vocals, the guy might actually have a point.

The real nail in the coffin, though, was the dearth of professionalism on show. Like Lincoln, although with a less obvious excuse, Scott seemed to have no plan when it came to a set list, nor even when it came to what key to play her songs in; at one point she completely restarted a song after deciding the starting note ought to be a bit lower. Instrumental sections were needlessly injected with lines like “just bear with me here” and “ooh I like this bit” as her tempos veered faster and slower like a bucking bronco.

The evening’s nadir came when Someone Like You began playing through the speakers after Scott left her laptop playing on shuffle after one backing track had finished. I say nadir – it might have been the musical highlight of the night had Scott just sat back and let the Adele classic ring out. Instead, she fumbled her way to the back of the stage and instructed us to talk amongst ourselves as she wrangled with her audio files for two excruciating minutes. As Isaac and Ewan pointed out, it was hardly Mitski-level artistry. With a bored-looking Soap, Scott’s set was over, an hour long reminder that sometimes TikTok success just doesn’t make sense.

The three of us lingered in the venue until security told us to leave. I was surprised by how much passionate Scott fans Ewan and Isaac agreed with my general disappointment. The gig had left a bitter aftertaste for us all given the toils involved in getting to Manchester on a Wednesday night in the first place. Ewan slipped backstage and bumped into both performers whilst Isaac and I waited outside, Ewan eventually emerging with a pizza-hungry Lincoln following behind. We stood in line with Lincoln at Domino’s – a genuinely surreal experience – before relocating to a shady bench where we chatted happily despite the growing chill and the unsettling number of beggars approaching us. We said our goodbyes to Lincoln at midnight and walked to Piccadilly still in disbelief. Ewan seemed dazed after a meaningful conversation with a deeply influential musical hero, leaving Isaac and I to be giddy on their behalf. The journey home would be gruelling, but discussing the most impossible events of the night – Lincoln referring to Ewan as a friend, the fact the embattled Lincoln had even agreed to chat in the first place – it was clear to all of us that this venture had been worth it, albeit for everything besides the music.

Theo Katzman live at Òran Mór review – Vulfpeck’s showman gets spiritual
16
Oct

On a damp and dreary night in Glasgow, Theo Katzman showcased his exemplary songwriting and impressive technique despite a set bloated with solos in one of those gigs overshadowed by my own circumstances.

Another gig, another nervous train journey. This time I was gazing out the window somewhere on Scotland’s central belt, the outside world so uniformly dark it was genuinely difficult to tell whether or not the train was passing through one very long tunnel on the way to Glasgow. I’d already had plenty of excitement for a Tuesday night – I sprinted in a failed attempt to catch an earlier train in Edinburgh, my overnight bag bouncing uncomfortably on my back – but the biggest challenge was to come: making it to the renovated church of Òran Mór in Glasgow’s West End before American singer-songwriter Theo Katzman took to the stage bright and early at 8.15 p.m.. Glasgow was damp and gloomy but jogging through the dimly glowing backstreets in search of the flat where my friend Fionn was waiting for me felt enjoyably like a movie, at least until I soaked my trainers in a puddle. I buzzed in to find a nervous Fionn, and understandably so. He’d had to buy a dodgy ticket online in the days leading up to the gig and was, crushingly, denied entry on the door. Neither of us had the guts to do a runner – this was, in truth, hardly a high-security venue – so we just stood there stunned for a few minutes, waiting for a solution to reveal itself which never came. Only when we heard the cheers heralding Katzman’s punctual appearance were we triggered to say a sad goodbye and part ways. Fionn made the 10 minute walk home alone whilst I shuffled into the already stuffy Òran Mór to find almost nowhere to get a good view. I settled on a spot just in front of the bar, my view of the main man largely obscured by pillars, and tried to focus on the music.

It was in these circumstances that I first saw Theo Katzman in person. His was the third name on my bucket list of Vulfpeck members to see live after prolific guitarist Cory Wong and fabled bassist Joe Dart, who happened to be stood right next to Katzman in Glasgow, the glints from his customary sunglasses dazzling even in the short glimpses I got from the back of the room. A guitarist, vocalist and drummer for Vulfpeck, Katzman’s showmanship instincts have sometimes felt squashed in that band by the zany presence of frontman Jack Stratton, but whilst Vulfpeck have taken an extended hiatus Katzman has grasped the opportunity to show the world exactly what he’s made of. Showing up tonight sporting a skew-whiff oversized baseball cap and loose, exposing denim jacket, Katzman has always felt a little different from the rest of the Vulfpeck gang, even if he can funk just as hard as the rest of ‘em. His distinctive take on country rock has only the barest resemblance to Vulfpeck, the link most clear in those moments he opts for a particularly perky funk bass line or indulges in a gleeful, improvised falsetto run. Lyrically, Katzman’s solo discography is so smartly written and heartfelt it makes you wonder what heights that Michigan band might have scaled if they chose to sing about something more stimulating than self aware ducks and whales with feet.

Katzman arrived in this damp Scottish city after, like many of contemporaries, having undertaken something of a creative (and, perhaps, personal) reinvention during the pandemic. He spent much of his chat during this gig discussing a formative year or two alone in the wild woods of the American midwest, doing little else than simply “thinking”. He cut himself off from the Internet for long periods, becoming self-sufficient and discovering the counterintuitive yet ever trendy hobby of extreme cold water swimming. It all amounted to a spiritual awakening that seemed destined to result in either powerfully profound or powerfully pretentious new material. A monologue played through the speakers as the band took to the stage in which a disembodied Katzman espoused the “universal law” that “everything in nature has a cost” and insisted that “we ourselves are nature,” dangerously teetered towards the latter, although in the remaining brief speeches that would pepper the rest of the gig Katzman came across as far more a humbly passionate advocate of spirituality than a self-absorbed ‘enlightened one’.

That said, Katzman’s latest album, Be The Wheel, is hardly a George Harrison-level musical departure from his earlier work, the change instead making itself clear in a notable decrease in the specificity of his lyrics. The title track and Hit The Target got things moving in Òran Mór, and although Katzman’s calls to “be the wheel” and “put down the pistol” seem indecipherable to anyone other himself, there was plenty to love in the consistently interesting composition, particularly than it came to the writhing retro synth in the latter track. 5-Watt Rock was an outlier in its directness – an endearing, self-aware tale about wooing a lover despite an underpowered guitar amp – but was tellingly one of the most enjoyable tracks of the night, the harmonised group vocals in that unforgettable chorus sounding even more glorious in the flesh.

Katzman performed to a sold out Òran Mór.

Katzman was blessed with a stellar live band, not least when it came to Mr. Dart, who is as far as I’m concerned one of the finest bassists active today. They were kept busy with a daunting quantity of solos – almost every song found eight bars to lend to one of the musicians who, whilst clearly very capable performers, occasionally struggled to justify every departure from the standard rock formula. At their best these improvisations were transformative – Dave Mackay’s blues blast on piano on Trump-bashing You Could Be President was a thing to behold – but other times, like on 5-Watt Rock, the solos added little to the original. At least Dart’s superfluous diversion on She’s In My Shoe added a degree of interest to an otherwise uninspiring plodder. Still, we were left wanting more – the cutting of a few solos would have been a small price to pay had Dart or one of his bandmates been given enough airtime to fully explore his instrument within a single song.

The new material may have its fair share of duds, but there’s no disputing what an exceptional songwriter Katzman is – unmatched by any of his Vulfpeck peers. The remarkable What Did You Mean (When You Said Love) is his best song and he knows it, drawing it out in Glasgow with a pretty yet convoluted piano intro followed by a stripped-back, overly theatrical first verse that showcased both Katzman’s expressive vocals and the song’s undulating harmonic foundations. Virtually every phrase was followed by an increasingly dramatic pause, culminating in a lengthy silence that verged on mick-taking before the band’s entry. “Do it, ya bastard!” one unmistakably Glaswegian man couldn’t help but blurt out from the back, somewhat puncturing all the romantic tension Katzman had worked so hard to construct, even if he had been playful about it. He did, eventually, “do it”, throwing in a jazz piano solo and rampaging electric guitar solo for good measure. The song came out perhaps a little overcooked, stretching out into a six minute epic, but if any Katzman song can withstand this sort of abuse, it’s this one. The Death of Us came as a welcome contrast, the sticky funk groove light on its feet yet still offering an electrifying extended jam that had these five musicians operating at the peak of their powers.

Katzman’s unwaveringly earnest inter-song talks about the new worldview he acquired during that forest retreat were hit and miss. A speech about bravery before You Gotta Go Through Me was genuinely compelling, Katzman urging us to take that crucial first step outside our comfort zones, starting tomorrow morning; cue a muted applause. “Yeah, that one never goes down that well,” he admitted. It was a pity that all the oration came as a prelude to one of Katzman’s sleepier numbers, but at least the song gave me a chance to make the most of my back row spot and get hold of a queue-free delayed Coke. There were also a lot of ‘prayers’ at play: The Only Chance We Have was “a prayer for listening”, followed by Corn Does Grow, which was both a “prayer for nature” and “a prayer for us”. Really, Corn Does Grow was just a rollicking country rock song, delivered in Glasgow without the excessive vocal distortion of the studio recording. Instead, there was the most head-banging guitar solo of the night and plenty of intense riffing – by the end, the temperature in an already stifling Òran Mór seemed to have gone up a degree or two.

Rip-roaring new tune Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day was the best surprise of the night, Katzman asking desperately “but how long did it take to fall down?” as chugging drums and guitars gathered pace around him. The other uptempo Rome-themed song in Katzman’s canon, As the Romans Do, would have made for a worthy finale but instead we got That’s The Life, a disappointingly middle-of-the-road choice of closing number but a neat encapsulation of the Katzman appeal, with lyrics about searching for life’s purpose set to the sound of a light-hearted hoe down. Heads bobbed politely in the crowd in front of me, but there was a sense that we weren’t quite seeing Katzman at his uninhibited best.

It was still drizzling when I found Fionn waiting outside for me, needlessly apologetic. I joked that it had been a rubbish gig anyway, but it was true that Fionn’s absence hadn’t been the only disappointment of the night. Katzman remains a consummate entertainer – his free-wheeling falsetto feats were so consistently remarkable it became easy to take them for granted – but it seems when he found himself in the woods he partly lost sight of what made his music so much fun – namely uncomplicated, joyous rock hooks. Unlike a good deal of his contemporaries, Katzman has plenty of worthwhile things to say, but on this sad night in Glasgow I was left wishing he’d let the music do more of the talking.

boygenius live at the Piece Hall review – has Halifax ever seen anything like this?
3
Sep

On a first night in a glistening Piece Hall, the three individually lauded American songwriters brought almost unprecedented star power to humble old Halifax. Euphoric rock anthems and heartbreakingly fragile ballads had the superfans in raptures during a gig almost derailed by mass faintings.

For the most part, there was little remarkable about the list of boygenius’ tour dates this summer. For an act so widely popular – the trio may have only one album under the moniker boygenius but Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus each have well-established solo catalogues, particularly serial Grammy nominee Bridgers – the magnitude of the supergroup’s bookings is hardly surprising. There’s a few arena stops in Denmark and Germany, a healthy contingent of A-league festivals (Paris’ Rock en Seine, Belgium’s vast Pukkelpop) and a night each at expansive open air park venues in London and Dublin. And, in the midst of it all, there’s a two night residency in… Halifax? It looks like a copy-paste typo. The fact that these bona fide global superstars have any time at all for this West Yorkshire town of 80,000 is remarkable enough, but the fact that they are staying for two nights (the only repeat billing of the entire tour) seems utterly bizarre.

The only explanation is the Piece Hall. The historic Georgian cloth hall and enduring architectural marvel was only adapted into an eye-catching summer music venue last year and its wide courtyard, nestled amongst the looming Calderdale hills, has already attracted plenty of big names including Sting, Madness, George Ezra, Noel Gallagher and Jessie Ware, who said it was like playing in Venice. It seems she may have over-egged that one for the crowd – there are no Titian masterworks to see here – but still the sense of grandeur that comes with the Piece Hall has increasingly drawn the world’s biggest artists away from the traditional arena venues in adjacent Leeds and Manchester. Now with two sold out nights from boygenius wrapping up a summer of 21 headliners on the giant, Glasto-style canopy stage, Halifax is cementing its position on the global touring map and a tempting contender for any artist’s obligatory north of England date.

Fans lined the hilly streets of Halifax long before the band took to the stage.

It wasn’t just in the diaries of boygenius trio that this Halifax concert stood out. For me too, this was clearly one of my premier gigging fixtures of the year. Besides the remarkable venue and excellent company of my friend Isaac (who, like all the best concert companions, came to Halifax just as paralytically excited as I was) there was the small matter of the band themselves who, two releases into their joint careers, simply have yet to release a bad song. I have already waxed lyrical about Phoebe Bridgers’ intimate songcraft on this blog, but in boygenius she is only one third of the appeal. Bridgers’ silky soft vocals are complemented by Lucy Dacus’ sonorous baritone that purrs like a cello. Then there’s the punky flavour of Julien Baker’s contribution, whose vocals inveriably teeter between a vulnerable whimper and an embattled roar, best served on top of a thorny mess of electric guitars. If boygenius fans come for one thing, however, it’s not the music but the words. All three band members could double as poets and deal in lyrics that are both poignant and thoughtful but strikingly specific and direct. It scarcely takes a second listen for the full emotional weight of a boygenius song to hit home, perhaps surprisingly considering how bookish the three of them are; a trip to London a day before tonight’s gig wasn’t complete without a visit to Brick Lane Bookshop, where they emerged with tote bags bulging with Tolstoy and Camus.

As Ethel Cain’s rather one-note supporting set came and went, I clearly wasn’t the only one in the venue feeling overwhelmingly excited for what was about to unfold. The first fainting happened a short distance from us in a dense area of the crowd, forcing Cain to pause and wait for the medical crew to shoulder their way into the crowd just as she was going up through the gears of showpiece epic Thoroughfare. Perhaps there was something in the air: I consider myself quite well accustomed to a touch of pre-gig hysteria, but 20 minutes before the trio finally took to the stage I was shaking so uncontrollably I genuinely wondered if I’d be the next embarrassed visitor to the medical tent. At one point during the several hours of waiting a few spots of rain threatened to become a shower. “I would be here even if it was snowing,” Isaac told me with complete conviction.

Without You Without Them worked as a sort of pre-match national anthem, every last word bellowed proudly by the thousands in attendance.

At long last, at 9:20, the “boys” took to the Piece Hall stage to the sound of deafening screams. The trio could have hardly made a better start with a capella stunner Without You Without Them, sang into a single mic and performed just behind the stage curtain with a live video of the group beamed onto a giant LED screen. It was instantly sublime, the song working perfectly as a sort of pre-match national anthem, every last word bellowed proudly by the thousands in attendance, hands on hearts. A moving hymn to ancestry, here it was repurposed as a statement of intent, with audience and performers promising each other to “give everything I’ve got”. In a brief moment of calm before the storm our eyes were glued to the screen as Baker closed her eyes in utter concentration and Bridgers rested her head on Dacus’ wide shoulders in apparent bliss. No sooner had the final notes been sung did the camera jerkily follow the three women briefly through some backstage rigging and, lo and behold, boygenius stood before us, in the flesh. They ripped straight into earthy rock banger $20, a transition that sounded electrifying enough on their recent album. In person, it made for one of the most exhilarating opening one-twos I’ve ever witnessed. A swift switch into a thunderous rendition of Satanist, another of the band’s riff-heavy rock numbers, rouned off a breathtaking opening ten minutes.

Whilst the stream of rock anthems weren’t to last, what did endure throughout the set was the undeniable and frankly adorable chemistry between the three performers. Here was a trio so close to one another that they had no qualms releasing a song squarely titled We’re In Love, and it only takes watching one hilariously aloof interview with the three of them to realise just how much they mean it. In Halifax they were wise to avoid the temptations of any sort of script between songs, instead joking casually about Halifax being the lesbian capital of Britain (“so that’s why there’s so many of you!”) and gamely allowing themselves to be mocked when the usual “YORKSHIRE!” chant didn’t quite get through (“is that like a college or a state or something?” Baker ventured).

The chat was a necessary tonic to the introspective and serious songs, which only became more emotionally draining as the night went on. Cool About It, a tasteful interpolation of Simon & Garfunkel’s The Boxer, was an early highlight, with the singers taking a verse each before finally joining in crisp harmony. Bridgers got the final and most tragic verse about taking a friend’s medication and realising just how bad things have got. “Now I have to act like I can’t read your mind,” Bridgers sang in near-whisper before being joined by a banjo and her two bandmates in a final crescendo as restrained and understated as all the secrets Bridgers seems to be struggling to hide. Emily I’m Sorry, another gentle heartbreaker with Bridgers’ songwriting fingerprints all over it, was similarly exquisite, her lilting melody ushered along by a comforting shimmer of electronic toms.

$20 made for a sensational curtain raiser

In fact, boygenius’ performances may have gotten a little too good for the obsessed fans near the front. It may have been the pristine harmonies and the countless tattoo-able lyrics that had audience members dropping like flies, or more likely the gruelling ten-plus hours of standing required for the best spots, but either way all the fainting stripped boygenius’ set of all its momentum on multiple occasions. Both Anti-Curse and breezy Souvenir had to be interrupted for several minutes, leaving awkward silences that even these three best friends struggled to smooth over with filler chat. Of course, stopping the songs at the first signs of distress is absolutely the right thing to do – post Astroworld disaster, artists can’t and mustn’t take any chances – but there was no getting away from the building disappointment for the average, adequately hydrated boygenius fan. There were unrelated sound issues too at one point when the band took a few minutes to realise their mics had suddenly cut off, and a promising up-tempo unreleased song came out muddy and thick, with vocals buried deep beneath an out of control kick drum.

Increasingly, it was a relief when a song was played in full, without incident. Mercifully, True Blue emerged unscathed, a shimmering slow burn love song led by Dacus that serenely flowed out and over the crowd like a warm summer’s breeze. The twisted indie rock of Bite the Hand also built with alluring patience. A song ostensibly about obsessive fans and the perils of parasocial relationships, it proved to be fitting for tonight’s audience and was smartly paired with live camera feeds of the front row fans passionately singing along. “I can’t love you how you want me to,” they chanted on the big screen, hanging on every word and yet not seeming aware that the song was about them.

Togetherness, connection, unbridled joy: Not Strong Enough is why I go to concerts.

A well-judged set list – although boygenius couldn’t go far wrong by playing every single song they’ve released, plus three more from their solo discographies – ramped things up as the darkness thickened over Calderdale with both the most intensely loud and quiet songs of the night. Fan favourite Me & My Dog was most definitely the former and saw Bridgers belt out some new high notes at the climax, thrillingly edging towards to the upper limit of her range in an exhilarating change from her trademark dreamlike whisper. Bridgers also led the way on that song’s far more delicate sister track Letter to an Old Poet, urging the crowd to put down their phone cameras just for one song and largely getting obeyed. It was a well timed request and helped crushing lines like “you make me feel like an equal / But I’m better than you” cut deep into the soul. With none of the glitz of flashing stage lights or a sea of paparazzi, Bridgers suddenly looked completely exposed, badly hurt but resolute in search of hope. “I can’t feel it yet, but I’m waiting,” she concluded, pausing for several seconds on that final word and leaving this delirious crowd of fainting fans in a precious stunned silence, if only for a moment.

Letter might have been the highlight of the whole show had it not been followed by Not Strong Enough, a belting, sunkissed country rock number and strong contender for song of the year. As that ecstatic chorus arrived, Isaac and I were lucky to find ourselves in a pocket of equally thrilled fans to jump up and down alongside. Suddenly it was as if we were staying still and it was the world that was bouncing along to the beat. The words had the sort of lines that we didn’t scream along with just because we knew them but because we believed in them too. The chorus’ subtly profound declaration of “I don’t know why I am the way I am” seemed to be echoed by thousands of fans all coming to the freeing realisation that not all of their flaws and idiosyncrasies have to make sense. Togetherness, understanding, unbridled joy: this is why I go to concerts.

A live audience cam was a clever addition to Bite the Hand

Perhaps at this point the three should have quit whilst they were ahead, taken a big bow and headed backstage to start planning tomorrow’s day trip to the Brontë Parsonage. There was still Salt In The Wound left to be played however, both the slowest and loudest track the three have up their immaculate matching blazer sleeves. It provided an over-the-top finish (stage smoke billowed, guitars wailed, two of the trio tried an uncomfortable looking crowdsurf) but beneath the showmanship the band seemed tired, especially Bridgers whose vocals frayed at the peak of the crescendo and who never quite gave all the gusto that a track like this demands. Still, it did the trick of unequivocally wrapping things up with smooches all round from the three performers, much to the delight of the disproportionately LGBTQ crowd.

You can imagine the designers of Halifax station didn’t have a boygenius concert in mind when they devised the narrow platform that Isaac and I soon found ourselves on along with hoardes of fans bound for Leeds and Bradford. As it happened, a slice of luck earned us two seats at the end of the next eastbound train, complete with good live entertainment of the sardine action whilst the driver lamented over the telecom that the platform was so choked with people he didn’t feel it was safe to pull away from the station. It seemed clear that – at least before the Piece Hall launched as a large venue last year – Halifax station has never seen crowds like this at quarter to 11 on an otherwise unremarkable Tuesday night. boygenius’ set had been occasionally extraordinary, but there was a sense that even better nights await for the newest musical destination in the north. Let’s hope next time these fans remember to bring plenty of water.

Prince Daddy & the Hyena live at the Key Club review – a hit and run blast of mayhem
1
Jul

Straightjacketed into a fleeting 45 minute set, this performance from the New York emo rockers was agonisingly defined by all the great songs they neglected. At least the berserk crowd didn’t seem to mind.

Standing in line outside the Key Club, it felt almost as if the pandemic never happened. Just like we did in 2019, me and my friend Ewan were discussing the latest developments of curiously named New York emo rock band Prince Daddy & the Hyena ahead of their performance a few hours later, shivering a little in the queue outside Merrion Street’s KFC. Seeing so many fellow fans of one of our favourite niche bands was still a thrill, as was the fact that Kory Gregory, a loveable frontman worth rooting for, was once again awaiting us somewhere deep within the building we stood next to. If it weren’t for my new Prince Daddy t-shirt or Ewan’s new hairdo it might have looked like nothing had changed at all in the intervening four years.

The Key Club brought a nice familiarity for us (we’d even both played an early Ewy gig on the Key Club stage) but it would perhaps be less welcome to Prince Daddy themselves, who have evidently made little forward progress in terms of popularity across the pond in recent years. Cosmic Thrill Seekers, a somewhat overambitious but nonetheless hugely rewarding concept album, felt like the talk of the town back in 2019 but in reality it struggled when it came to streaming numbers, perhaps due to the inaccessibility of an album made up of three through-composed opuses, each confusingly assigned three different names. Last year’s self-titled album was somewhat better received but the hard truth is that this band remains confined to the cosy Key Club, a suitably all-black underground dungeon of indie rock, with ceiling pipes low enough for crowd surfers to hang off during the most raucous performances. Even more humblingly, just as in 2019 Prince Daddy are still reduced to a split-billing for this evening’s show, this time playing second fiddle to labelmates Origami Angel (who haven’t even toured the UK before!).

(C’mon & Smoke Me Up )concluded with a deeply satisfying thump à la Beethoven.

A notably more excitable crowd than the group’s last visit to Leeds seemed to be the extent of their career progress. “You guys weren’t like this last time; I love it!” frontman Kory Gregory giggled early on. His surprise was understandable – the crowd this evening was remarkable. Virtually every song incited a riot: think limbs flying, mosh pits swirling, sweaty heads thrashing about in ecstacy. Even the slower songs gave fans the urge to climb up onto stage (refreshingly free of overscrupulous security guards) and leap outwards onto the hands of their comrades. At one point a mosh circle formed before Gregory had even started a song, before hilariously deflating when the song in question turned out to be the only slow ballad of the night. Plus, of course, there were plenty of garbled chants of “Yorkshire!”, seemingly shouted as much from Leeds tribalism as an attempt to confuse Americans for the fun of it (Jeff Rosenstock and cleopatrick have been similarly baffled on previous visits to the great city).

A boot to the head seemed the most likely injury during Prince Daddy’s blistering set.

Unfortunately for the average spectator, the main consequence of Prince Daddy’s recent mediocre self-titled album is that the big hits of their early albums are now spread few and far between in their live set. Ewan and I should have been worried when a fellow fan showed us the rumoured set list before the show: material from that latest album formed the bulk of a set, including several of the less remarkable corners of the Prince Daddy discography. Do we really need the forgettable, broad brush indie rock of Shoelaces or Jesus Fucking Christ? Did the utterly limp 90-second non-song Something Special really deserve a look in to an already selective set list? Sweeping ballad Curly Q was an inevitable inclusion but no less underwhelming, with a sickly sweet chorus so whiny and uninspiring it almost pacified the rabid crowd in the Key Club. Keep Up That Talk was the exception to the rule, boasting a whiplash-inducing finale that surely marks the most thrilling 40 seconds of guitar music Gregory has penned to date. It was that riff-filled rush that compelled me back amongst the moshers at the front after spending more songs than I would have liked waiting at the sidelines for a worthwhile banger to come along. Bouncing up and down in and embracing the chaos seemed the only way to properly enjoy a song that felt like hitting maximum velocity on a rollercoaster.

The problem for Prince Daddy wasn’t just that their set included so many middling songs, but that so many great songs were left unplayed. Only three songs from their debut album, I Thought You Didn’t Even Like Leaving, made the cut despite the fact virtually any song from that record could have maximised the bedlam in the Key Club. Expansive showpiece ballad Really? was featured somewhat grudgingly in abridged form, leading to palpable disappointment in the audience when the band swiftly moved on to another boilerplate cut from the latest album. I Forgot To Take My Meds Today still bites hard, but equally venomous sister tracks like Clever Girl, Pop Song or the delightfully named I Wish I Could Ctrl+alt+del My Life all were left neglected.

It had been barely 45 minutes, but the sweat-drenched faces in attendance resembled a few hours in the Amazon rainforest.

If anyone shared my disappointment in the room it didn’t show. It was lift off from song one, perhaps powered by the knowledge that the band would likely be gone for another several years in well under an hour. Enveloped in the mayhem, most of us were too busy to catch the detail of smartly constructed thrasher Klonopin or the even neater C’mon & Smoke Me Up, which concluded with a deeply satisfying instrumental cadence that landed with a thump à la Beethoven. El Dorado, lead single and obvious standout from the self-titled, was always destined to be compelling live, yet in Leeds the relatively sedate tempo – and awkward placement right at the end of the set – meant the crowd failed to ignite to Gregory’s punchy chorus. For a band with plenty of fiery candidates for closing number (not least two awe-inspiring album closers in Really? and Wacky Misadventures of the Passenger), this was a poor choice that left the crowd desperate for a proper finale that never came, regardless of how well executed El Dorado‘s breakdown was.

Virtually every song was greeted with stage divers.

By the time we had reached that muted end it had been barely 45 minutes, but the sweat-drenched faces in attendance resembled a few hours in the Amazon rainforest. To discuss exclusively the performance of the band is to ignore half of the experience – and probably the most important half. To a large extent, the crowd was the main spectacle at this gig. Stage invasions got so frequent that Origami Angel had to halt their subsequent set to instruct the fans towards an open space on stage so people would stop treading on Ryland Heagy’s guitar pedals.

What was most clear throughout was the kindness in the crowd running just beneath the surface. Rock naysayers looking in from the outside may see it as a brutal, angry mess of primal emotion. To some extent it may be, but the act of collectively lifting a stranger above your head feels more obviously an act of communal human love. Over the course of the night, fans of all shapes, sizes and genders found themselves surfing the waves of hands, each one of them eventually lowered down with care to the ground wherever they ended up and often congratulated by the strangers around them with broad smiles and enthusiastic hand horns. Even when simply jumping into each other in the pit, the first rule of moshing is to immediately lift up anyone around you who falls over – an intervention urgently required on a few occasions this evening.

It’s difficult to know what might have unfolded had Prince Daddy been at their propulsive best. Gregory may well have concluded in advance that the rip-roaring, deafening metal of the brilliant Hollow As You Figured would have likely led to some sort of structural damage to the Key Club foundations. That said, the disparity between the band’s humble billing and the eagerness of the crowd was baffling. With a fanbase like this, could the New Yorkers really not fill out this smallish basement on their own with a more comprehensive 90 minute set? It may well be another four years before we find out.

Florence + the Machine live at first direct Arena – cult queen reassembles her army
9
Jun

Florence Welch’s outstanding 2022 album Dance Fever dominated proceedings for a thrilling, theatrical Saturday night performance in Leeds. Knowingly the subject of cultish devotion, Welch’s return was a celebration of collective pandemic persistence.

Five songs passed before Florence Welch addressed the elephant in the room. “What the fuck is this?!” she asked, mimicking all the understandably baffled new Florence + the Machine fans in the room. “Is it a cult? Is it safe?” she bellowed with a distinctively melodious voice that has helped secure herself as a mainstay of British pop-rock for over a decade now. The confusion of the uninitiated fans she was gently mocking was easy to understand; virtually every other fan amongst the 13,000 that stood before Welch donned flowy dresses and delicate flower crowns that gave a certain Midsommar undercurrent to proceedings. The adulation in the room towards Welch was not the usual flavour of popstar devotion, but instead a deeper, softer sense of worship, with those that got a close brush with the star on her frequent jaunts off stage preferring to stare lovingly and intensely into her eyes rather than paw at her in desperation or lob a tampon à la Harry Styles. Often alone on the stage in a stunning, flowy white gown, Welch sang of grand Biblical images: resurrections, sacrifices, prayers, demons and societal collapse, her army of followers clinging on to every sharply crafted lyric. For all the new fans worried they’d signed up for some sort of indoctrination, Welch was quick to provide plenty of reassurance. “You’ll be absolutely fine as long as you do everything I say,” she informed us, letting a maniacal giggle slip out.

Experiencing such universal respect for one woman made it easy to forget that Welch’s cult didn’t form overnight. Since instant smash debut album Lungs in 2009, Welch (and it is, for all intents and purposes, just Welch – “the Machine” keep such a curiously low profile I didn’t realise they even existed before researching for this post) has been a regular in UK charts, her success powered by a handful of hits from that first album that hopped onto the broad late-noughties folk revival with its endearing hand claps and prominent harp plucking. Things turned up a notch last year in 2022 with the release of Dance Fever, a No. 1 album and probably her finest to date, with its gritty classic rock bangers balanced skilfully with introspective pandemic-era hymns.

Dozens of feathery white chandeliers rose about Welch during King

Much of the night was rightly dedicated to Dance Fever, the show opening with the fanfare-like chant of Heaven Is Here, Welch appearing with angelic spectacle thanks to the blinding white lights behind her. It was a spectacular start despite coming minutes after I’d assured my friend Isaac that the huge message of “CHOOSE LOVE” displayed on the screen beforehand was not just a message from Welch but the name of a second support act. Perhaps I still wasn’t mentally ready when spine-tingling album opener King kicked into gear, the soaring, earth-shattering finale not sounding as all-encompassing as I had hoped – at least from our perch at the first direct Arena’s third floor. It didn’t help that Welch’s mic cut out mid-song, shattering the sense of grand, serious theatre generated by Heaven Is Here. Welch of course had plenty enough poise to deal with the situation as a panicked stagehand rushed on to help – falling off stage and fracturing her foot didn’t stop her from finishing an entire show in November last year – but the gig had nonetheless got off to an unnervingly shaky start.

The dust of the unsure opening settled to reveal a beautiful, neatly choreographed 100-minute set. Perhaps most beautiful was the stage itself, which had been adorned with an elaborate gothic altar of feathers and bleached white flowers that nicely highlighted the golden sheen of Welch’s silky dress. Thin black sheets of fabric that descended from the roof to surround the isolated singer during Big God were less effective; not opaque enough for a sharp, backlit silhouette but thick enough to leave her peculiarly obscured from view and separate from the front row fans that so craved some sort of personal connection with their queen. It was Welch herself that offered the most visual drama, throwing up her fists (and enormous sleeves) with malice in time to the strobe lights in an awesome rendition of Daffodil or spinning around with glee on dancier numbers like appealing slow burner Choreomania.

It was the Lungs era hits that invariably got the crowd around me up on their feet with the immediate willingness of devoted followers

As enthralling as Dance Fever‘s melodramatic offerings were, it was the Lungs era hits that invariably got the crowd around me up on their feet with the immediate willingness of devoted followers. Dogs Days Are Over was the evening’s first real party starter, a gently plucked opening harp prefacing the stomping folk rock chorus to come. There was subtlety too, with Welch shushing the revellers just in time for a impressively elastic vocal delivery of that fiendish second verse. Isaac and I looked at each other in thrilled shock when original Florence megahit You’ve Got the Love made a surprise appearance later on, even if these days the song doesn’t quite have the same glorious freshness it had when it became a soundtrack to our childhoods. It was also a slight shame that You’ve Got the Love‘s inclusion came at the expense of recent stormy Fleetwood Mac-esque belter Cassandra, which formed the highlight of the latest live album with a bruising new extended cut.

The numerous louder danceable numbers were the most suitable vehicles for Florence’s barnstorming vocals. Hooky singalong Ship to Wreck was an early highlight, and good old fashioned blues rock stomper Kiss With A Fist refreshingly broke out of all the heavy religious imagery with a healthy dose of rock for rock’s sake. Dance Fever standout Dream Girl Evil reached its climax with an astonishingly long vocal note, Welch putting to bed any idea that her distinctive, soul-piercing wail is nothing but exceptional as slippery guitar riffs and a menacingly chugging bass engulfed her. It might have been even more powerful had Welch not spent the entire song holding hands with stunned front-row audience members – touching at first, but static after a few minutes, particularly for the guy watching from the third tier. Welch’s pained cry of “I am nobody’s moral centre!” demanded some suitably monumental shift in staging or lighting that never quite materialised.

Almost all of Dance Fever was given a long-deserved airing in an arena setting. Gently bubbling Free‘s chorus (“picks me up, puts me down”) leant itself nicely to some coordinated crowd hand movements. “You’re too sensitive they said / I said okay but let’s discuss this at the hospital,” Welch delivered with a knowing smile, ceding to the audience to scream those final words back at her in affirmation. An extended version of scintillating dance pop hit My Love turned out to be the highlight of the whole night, with Welch’s onstage dancing and gorgeous chorus melody both delightfully uninhibited.

Morning Elvis was so profoundly serene that one fan near the front fainted.

As strong as Welch’s voice may be, she offered an exquisite softer side too. We were, after all, encouraged to “choose love” and embrace the “collective experience” which, in practical terms, meant Welch imploring us between songs to put down the iPhones and focus on living in the moment. She was, of course, largely obeyed, and the result was an emotional intensity few artists can pull off. With thousands listening in intently, gentle ballad Morning Elvis was so profoundly serene that one fan near the front fainted. Welch’s framing of the song as a mid-pandemic prayer – a manifestation of the very 2020 fear that nights like these may never come again – understandably made the song too poignant to bear for one of us. What’s more, Welch had plenty more affecting ballads up her immaculate flared sleeves. We were encouraged to hold on to each other to absorb the stunning melody at the heart of June, while The End of Love offered a breathtaking strings section. By the time it came to the encore, Welch had to briefly halt proceedings as stewards lifted several stricken superfans over the barriers, cheerily waving goodbye as they left in total awe of their popstar.

It all culminated, naturally, in a mass sacrifice. “We are so well fed this evening!” Welch crooned as fans climbed onto one another’s shoulders as “human sacrifices” before a stellar blast through underrated early hit Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up). “Leave every last piece of you on the dancefloor tonight,” came Welch’s final dictum before a spine-tingling, arena-sized dance piano riff saw the concert home. Far beneath me, thousands of heads bobbed and hands clapped, enthralled and with their phones now long forgotten about. Even up with Isaac and I, many including myself pogoed along, our euphoria tempered slightly by the several-storey drop in front of us (one man near us had already taken a tumble a few feet down the stairs amidst the joy of You’ve Got the Love).

With a final flutter of harp Welch floated off stage, her spell successfully cast upon another arena of worshippers. In the few times she had broken her cult leader persona, Welch had powerfully reminded us that not so long ago this precious, quasi-religious gathering of like-minded souls we call a pop concert had been under threat, and even temporarily destroyed completely. Seeing the ease in which Welch spread a deeply human sense of belonging and loving connection around Leeds Arena reminded me just how important concerts can be in bringing people together. This Florence + the Machine gig had been an excuse to party, yes, but more importantly a chance to heal the scars of loneliness left by the pandemic for all in attendance. That is, all that could remain conscious for the duration.

Phoebe Green live at the Cluny review – strong material fails to come alive
12
Apr

Touring the UK on the back of daringly original debut album Lucky Me, Phoebe Green’s attention-grabbing pop creations deserved a keener reception in Newcastle. Seemingly put out by the poor attendance and lacking in conviction, Green’s performance struggled as a result.

It was an inhospitable, wintry Monday night and in the valley of Ouseburn, a mile east of Newcastle’s city centre, the dense fog was spectacular. The enormous road bridge I’d descended from looked otherworldly, its graffiti-strewn brick columns almost disintegrating completely into the streetlight-stained sky above. Cars rumbled above and a stream trickled below, both hidden from view but making their presence known as I approached the sanctuary of the pub I had been looking for. I was unfamiliar and unsettled by the street’s quietness, but eager to explore a part of town well-renowned as a funky cultural highlight of the city, with welcoming studenty bar and popular little venue The Cluny at its heart. Only two people walked in before me as I approached the venue shortly before Phoebe Green’s headline show, and both of which apparently knew the bar staff personally. The place felt cosy and communal, but with a distinct lack of clientele (it was, of course, a Monday night, and one lacking in a tasty World Cup fixture) it was clear I wasn’t seeing the Geordie institution at its best.

Two Phoebe Green fans approach the Cluny in foggy Ouseburn

A dispiriting lack of punters came to be the theme of the night. The ticket steward seemed to be nodding off as I approached him and Green and her band ended up constituting a big portion of the front row watching support act Nell Mescal, who tried and failed to get some audience participation going for one song. In the end, a big synthy intro for Lucky Me to start Green’s set felt incongruous without the added sound of at least a few dozen fans cheering in excitement. In a night that should have been full of sweaty dancing and passionate singalongs, the onstage cooling fans weren’t used once, and for the first time at a gig I had no problem keeping on my thick coat for the duration.

Of course, the lack of atmosphere wasn’t entirely Green’s fault, and she was always facing an uphill battle at the Cluny. It was a shame because there’s lots to enjoy in her music, not least that incisive bass riff that tore through the opening number. Sweat had a catchy bounce, and like most of Green’s songs gave her sister Lucy plenty of work to do on synths, but she always seemed completely in control of vast range of sounds her keys produced in every song. Leach was the sort of song that might have whipped up some moshing in front of a more enthusiastic crowd with its restless bass synth and pounding kick drum. A noise rock finale with a wonderfully messy guitar solo played ludicrously fast was one of the night’s highlights. It was early single Easy Peeler that turned out to be the best of the bunch and one of the few songs that sounded as manic and wildly creative as Green’s studio performances. Any of Green’s reluctance to commit to the performance momentarily vanished for the rough-and-ready alt rock track, with the crunchy bass lines penetrating beneath the clutter of competing distorted synths and guitar. It was the sort of simple crowd-pleaser that the rest of Green’s set sorely lacked.

The turnout at the Cluny was disappointing.

Elsewhere, Green’s performance seemed to suffer due to the tepid audience responses. Pulse-raising album highlight Crying in the Club now had frustratingly mumbled spoken vocals that crucially lacked confidence and ended up buried under a heavy kick drum. Green’s vocals when singing were also mediocre, and the somewhat high notes on the chorus were disappointingly swapped for an easier, lower edit. Diediedie was another track that wasn’t helped by Green’s unimpressive vocal performance and, as sharp as Green’s lyricism may be, any sense of building menace on the original was lost in the one-dimensional recreation at the Cluny.

Even Just a Game, on paper the best song from the debut album, felt lacking. A euphoric up-tempo number, the song needed conviction from Green to get the most out of it, but instead there was more mumbled vocals in spoken sections that felt like an afterthought and a tendency to cling onto the mic stand, barely swaying to the energising percussion groove. A clearer duet partner to sing the vocal harmony so integral to that anthemic chorus would have also really lifted the track. The original may be brilliant, but it was remarkable how Green and her band managed to make Just a Game sound like nothing more than bland set-filler on the night.

An encore was clearly out of the question. In fact, it was all wrapped up in a half-hearted 50 minutes, making it undoubtedly the shortest gig I’ve attended to date. The end of relatively strong closer IDK came perhaps as a relief for all involved, and Green was prompt in hopping off the stage during the polite applause. It had been by no means a car crash of a performance and Green’s potential is huge, but there was a lingering disparity between the Green’s in-your-face, delightfully idiosyncratic debut album and the somewhat timid performance she gave in Newcastle. The music industry is brutal and despite some mainstream attention, it seems Green’s days of filling out a buzzing Cluny are yet to come. Until then, I think I’ll stick to Spotify for my Phoebe Green fix.

Parcels live at O2 Ritz review – reaching for nightclub nirvana
28
Nov

Leaning heavily into the world of nightclub-ready dance music, a constantly evolving Parcels gave plenty of reason to dance the night away for an eager Manchester crowd. As a live act, they’re only getting better and better.

It was brisk autumnal night in November 2018, and I’d just been offered Haribos by the stranger sat next to me in Brudenell Social Club‘s newly established Community Room. Parcels were about to take to the stage backed by shimmering strips of glittery foil, and I was about to take in the spectacle of a proper live pop gig for the very first time. I found myself stood right at Noah Hill’s feet, enjoying the boom of his bass and watching in astonishment as the normal-seeming crowd around me began dancing as if they could hardly control their limbs, with no care as to how silly they looked. In fact, I felt like the silly one standing almost stationary for most of the night, at least until the wait for the band’s big hit, Tieduprightnow, was over. In truth, I had got my generous parents to give me a lift to and from Leeds mostly just so I could hear that one song.

Four formative years later, and I wish I’d paid closer attention to the musical genius that was in front of me. Parcels have only grown since then – O2 Ritz is certainly several leagues above BSC in size; little old Leeds has fallen off a tour itinerary packed with big name European destinations – and my love for the band has grown with them. Their easily digestible falsetto funk-pop has been a companion of mine ever since that first gig, and the release of an ambitious and (mostly) fantastic double album, Day/Night, last year only cemented my infatuation. Nowadays Parcels spend much of their time thrilling audiences with grand tours across Europe where they have a devoted following, particularly in their base of Berlin. A far cry from the fledgling five-piece I saw in Leeds, Parcels are now an incredibly tight-knit group (their second album was recorded with the whole band living together at a Parisian recording studio) and also kings of fashion, having secured a brand deal with Gucci in 2020.

The band’s use of stage lights was interesting throughout the night

Whilst not nearly as glamorous, my situation has changed dramatically too, and I now faced a much longer traverse of northern England to see the five popstars than before. I arrived in Manchester after a late departure – clothes still damp from an earlier downpour and jeans stained from the aftermath of a mismanaged Greggs steak bake – only to find I’d mixed up my Ritzes and Apollos, but an Uber nonetheless managed to transfer me to the correct venue ten minutes before the band took to the stage. My view was of course poor and the usual pint of Coke had to be forgone, but being there for the opening number was what mattered most.

Faces hidden in darkness, the five men took to the stage and gradually pieced together a groove amidst strobe lights, that all-important crowd pleasing kick drum only unleashed after a few minutes of teasing. Eventually Lightenup came into view (a suprising replacement for beguiling album opener LIGHT), and soon the groove settled into one of the band’s most straightforwardly catchy choruses. Sinister Gamesofluck followed seamlessly and was exictingly pumped up to club tempo, although some of the original’s menace was lost in the attempt to get the crowd frugging right from the beginning. It was an opening that would indicate how dynamic the evening’s performance would be; band members often started and ended songs in different locations (occasionally requiring carefully orchestrated intervention from stagehands to move the various keyboards) and Parcels played for long stretches of non-stop music, one song morphing into another with the skill of a talented DJ. Several tracks were redesigned (and some cases miraculously reinvented) for the modern dancefloor. Anatole Serret’s kick drum, settling on a largely unwavering 120 beats ber minute, boomed heavier than ever under every intricate guitar groove, accompanied by Noah Hill’s dexterous basslines which only became more compelling with each repetition (and there were many repetitions).

Lordhenry, the greatest weakness of the band’s latest release, got the biggest facelift from the band’s stylistic change in direction, with a lumpy middle section mostly scrapped, with emphasis instead on the nut tight opening disco groove. An inspired use of spotlights had the band’s shadows stuttering and shifting behind them in time to the music, the silhouettes so crisp I had to take a moment check whether the background wasn’t just a pre-recorded video.

A band grouped together at the front for an a cappella moment

The best songs, of course, required little tinkering and Parcels were wise in mostly leaving them alone. Shimmering Comingback, with its exciting build and one of Serret’s finest drum parts, was an early unchanged crowdpleaser. Tieduprightnow was also rightly let loose early on – these days the band has plenty of valid replacements for the song as set closer – and the essence of the breakout hit was well maintained. Effortlessly light and catchy, the song is still quintessential Parcels, with silky smooth group falsetto finding a perfect match in Hill’s wonderfully agile bassline. Witnessing the opening riff belted out by the sizable crowd around me with such passion was a joy; I’ve not crunched the numbers, but Tieduprightnow may be my most listened-to song of all time. It was a small shame that extraordinary disco hit Famous wasn’t quite so successful in the flesh, partly down to the lack of punchy strings that propel the original recording. That said, Parcels’ commitment to keeping the show 100% live and authentic was admirable.

If Parcels faltered at any point at the Ritz, it was during the quieter numbers. Perhaps I was stood too close to the bar, but sleepy folk-country outlier Once seemed to go largely ignored by the crowd. Jules Crommelin’s directionless, somewhat dreary melody didn’t offer much reason to listen, either, and by the end there was a feeling a precious slot in the setlist had been wasted. Nuanced Theworstthing also didn’t quite translate to the stage despite some lovely solo guitar work from Crommelin, and the song began to feel tired after a minute or two.

The night’s biggest successes tended to involve grooves good enough for the five of them to wallow in for many minutes at a time without any sign of tiring. A perfect example of this was a surprise rendition of Spiller and Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s underappreciated 2000 hit Groovejet, which triggered one of the biggest crowd responses of the night, with hands flailing in the air and lungs roaring out the wonderfully apt lyric “if this ain’t love, why does it feel so good?”. “We’ve played this song in four European cities,” Patrick Hetherington told us mid-song, “and usually no one really sings along”. Cue even louder singing. In truth it was probably all because Groovejet hit number 1 in the UK but not in mainland Europe, but it was nice to have the feeling we were providing something special for the band, at least until they moved onto their next dates in Glasgow and London.

It was one of the band’s earliest singles, however, the provided the most blissful disco groove of the night. Hideout, reworked for 2019’s breathtaking live cut Elude, came to Manchester transformed once more, faster, busier and even more viscerally thrilling to witness. Now dark figures amongst a sea of dazzling strobe lights, Parcels became the masterminds of what every disco act must yearn for – one riff and four chords that simply never get old. With such a strong blueprint, the details of song structure seemed irrelevant, but big build-ups and the euphoric drops at the end of them only cemented a state of dancefloor nirvana. For those few minutes nothing else seemed to matter, and as the intensity peaked with every musician clearly giving their heart and soul to the music, Parcels seemed untouchable. A remarkable percussion break followed, with Serret driving it all with one ludicrous drum fill after another. It capped a breathless ten minutes of five Aussies at the peak of their powers.

Somethinggreater followed and struggled in the shadow of such a great number, although it remains a strong singalong track, and bassist Hill provided a joyous cameo as lead vocalist. Free was a slightly odd choice of closer but is nonetheless a compelling song, its exuberant piano riff only getting punchier with the eventual addition of a backbeat from Serret. The band ended the night at the front of the stage, singing in the glorious dense harmonies that they’ve become known for. The set had been well paced, and opting out of a contrived encore was shrewd.

In truth, by the time Free started up I was far too tired from my earlier adventures to truly drink in the moment. A headache lingered, as did my niggling worries about the long drive home, which turned out to be a mental battle to stay awake. The gig – and the three hour journey to get there – may have taken a greater toll on me than usual, but it had been worth it, and I could still say with confidence that Parcels’ show had been objectively outstanding, and even better than that unforgettable night at the Brudenell four years ago. I can only hope when Parcels return in another four years time I’ll live a little closer to the venue.

Black Country, New Road live at Brudenell Social Club review – a sublime resurrection
27
May

When frontman Isaac Wood left Black Country, New Road just days before the release of what may become one of the best albums of the decade, the survival of the band looked far from guaranteed. The now six-piece chamber rock outfit return just months later for an intimate UK tour with a remarkable set of unreleased music, regrouped, revitalised and ready to take on the world once more.

Of all the places to be in the UK in the early evening of Sunday 22 May 2022, the beer garden of Brudenell Social Club must surely have been one of the most thrilling. The entire city, in fact, was in party mode with the news of Leeds United’s dramatic and successful finish to the season, and as I walked to meet my friend Joe at the train station, cheering boozy blokes and chants of “we are staying up!” outnumbered the usual motorbike revs and ambulance sirens. The atmosphere outside the Brudenell – a universally adored Leeds institution and the beating heart in the student-filled Hyde Park area – was doubly electrifying: Black Country, New Road were in town for one night only.

What made this gig in particular so exciting was the feeling that BC,NR seem capable of much bigger venues. Their debut album For the first time rapidly earned them a passionate core following of on the pulse young post punk and jazz fans, and the acclaim only grew with February’s unbelievable and more radio friendly Ants From Up There, an album venerated by just about every music critic in the land. Take your pick of any national newspaper, the chances are they gave Ants From Up There all five stars, and deservedly so. It was seemingly all going so smoothly for the Cambridge band until days before that album’s release, when frontman Isaac Wood abruptly left the band, citing mental health difficulties. Just as they were reaching their all time high, it looked like it might all come crashing down on BC,NR. Every song that they had built their career on so far was rendered unperformable in the absence their idiosyncratic lead vocalist. Ants From Up There is a devastating listen as it is, but the fact that such a popular masterpiece will never reach the stage added a piercing undercurrent of tragedy. Planned shows – including several gigs in the US plus a visit to Leeds – were suddenly cancelled, Covid-style. Announced last month, this modest UK tour was billed as an intimate warm-up to a summer of festivals across Europe, and an opportunity for the band to regroup and road test an hour long set of completely new music before taking it to the continent and eventually the recording studio. Joe and I may have been disappointed about missing out on hearing material from the albums we both so loved (I’m convinced Basketball Shoes would have been nothing short of life-changing live), but instead the gig at the Brudenell offered an almost as riveting showcase of what might come next for BC,NR.

May Kershaw, on piano, accordion and lead vocals, was a standout performer

The applause from the packed crowd (tickets sold out in a few hours) was long and enthusiastic when the six remaining members of BC,NR took to the stage. When cheers subsided, Lewis Evans opened with some quiet saxophone, soon joined by singing bassist Tyler Hyde (a candidate for new lead vocalist easily predicted by the most well-informed BC,NR superfans). Suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, all six musicians kicked into gear with startling synchronicity, with May Kershaw’s hands bouncing high on the piano and Nina Lim’s violin bow already beginning to fray under the weight of the heavy rock groove. The distant yelps of giddy fans could be heard over the cacophony. It all felt like beautiful confirmation of what we had all hoped; their frontman may have gone, but the unmatched creativity and exhilarating volatility of BC,NR’s music isn’t going anywhere.

One key silver lining was that, in Wood’s absence, several band members were finally given a voice. Hyde led the way, her passionate and often pained lead vocals one of the night’s many highlights. Underrated pianist Kershaw and her pristine, silky smooth voice was perhaps even better, and a nice change of pace from Wood’s abrasive sprechgasang. She was well appointed for the night’s quieter moments, impressing with an ambitious episodic folk piece early in the set which saw her play both accordion and piano at the same time. The most surprising lead vocalist of the night was Evans who, plonked front and centre of stage, often looked and sounded worryingly diffident, invariably clutching the mic stand beside him for support. It may take time for Evans’ wobbly vocals to shore up, but his songs seemed strong. “In my dream you came running to me / Can’t you fall back into my arms?” was one particularly touching moment, Evans’ introversion highlighting the song’s pained vulnerability. Drums swelled at the end of the track and chaos briefly ensued and as Evans quietly put the mic back on its stand and picked up his flute, the impulse was to hug him and tell him he’s doing great.

Tyler Hyde’s bowed bass guitar gave added menace in the crucial moments

Stylistic suprises were to be expected, and BC,NR didn’t disappoint. Beyond Kershaw’s accordion shanty, there were occasional splashes of classical music, including Tyler conducting her own ensemble of flute, violin and piano at one point. The saxophone/violin combo continues to be an intoxicating one (see the stunningly quiet opening minutes of Basketball Shoes, or the closing passages of Mark’s Theme), and Evans blended beautifully with Lim, who stood in for Georgia Ellery on the night as she embarks on her own UK tour with popular electronic duo Jockstrap. It was a shame that technical issues and incessant screeches from mic feedback tainted these quieter, acoustic moments in the first half of the set.

Pianist May Kershaw is classically-trained, and it’s not difficult to tell. She was the star of the penultimate song, a sublime piece that stood head and shoulders above the evening’s other excellent compositions. The rest of the band sat and listened intently as she played and sang on her own, her delicate, deliberate piano playing a marvel throughout. Later, the other five returned to their instruments to support Kershaw as the song swelled and sighed, before building once more in a final, monumental climax. “I’m only a pig,” Kershaw sang over and over, the final word spat out with increasingly bitter vehemence as the dense orchestration materialised around her. Hyde’s bowed bass guitar underpinned it all brilliantly, generating a mighty, floor-shaking rumble that propelled Kershaw’s subtle little piano ballad to new heights. The long wait to hear a studio verson of this “pigs” song begins now.

A gig like this was never going to be about the songs alone, and BC,NR set out to prove that they could still shine even without Wood. They did so magnificently in a show that revealed new aspects of a band bursting with ideas – to come up with such a strong 60-minutes of material just three months after releasing an album is an astonishing feat. The whole night was summed up best during the opening song, when the rollicking power pop paused for a moment of group vocals. “Look at what we did together / BC,NR, friends forever,” they sang in unison. It was an adorably earnest and perhaps cheesy moment that neatly put into words the unmistakable bond of this talented group of friends. After all the uncertainty of the spring, there’s nothing that can get in the way of BC,NR now. Let the good times roll.