Rock Gigs | Music Boats

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.

Cassia live at NUSU review – sunshine pop trio deserve more
18
Mar

Stuck in an under capacity students’ union and struggling to whip up excitement in the crowd, Cassia’s catalogue of uplifting indie pop tracks will have more successful airings than their trip to Newcastle. Patches of effervescent Mancunian calypso gave a taste of just how brilliant the trio could be.

Showing up to Newcastle University’s gloomy students’ union buildings an hour after doors opened for Cassia’s gig, the near silence on campus was a cause for concern. I had seen online earlier that there hadn’t even been enough ticket sales for the stocks to be marked as ‘low’ on the band’s website, and frontman Rob Ellis had taken to Instagram to remind any last fans in the city that there would indeed be plenty of tickets available on the door. After meeting friend Lily – who I hadn’t been to a gig with since the time we foolishly missed Wet Leg play as support act mere weeks before they became one of the biggest bands in the country – there were so few people we struggled to even find out where the actual venue was. Finding ourselves in an abandoned Co-op, I had to resort to asking a security guard for help.

Of course, there was little queueing when we did locate the venue, which turned out to be a rather uninspiring black box two storeys underground, with a barrier two metres in front of the stage ensuring there would be none of the can-practically-touch-them intimacy I love with small venues. A bar was plonked at the back and a large empty space out of view of the stage occupied one half of the room. There wasn’t even a glitterball. In fairness, the audience steadily grew as the night wore on, although not before two support acts had been and gone. For a relatively small band, you begin to hope that this tour will be financially worthwhile for the musicians.

It was a shame because Cassia produce the sort of joyful music that comes alive in front of a large, receptive audience. The band started out as a curiosity, selling themselves as a unique Mancunian calypso-pop band, bringing the carefree, sun-kissed sounds of the Caribbean home to the drizzly northwest. Since their easy-going debut Replica they’ve morphed into a more traditional indie pop boyband, delving into a trendy if somewhat overpopulated genre currently led by the likes of Foals and easy life. It’s true that in the process the band has lost a lot of their original flair and uniqueness, but the good news is that Cassia’s pop songs are often very solid with their litany of watertight hooks and lyrics that invariably look on the brighter side of life.

The current state of Cassia was well captured in set opener Drifting, a track that gently hummed away with its relaxed clean guitars and unobtrusive bass, plus a chorus good enough to get the handful of Cassia superfans at the front singing early. Do Right, with the typically heartening Cassia-esque lyric “do right and let the rest follow” at its centre, was even better but struggled to inspire much in a largely static crowd. Perhaps the fans were waiting for tracks from the latest album, but with Do Right‘s effortless vocalised hook and clattering cowbell, I found little to dislike in the song. Powerlines was less contentious thanks to Lou Cotteril’s muscular bassline that, amplified to concert volumes, resulted in a song one falsetto flourish from unadulterated funk. Ellis seemed to feel the funk too, launching into a quick guitar solo at the end and perhaps getting a little excited, tangling himself in knots with a fuzzy mess of indistinct twanging as he attempted a climax. The intricate instrumental jam section that followed offered a much better display of his skills, sounding pleasantly Parcels-like in his dexterity and tight connection with Cotteril.

A bit more of that spirit of experimentation would have helped add variety in a set where the band’s vast number easily digestible, upbeat pop songs slowly began to feel stale. Piano ballad Boundless was “Cassia’s one sad song” in Ellis’s words and was rolled out in Newcastle by necessity. Vaguely pretty and as inoffensive as the rest of the band’s tracks, it was inevitably talked over by the audience, although the delicate vocal harmonies were worth listening to. A mid-set slump promptly ensued. Cumbersomely titled 16-18 – Why You Lacking Energy? had potential on the album but fell flat in the flesh, Ellis’s scratchy guitar having none of the earthy bite that was required to help the track stand out from a set of smooth guitar pop. Other songs, like Dreams of My Past, might have gone by entirely unnoticed had Ellis not tried so hard to get the crowd somewhat involved, instructing us to clap along and throw our hands in the air at one point. As the band’s good tracks seemed to be running out and mid-track chatter amongst the crowd grew louder, Ellis asking “Newcastle, are we still there?” sounded perhaps more desperate than he’d intended.

Cassia built momentum towards the end of their set

The night wasn’t a complete lost cause, however, and the solution to the dullness turned out to be a return to Cassia’s calypso roots – exactly what separates Cassia from the mass of the UK’s other radio-friendly pop boybands. Moana, the band’s 2016 debut single, landed like a breath of fresh air, Ellis’s acrobatic guitar riffs as cheerful as morning birdsong over Jacob Leff’s gently simmering cauldron of bongos. The harmonies on the chorus were gorgeous and Cotterill’s energetic bassline was finally getting the crowd moving. Within seconds, teens clutching empty beer cups were aloft on the shoulders of friends, much to the disapproval of party pooping venue security staff. An exciting percussion break gradually introduced the delightful reggaeton of Small Spaces, perhaps early Cassia at their compositional finest. All of a sudden, keeping both feet still on the ground was very difficult indeed.

Momentum continued to build for a very strong finish. Right There, objectively the best of the pop side of Cassia’s discography, was given the late billing it deserved, and at last Ellis didn’t seem to have to try hard to get the room singing along for the song’s final build. The breakout hit 100 Times Over rounded off the evening and at last found a sweet spot neatly between calypso and pop. A song that I have returned to again and again over the years as a sure-fire mood booster, the effect was magnified in person, filling the room with very happy young music fans dancing the night away. “Freedom, it is all around me / Get up, sit down,” we sang together, hand gesturing accordingly. No Cassia song leaves quite the same residual feeling of joy as 100 Times Over, regardless of where you’re listening to it.

“Goodnight Newcastle, you’ve been unreal,” Ellis told us before skipping off stage with his bandmates. Had we, really? The trio had indeed figured out how to appease the NUSU crowd for the final fifteen minutes, but for much of the night Ellis’s showmanship had been tested, resulting in plenty of forced “make some noise” and “how we feeling?” moments that felt a little grating. True, it was a tough crowd, but some greater variety in the set list – some sort of meaningful way to break up the glut of samey mid-tempo pop songs – would have helped the show progress a little less precariously. Sunshine pop is all well and good, but unless the genre is absolutely nailed, a wider range of emotion is needed to add some more interest. A bigger, fuller, less utterly lifeless venue would help too. At the very least, next time they ought to book somewhere with a glitterball.

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.

Skylights live at Whelan’s review – lads on tour have the place bouncing
24
Oct

Carried by a wave of support from a large and boozy entourage of travelling fans, Leeds locals Skylights seemed to be having the time of their lives on a one-off night in Dublin. Who cares if their music wasn’t very good?

Iknew I was out of my depth as soon as I asked for a drink at one of the many bars in the gloomy upstairs quarters of Whelan’s, one of Dublin’s most renowned drinking and live music establishments. “J2O? What’s J2O?” the bartender replied, appearing genuinely baffled by my request. “And first of all, have you got a ticket?” he followed, pointing at the visibly annoyed ticket steward behind me that I had just unknowingly sauntered past. I apologised and awkwardly loaded up the ticket on my phone. Back at the bar, I settled for a Coke (not available by the tap, but a few bottles in stock), relieved that at least this beverage did indeed exist on this side of the Irish Sea.

A general feeling of discomfort stayed with me for the whole night. I had spontaneously taken a cheap flight out of Leeds Bradford Airport that morning, embarking on my first ever trip outside the UK alone mostly for a thrilling but comfortingly short new adventure, although there’s surely no more familiar and pleasant foreign destination for a Brit than Ireland. Standing alone in a dark corner of Whelan’s cradling my glass of Coke, I began to feel my age as the Guinness flowed around me, the drinkers invariably twice my age.

Yet, I waited in Whelan’s with the credentials of one of the main act’s ultra fans. Skylights are Acomb, York lads after all (although their allegiance these days lies much more strongly with Leeds, and Leeds United football club in particular), and I even found myself falsely telling Belfast support band Brand New Friend (after an exceptional performance) that I had travelled abroad just for my beloved Skylights, just like the many men around me who were already warming up with chants of “Leeds! Leeds! Leeds!”. The chants only grew louder and the men more lairy, culminating in a roar as the four Skylights lads appeared from the side of the crowd. Raised beers replaced the raised iPhone cameras I had become used to seeing at the bigger gigs I had attended back in England.

The four-piece wasted no time bashing out their hits, endearingly excited and pumped up for their first ever gig outside of the UK and a rare outing beyond the realm of Leeds’ vibrant indie music scene. Particularly with so many football fans around me, the gig felt bizarrely like an exciting non-league cup tie – Whelan’s is hardly Wembley, but this was still the beloved hometown heroes making the journey to the big, unfamiliar city, kept company by their most loyal followers. Skylights are certainly non-league musicians; bassist Jonny Scarisbrick works at a building society during the day, guitarist Turnbull Smith is an electrician. The surreal thrill of travelling to a different country and playing your homemade songs for a modest but enthusiastic crowd of 100 was evident on the musicians’ faces, not least Smith, who seemed to spend the entire gig beaming from ear to ear. Frontman Rob Scarisbrick was the most outwardly nonchalant of the group, only releasing a smile on the many occasions a tipsy man emerged from the crowd to give him a fist bump mid-song.

Amongst all the boozy fervour for the band in that cramped room in south Dublin, it would have been easy to overlook all the musical flaws had I not been standing aside from the main action in the crowd, arms crossed with my 330ml of Coke. The truth is, Smith only really seems to have one guitar riff up his sleeve: a sort of washed out, Oasis rip-off that felt tired from about ten minutes into the set. Scarisbrick was hardly charismatic as a frontman, often taking breaks in vocals to stand well back from the mic and stare blankly into the mid-distance, waiting for his next cue and extinguishing all the on-stage energy in the process. It was a relief on the occasion he picked up a tambourine and gave it a bash to keep himself occupied in the breaks. Drummer Myles Soley was undoubtedly the most technically accomplished member of the group, but got into a habit of overplaying just to prove it: too loud, too many fills and not enough solid groove to bring out the best from the three men in front of him.

And yet, of course, no one seemed to care, and excitement amongst the crowd built steadily through the band’s catchier numbers like Enemies and What You Are, culminating in a glorious finale of dancing and beer sloshing. I’ve never witnessed an atmosphere at a gig quite so merry; this is what indie venues like Whelan’s live for. The band’s debut single YRA in particular tore the roof off, and for once I could begin to understand why. With a bit more mainstream attention, Scraisbrick’s straightforward, instantly unforgettable hook could quite easily find its way into the chanting repertoire at Elland Road, and Whelan’s was certainly packed with fans who had already learnt all the words by heart. A simple song structure and even simpler three chord loop leant the song the same appeal as a cheesy but loveable Eurovision entry – everything in me said I should dismiss it like all the other forgettable Britpop songs in the set, but I found myself soon getting swept up in the mindless joy of the music. YRA would certainly flop in the professional jury vote but dominate the televote, and I wasn’t complaining when the band decided to milk the adoration of the crowd and reprise the song for the end of the show, in probably the first genuinely unrehearsed encore I’ve ever seen.

With the gig wrapped up, Skylights headed for backstage via the audience right in front of me (it was that sort of venue) and I had time to give them a quick pat on the back, ditch my empty glass at the bar and swiftly take the next bus back to my hostel, keen to spend no longer than necessary in the uncomfortable surroundings of people in their forties getting plastered (Scarisbrick promised a long night of partying ahead as he left the stage). It hadn’t been an altogether brilliant night – I tended to watch all the action rather than attempt to get involved in the mayhem as I would usually do with familiar company in more familiar venues – but, as my solo adventures tend to be, it was a great way to make new memories and venture a little out of my comfort zone. I may not be the Skylights superfan I professed to be but, as the band’s following continues to grow, I’ll still be proud to say that I was there the night our York lads played Dublin.

Herbie Hancock live at Jazz à Vienne review – world class musician meets world class venue
15
Aug

On a memorable warm summer’s night in Vienne, Herbie Hancock found himself a spectacular venue to deliver one remarkable rendition of his famous compositions after another. Jazz’s answer to Paul McCartney, the 82-year-old remains the unparalleled titan of his genre.

There was little to see onstage after Thomas de Pourquery wrapped up an impressive (if overly long) support slot, but the roar through Vienne’s magnificent Roman ampitheatre was as if a gladiator had just landed a fatal blow. An outlier in the multitude of paper airplanes had just been chucked stageward by the crowd from the upper reaches of the stands and was miraculously floating closer and closer to the stage, eventually plonking itself in front of a giant speaker stack before being scuttled away by a busy stagehand a few seconds later. It was a moment that ignited the match-ready buzz of anticipation in the crowd minutes before the great Herbie Hancock took to the stage, a man who can now quite reasonably claim to be the great living jazz musician on the planet. I had travelled to Vienne, near Lyon, with three friends and had already enjoyed one night of the festival (an improved, well-contained Cory Wong; a somewhat tired, cheese-laden George Benson). Tonight, however, was clearly the apex of the whole holiday – a reason for Fionn and I to crack out fresh, specially-bought shirts and douse ourselves in cologne for no particular reason other than “it’s for Herbie”. Now well informed about the dangers of sitting for two hours of more on unforgiving stone steps, I made my way uphill through Vienne carrying a pillow from our Airbnb, itself dressed in a fading Rex Orange County t-shirt to avoid stains. As we got comfortable in a spot high up in the ampitheatre – hardly a detraction as the view of the sunset over Vienne was remarkable – there was already a sense that nothing could ruin this night.

The sky had turned sapphire blue by the time Hancock strolled onto stage. “This place feels like home, I’ve been here so many times,” he told us as another paper airplane rudely made its way towards Hancock’s feet. It’s a phrase that may have sound like a boast from any other artist – the sheer number of people perched on the steep, curved stone steps around him was staggering – but from the mouth of Hancock it felt natural. Why should a man with such harmonic genius and jazz history (he was a crucial component of the Miles Davis Quintet, of course) ever feel overwhelmed by the occasion? A long opening medley – a bewildering tour of Hancock’s extensive discography including a journey through Textures performed with impressive attack and physicality considering Hancock’s old age – cemented the idea that Hancock has the ample experience required to play at the very highest standard in any venue he likes.

The nightly scene at Vienne’s Théâtre Antique during the festival

It helped that Hancock had populated his band with a cast of esteemed unsung heroes of the American jazz world. Guitarist Lionel Loueke was the easy standout performer, almost stealing the show on several occasions with dazzling solo works of wizardry, switching from gritty roar to silky smooth cantabile seemingly with the flick of a plectrum. His technically dazzling introduction to a somewhat disappointingly lightfooted Chameleon early on in the set was masterful. Trumpeter Terrence Blanchard, another extraordinary musician who could quite easily produce his very own sellout show of hits, took the spotlight for his own arrangement of the popular standard Footprints. Choppier than the original yet retaining the sense of nuanced constraint and control, the rendition was one of the many exquisite highlights of the night, not least thanks to Blanchard’s trumpet solo that soared up towards the highest ramparts of the Théâtre Antique like glorious morning birdsong.

It was hard to take in the occasion as, one by one, favourite tunes that me and my friends had played time and time again in youth jazz bands throughout our childhood were checked off. Cantaloupe Island, a song about as crowd pleasing as jazz gets, was one such moment with Hancock’s unforgettable chugging blues riff providing the first reason to those around me to get off their feet and get dancing. The rapid fusion of Actual Proof felt even more piercing when positioned directly after the relatively serene Footprints. The agitated basslines of James Genus found the perfect match in Justin Tyson’s dazzlingly busy and precise drumming, although the spontaneous harmonic whirlwind flowing out of Hancock’s Fender Rhodes inevitably, and deservedly, dominated proceedings. Oftentimes Hancock’s soloing felt like the stuff of legend, deserving to be plastered across YouTube as a viral video clip with a breathless, all-caps video title extolling Hancock’s general godliness. The extended, often wildly adventurous solos seemed to come and go distressingly quickly. It wasn’t that Hancock’s set was too short, but that his live, unrepeatable pianistic feats were simply too remarkable to hear once.

Dusk falls behind Herbie Hancock and his band

Hancock did well to resist the tempation to pack the setlist with somewhat overplayed greatest hits. Sublimely soulful deep cut Come Running to Me was an inspired song choice as dusk became nighttime and an excellent excuse for Hancock to take to the vocoder, an instrument he popularised singlehandedly during his period of technological boundary-pushing in the 1970s. A detour late on saw Hancock left entirely alone with his vocoder, repeating the crushing line “I’m not happy without you” through a cloud of dense, shape-shifting cluster chords. In a night of predictable, well-worn hits, it was a moment of striking sincerity and without doubt the evening’s emotive crux. Quite what emotion Hancock was unleashing was up to interpretation; an enlightening epiphany that could pave the way to happiness, or a grief-stricken realisation of love’s darkest consequences? The beauty of it all was the effortlessness in which Hancock moved from despair to hope and back again, each carefully chosen chord moving the piece forward in unexpected ways.

The absence of a proper, funky Chameleon aside, it had been a flawless evening. Thousands of raised hands clapped and cheered below us as the band took their bows, the time fast approaching midnight. The giddy feeling of being within eyeshot of such an indisputable living legend had not left me all night and 82-year-old Hancock was still triumphant and energetic as he made a final wave to the crowd following a blistering two hour set.

The roar continued right through to the encore, only stopping as Hancock arrived at the mic to speak. “Oh, one more thing,” he told us with a grin and faux nonchalence. Cue Chameleon once more, now with keytar and that stonking, immortal bassline. Hancock’s playing was stupendous: crunchy and risky synth slaps squashed up against virtuosic runs before fading almost to nothing in preparation for one last, showstopping buildup. With the pretty orange glow of the Rhône valley in view behind the stage and twinkling constellations now clearly in view, it felt like there was surely no better place in the world to be for those five minutes. If there was any doubt that Hancock could produce a set of music to live up to his staggering career in jazz, it had been well and truly put to bed. Who could possibly ask for more?

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.

Dua Lipa live at first direct Arena review – a flamboyant new queen of British pop
20
May

No expense was spared on the Leeds leg of Dua Lipa’s victorious world tour, after 2020’s Future Nostalgia changed the face of modern pop. With slick transitions and memorable visuals, this was a performance dense with bona fide pop smashes and jaw-droppingly theatrical highlights.

Rocking up in central Leeds in a group of five friends poorly dressed to spend any significant period of time outside on a disappointingly cold Easter Monday, there was a moment on approaching a T-junction in paths that we had no idea exactly in which direction Dua Lipa was gearing up for an arena concert. Already beginning to shiver, we decided we might as well pick a stranger and follow them through a nearby underpass. Soon enough, the stream of punters became a river and then a torrent, with crowds in the 100 metre viscinity of the first direct Arena more akin to what I’d expect ten minutes after a gig, rather than 3 hours before it. It may have only been half past six, but we wasted no time grabbing drinks and finding a spot amongst a crowd buzzing with anticipation.

The truth is, that night it would have been a challenge to find someone walking through that northern corner of Leeds that didn’t have 70-odd quid’s worth of arena ticketing stashed in their wallet. An antithesis to Jeff Rosenstock in every way, Dua Lipa has been vying for chart-topping mainstream appeal for years now, and she’s frequently been granted her wish, garnering millions of fans worldwide. Her latest album, Future Nostalgia, is packed full of the sort of hits that manage to infiltrate the consciousness of virtually everyone in society. Even if you think you don’t know mind-blowingly successful smashes like Don’t Start Now or Levitating, trust me, you do.

What was new with Future Nostalgia was the wave of critical acclaim that came with the endless radio play. The album was bold in its unapologetic support of what I like to call the ’20s disco revival; a stylistic shift towards retro styles in contemporary pop music that is generally deemed to be a result of the dancefloor-yearning brought on by the pandemic. Giant names like The Weeknd, Doja Cat and even Kylie Minogue are all in on it, although whether the new world of modern disco-pop will survive now the society is opening back up again remains to be seen. Nevertheless, Lipa continues to position herself as the movement’s flagbearer, adopting an 80s-inspired public image whilst digging deep into the realm of slap bass lines and superfluous glitterballs.

To that end, me and my friends Emma and Hattie had to crane our heads towards the distant roof of the arena on entering to tot up the evening’s glitterball count: a somewhat underwhelming three (and, once they had been lowered during the performance, they turned out to be more like cheap-looking shiny balloons). The no-doubt immense budget for the Future Nostalgia Tour had clearly been utilised in other aspects of the show, not least a dozen-stong dance troupe that bounced and boogied their way around Lipa all night. Lipa is of course a great dancer in her own right, and the sheer amount of moves and she memorised and pulled off for the performance was impressive. For her, it was mostly a case of ticking off all the things arena-sized pop divas are supposed to do: we got Dua playing with a sparkly cane or Dua throwing poses behind a morphing wall of umbrellas or Dua being carried face-up across the stage in the middle of a verse, singing all the while. She may lack some choreographic originality, but that’s not to say she wasn’t convincing. The astounded crowd around me fumbled for their iPhone cameras whenever Lipa so much as flicked a gloved finger in our direction. On occasions when Lipa responded to the cameras and flashlights with a brief smile, the screams almost drowned out the music.

Physical, Lipa’s gleefully self-aware pastiche of Olivia Newton-John’s 1981 hit of the same name, was an excellent choice of opener and a statement of intent, with lines like “baby, keep on dancing like we ain’t got a choice” finding a match with zumba class-ready dance moves. An early onslaught of Future Nostalgia bangers ensued, finding a highlight in Break My Heart, Lipa’s most whole-heartedly disco number. The glitterballs remained dormant, but instead a dense web of tiny spheres descended above Lipa and her dance crew, pulsing with colour in time with the shimmering rhythm guitar and chest-rattling bass line. Then there was the unbelievably funky Pretty Please, plus groovy midtempo hit Cool, during which Lipa was joined by a pair of dancers on rollerskates, each encircling her and beaming from ear to ear. They got one of the loudest applauses of the night when they stole Lipa’s spotlight for a moment to perform a few somersaults and headstands on the well-implemented satellite stage.

If the rollerskaters weren’t Eurovision enough, We’re Good – a dubious inclusion at the best of times – featured a cameo from a giant inflatable lobster for reasons that never quite became clear. It seems that money to spare can occasionally work out as a hindrance rather than a benefit for shows like these. Early hit IDGAF, here demoted to We’re Good‘s introduction as a 30-second snippet, would have been both much more sensible and much more effective, with or without a lobster.

Somewhat trite strings ballad Boys Will Be Boys gave the night some necessary breathing space, although I’ll admit I was relieved when Lipa got seemingly impatient and threw in synths and a thumping electronic kick drum two choruses in. A slew of Lipa’s biggest dance hits followed and, having reserved all my excitement for Lipa’s pop and disco songs, I was pleasantly surprised at just how compelling the segment turned out to be. It helped that Lipa and her troupe had ventured out onto the satellite stage once more, surrounded by the crowd and seemingly caged up thanks to clever lighting and a metal rig that had descended from the ceiling. The claustrophobia suited songs like Electricity and One Kiss, which now sounded perfect for a gloomy, body-filled nightclub. Extended remixes allowed for more dancing, more energy and more outfit changes, with Lipa switching from one glitzy leotard to another just as one global number one hit blended seemlessly with the next global number one hit. I could have danced to that handful of songs long into the night.

A lighting rig descended for an intimate dance music segment

I spent a majority of the night in giddy anticipation of awarding Undertone‘s second ever five-star gig rating, so I was a little disappointed when Lipa eventually started to lose her momentum in the final third of the concert. Future Nostalgia bonus track Fever was a poor set list choice over Blow Your Mind (Mwah), particularly becuase it entailed a pre-recorded feature from Belgian popstar Angèle on the big screen. Elton John was similarly featured on tribute track Cold Heart, but I remained unconvinced by the song’s lack of fresh ideas whilst Lipa and the troupe attempted a tear-jerking end-of-gig group hug.

Electrifying Levitating and Don’t Start Now – surely two of the most monumental (and musically flawless) pop songs of the decade – were rightly saved for the encore, before confetti cannons cued Lipa’s theatrical disappearance into the stage, mid-pout. Lipa aptly took to a platform and floated around the arena for Levitating, leaning against the railings and waving down at the adoring crowd in a third, figure-hugging catsuit. Now unavoidably, we had been reduced to peasants bowing down to our queen of pop as she purveyed her subjects. She had every right to, after all: no popstar in Britain today quite has the global reach or the dense catalogue of hits currently in Lipa’s possession. With all the flabbergasting showbiz glitz and glamour of the Future Nostalgia Tour, she has ensured a firm grip on the crown for many years to come.

Jeff Rosenstock live at Belgrave Music Hall review – songs to tear the roof off
6
May

Critically acclaimed punk rocker Jeff Rosenstock marked his return to the UK with an explosive, sweat-drenched performance in Leeds, packed with clever changes of pace, raucous singalongs and underlying anti-capitalist rage.

16 Undertone gig reviews deep, no act I’ve seen thus far has taken to a stage quite like Jeff Rosenstock did at Leeds’ Belgrave Music Hall. For most acts, their grand entrance onto the stage is hammed up as one of the most thrilling moments of the night. Be it dodie‘s gentle organ hum, Sam Fender‘s static fuzz or Jungle‘s interminable sirens, some sort of lavish musical fanfare usually marks the end of the hours-long wait for the artist on our tickets. Even less well-known artists like Larkins or The Beths dimmed the lights and donned facemasks to remain anonymous as they set up their own equipment onstage, attempting to save the big reveal for the giddy few seconds before the start of their first song. The Beths even had their own hoodies with words like “guitar tech” written on their backs in an attempt to fool the audience (stood right at the front and with prior knowledge of just how unusually tall guitarist Jonathan Pearce was, I wasn’t buying it).

It was a surprise, then, when Rosenstock and his band practically stumbled onto stage minutes after the phenomenal Fresh had wrapped up their supporting set. I once again found myself right at the front and within touching distance of the great man as he taped a scrawled set list to the monitor in front of me and wrestled with a mic stand that had become entangled in cables. When one of Rosenstock’s songs happened to come on as background music, him and his band even started briefly jamming along to the disbelieving delight of the crowd.

The lowkey start was indicative of punk music’s general lack of self-importance, and Rosenstock’s humility in particular. Before digging into furious thrash metal of opener NO TIME, Rosenstock announced that he was here just to play some songs. For a pop gig this might have sound like an admittance of creative laziness, but for Rosenstock’s endearingly homegrown brand of rock, “some songs” was all the performance we needed.

Rosenstock performing on his replacement guitar

It helped, of course, that Jeff Rosenstock happens to have one of the most lauded discographies in rock today. Since his solo debut in 2012, he’s released one outstanding project after another, peaking with 2016’s immaculately-paced WORRY., which gladly took up a significant chunk of the set list in Leeds. His latest effort, 2020’s bitter and cathartic NO DREAM, came to define the pandemic summer for me and close friend Ewan, who, just like me, was hardly able to contain his excitement as we waited near the front of the queue outside Belgrave Music Hall. I had donned my NO DREAM t-shirt whilst Ewan’s giant Rosenstock flag remained proudly hung up in his bedroom at home.

Despite the night being Rosenstock’s first UK performance in many years, he was in no mood for gentle reintroduction. Choppy Nikes (Alt) had fans pogoing early on, as we screamed about “staring down the barrel of our shitty future” and “looking for a dream that won’t morph into a nightmare”. Scram! – the finest single on NO DREAM – was just as thrilling, and there was something vaguely touching about a group of (mostly) millennial men coming together in a room to sing about how desperate they are to run away from all the myriad personal problems in their lives. Musically, the climax of Scram! is extraordinary, with a barrage of kick drum hits that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Slipknot track, before eventually giving way to a rollicking garage rock payoff.

Rosenstock held nothing back in his performance of every last song, convulsing and twitching towards the microphone during his most pointed lyrics, turning around and keeling over his guitar in the ecstatic pain typical of loud rock music during many vocal breaks. It was scarcely more than 15 minutes in by the time he started to get visibly sweaty, and another 15 minutes later I could feel the occasional speck of lukewarm sweat splatter onto me whenever Rosenstock got overly energetic in his dancing; such is the visceral experience of being at the very front of a Jeff Rosenstock gig. His poor guitar got so drenched that he had to swap to his ‘backup’ guitar halfway through, telling us a story about how he apparently sweats much more than the average person. We all believed him.

Fun and goofy-sounding up-tempo numbers like Hey Allison! and Monday at the Beach were even faster in the flesh, almost to a fault, although seeing Kevin Higuchi smack the snare drum at such a rapid tempo never got old. Festival Song was a clearer highlight of the night, with its bounty of singalong riffs and propulsive final chorus, elevated by the screech of Mike Huguenor’s guitar. Majestic You, In Weird Cities should really have closed the entire night, but it was still rapturously received much earlier in the set. Rosenstock’s saxophone antics of the song’s live version had Ewan and I excited, not least because keyboardist and guitarist Dan Potthast had been occasionally playing a tenor throughout the night. In the end we didn’t quite get the saxophone solo we had been hoping for, but an a capella singalong of the song’s awe-inspiring final hook nonetheless felt pretty special. f a m e, NO DREAM‘s grandest moment, was the only significant set list casualty of the night.

The hits continued with the restless N O D R E A M, which was a good excuse for Ewan’s first stagedive of the night to the ire of the Belgrave security guards and general approval of fellow revellers, although no one quite had the boldness to do any crowdsurfing of their own for the entire night. The absurd sight of my friend’s limbs coming in and out of view in the melee beside me enhanced the giddy excitement of Rosenstock’s noisiest tracks. After that first stagedive I wasn’t to see him for a good 30 minutes whilst I clung on to my spot at the very front, wary of crush injuries from the occasional mosh pit surge. I was close enough to Rosenstock for him to confer with me in bafflement when the inevitable “Yorkshire” chants arrived before the encore.

Rosenstock connected with the fans on the closing tracks

And what an encore. To the delight of Ewan and I, it was mostly devoted to the final five songs of WORRY., which are woven together beautifully into one remarkable ten-minute long rock opus. Every chorus set the mosh pit on fire, and in quieter moments Rosenstock was almost entirely drowned out by a crowd intent on screaming every last lyric. Exhausted, Rosenstock lay down on stage towards the end of the segment, dozens of hands pouring at his shoulders and willing him to push himself out above the heads of the audience.

It had been a show with little fanfare and little space for sentimentality, but at the very end Rosenstock gave us a morsel with the calming cooldown of We Begged 2 Explode. “All these magic moments are forgotten,” we all chanted as Rosenstock waved goodnight. If we had bothered to listen to the words we were screaming, we may have realised how fleeting emotional highs like these really are.

The Beths live at Brudenell Social Club review – bubbly, light and a little safe
22
Apr

10,000 miles away from home, the fact that New Zealand indie rock outfit The Beths sold out Leeds’ Brudenell Social Club is remarkable in itself. What’s more, Elizabeth Stokes’ confessional yet light-hearted compositions were warmly received, even if her set lacked ambition.

Iam often amazed when I arrive at gigs to walk into a room packed full of people that all share a love of a single artist or band. When I’m with likeminded friends or at a gig the magnitude of something like Sam Fender in an arena it’s less remarkable, but when I’m stepping out of a cab in Hyde Park and joining a small queue outside the Brudenell for a rock band that has long been a private affection of mine, it’s a very strong feeling indeed. Having travelled from the other side of the world, the Beths were in our corner of Yorkshire for one night only and, ensconsed in the growing hubbub of bona fide fans, it felt like quite the occasion.

My surprise about the crowd should do nothing to belittle a band very much on the rise, not least in their home country, where they were one spot away from landing themselves a number one album with 2020’s solid Jump Rope Gazers. Sunny vocal harmonies help them stand out from the vast number of traditional four-piece rock bands around the world, as does their frontwoman Elizabeth Stokes, whose light, somewhat aloof vocal style is a surprisingly good match for her unfettered and confessional lyricism. Tonight her nonchalance is on full display, punfunctorily announcing her band name and their Aukland origin in the aftermath of screeching opener I’m Not Getting Excited. Even Stokes found it hard to stifle a smile as the crowd cheered and waved; an opening, repeated single guitar note is a well known rock trope, and on this song it was effective as ever in building anticipation for the first entry of the competent and confident performers around Stokes.

Only occasionally did the band regain the giddy heights of their strong opener. Cosy rock ballad Jump Rope Gazers was one highlight and perhaps the best singalong number of the night. Here Stokes’ vulnerable songwriting is shown at its most poignant. “I think I loved you the whole time, how could this happen?” she wailed to us heartbreakingly. The belting Uptown Girl – probably the punkiest two minutes and 43 seconds of the Beths’ discography to date – was an inspired choice of follow-up, with Stokes drowning out her sorrows and flexing her lead guitar muscles with one nut-tight riff after another. Throw in the sweet falsetto harmonies of Jonathan Pearce and Benjamin Sinclair, plus the furious snare fills of Tristan Deck and the result is the Beths at their exhilarating best.

Stokes’ songwriting may have been consistently good, but this routine showing did little to add to what we’d all already experienced on their two studio albums. Four-part vocal harmonies came at the cost of on-stage stasis, with every single performer tethered to the microphone set up in front of them. On such a small stage there’s little else they could have done, but any adaptation of the studio recordings whatsoever was sorely needed to make the gig feel like anything other than four musicians doing their job (albeit very well). Some endearing bandmate banter and compliments towards the Brudenell’s bespoke pastry offerings were about as special this set got.

Nonetheless, a band as rich in solid rock songs as the Beths can get away with not producing an all-round performance. It’s telling that even with the omission gritty debut single Idea/Intent and, tragically, Don’t Go Away (the best song from the band’s latest album), the set was not short on compelling songs. Po-faced guitarist Jonathan Pearce was suitably focused for the superbly squelchy guitar solo on Whatever before giving way to a chant of “baby, you’re breaking my heart!”. It was a hook so catchy and joyful the cliché lyrics only seemed to make the whole thing even more of a joy to experience. Little Death sounded much more impactful live, and the chorus spawned a surprisingly ferocious mosh pit that had me and the tamer fans around me periodically checking over our shoulders for the next time a crazed youth might barge into the back of us.

Jonathan Pearce and Elizabeth Stokes both gave solid performances on guitar

The set was not without lulls, not least an unnamed and unreleased song which on first listen sounded about as middle of the road as the Beths get. I remain unconvinced by the very risky and somewhat clumsy chorus on recent single A Real Thing and forgettable Dying to Believe was a disappointing closing number. It was the penultimate song, River Run: Lvl 1, that instead brought the emotional pinnacle of the night. Initially reflective and later propulsive, the song shifted between shades of Stokes’ raw emotions gracefully, with the sweet release of the chorus (“a river will run”) a surefire trigger for waterworks of a different kind amongst many of the fans around me. An awe-inspiring bridge was the one moment of the night where the four Kiwis managed to produce a piece of art that felt greater than themselves, and easily good enough to transcend the four walls of the Brudenell. For a few moments, I could well and truly lose myself in the flow of the music and, tellingly for the crowd around me, the reaction was calmed appreciation as opposed to manic moshing.

The Beths may be two full-length albums deep into their career, but there was a sense on the night that – to their credit or otherwise – bigger things are still to come for the Beths. The quality of the music is hugely promising, and a bigger, bolder performance from Stokes and her bandmates could easily turn the Beths’ live set into a force to be reckoned with. It may be years until they take another long haul flight or two back to the UK, but I feel certain they’ll be heading for grander venues armed with more remarkable sets. Let world domination ensue.

Sons of Kemet live at Gorilla review – a tour de force of British jazz
4
Mar

In an almost entirely wordless opening night, the boundary-pushing quartet chose impulsive danceability over the political potency they’ve become known for. The result was a thrilling set that seemed to fly by in a matter of minutes.

Ialmost never saw UK jazz trailblazers Sons of Kemet in Manchester. It wasn’t due to Covid this time, but rather the fact that a two hour journey seems all the longer in prospect when fat snowflakes are falling in their millions outside your bedroom window. It was with some reluctance that I scraped the snow off the roof of my car and accepted the kind offering of blankets, a shovel and a bar of chocolate from my worried mother. Only by the time I was diving in and out of thick fog on the upper reaches of the M62 did I realise that this would be my first trip to Manchester completely alone. After a busy week at home, was the promise of somewhat well-known contemporary jazz band worth it?

There were two things that propelled me over the darkening Pennines and onto a delayed and noisy tram headed for the centre of the city. The first was the fact that Sons of Kemet are not your average modern jazz band (although in reality the UK jazz scene is so diverse, an ‘average’ band is near impossible to come across). The four-piece’s USP is without doubt their unique lineup: one tenor saxophone, one tuba and two drummers. And that’s it. Harmonic detail that may have been brought to the table by a guitar or keyboard is replaced by an abundance of percussion, with drummers Eddie Hick and Tom Skinner making full use of their arsenals of cowbells, shakers and cymbals. Tubist Theon Cross and ringleader saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings present a similarly intriguing instance of musical symbiosis; neither instrument takes precedent over the other. Sons of Kemet’s music simply has two concurrent melodies: one high and one low. To listen for hooks in one over the other is to miss the point completely.

The second reason was simply for the sake of adventure. Manchester still feels like it’s own exciting new world to me, and Gorilla is increasingly becoming a familiar haven tucked under the Oxford Road arches. As I walked in wide-eyed and feeling accomplished having completed my grand journey, memories of Nubya Garcia last November came flooding back. Just like I had done that night, I promptly purchased an obligatory half-pint of Coke, slid my way through the crowd (once again ending up miraculously close to the stage) and steeled myself for the several hours of standing up to come. A lack of support act made the wait feel long.

Sons of Kemet ended up sauntering onto stage with little fanfare, the 400-strong crowd greeting them more like old friends than disbelieving megafans. The two frontmen simply smiled, somewhat crudely taped vocal microphones as deep as they could into the end of their instruments and got to work. Plodding opener My Queen Is Doreen Lawrence eased the audience in gently, opening with a repeated kick drum pattern and crackling rimshots before Hutchings added his own tasteful saxophone melodies. There was a huge roar from the crowd when Theon Cross made his entry on tuba – an almighty entry at that, his majestic instrument so rich and powerful in sound it felt as if the ground was shaking beneath us. I found myself in the perfect position in the crowd for a faceful of tuba, the shining mass of muscular brass tubes and valves almost within touching distance. Cross later got into the habit of leaning forward with one boot on the monitor in front of me in such a way that his face was entirely blocked from view by the tuba’s enormous bell, leaving only his legs and his rapid fingers visible. Not in all of my recent gigs has a musician and their instrument looked so awe-inspiringly magnificent working in tandem.

Theon Cross delivered an outstanding performance on tuba

Besides the lineup, the extraordinary thing about the evening’s performance was that the musicmaking started from Doreen Lawrence and hardly stopped until the four of them left the stage for good. As a result, it all began to feel like one, epic piece of jazz, with each song contributing to the general ebb and flow of the performance rather than existing as pieces of art in and of themselves. Pauses for applause felt like obligations to conform to concert traditions rather than necessary breaks, and over an hour had passed before Hutchings first spoke into the mic, albeit only to briefly introduce his bandmates during a song. To my surprise, Sons of Kemet’s pro-BLM, anti-institutional rage that had been so integral to their fiery latest album Black to the Future was entirely limited to their instruments. There was nothing of viscious beat poetry that peppers the album, but in its place we recieved a range of Afrobeat grooves that highlighted the fact that jazz – and a vast portion of modern culture and broader society – originates from the work of black cultures in Africa and around the world. In the end, the band’s key message of respect and understanding was conveyed perhaps with more eloquence than words could ever muster.

In truth, comment about Sons of Kemet’s thoughts on race relations or their feminist slant on black history (many of their songs are named after unsung black women throughout history), was only a minor detail of their performance. As the pumped-up group of fans around me in the front row demonstrated just a few minutes into the band’s set, dancing is a more immediate aspect of the band’s appeal. Early highlights Pick Up Your Burning Cross and the pulsating My Queen Is Albertina Sisulu whipped up a storm in the crowd, with Skinner’s kick drum pounding hard and heavy on every last downbeat. It was striking how often the repetitive, bass-heavy drums grooves resembled EDM or trance music in its ability to compel an audience to lose themselves in the beat. We all seemed to bounce up and down accordingly, the thumping kick drum and hypnotic bassline helping us dismiss any question of fatigue or boredom.

Watching exactly how Skinner and Hick deal with the logistics of two drum kits was fascinating. It seemed to me there tended to be a split between one drummer laying down the basics of a groove and the other adding tasteful splashes of snare and cymbals, although it wasn’t always obvious who had been delegated which role. Each drummer also had a slightly different set of gear at their disposal: Skinner was treated to the bigger, louder of the two kick drums, whilst it was Hick who had been given cowbell privileges. Regardless of the specifics, the end product was an immaculate, exceptionally detailed layer of percussion that both drove the two horn players to ecstatic highs and offered moments of peace and relaxation in the evening’s more thoughtful passages.

It was Theon Cross’s performance, however, that stole the show. A man that has seemingly devoted his life to proving once and for all how phenomenally underrated his instrument is, Cross was a force to be reckoned with, blasting out thundering bass melodies and sweating profusely under the effort demanded from him by the music. Every occasional squeal into the tuba’s extremely loud and surprisingly alarming upper register – sounding somewhere between a revving motorbike and charging elephant – was a thrill that illicited a cheer from the audience, especially when the sound was unleashed at unexpected moments of relative quietness. A three-minute solo piece performed by Cross in the middle of the set showed him at the peak of his powers and in total, virtuosic command of his instrument.

Cross let out a coy smile and dried his sweat-drenched face as the crowd cheered in enthusiastic approval of his solo before beginning another piece completely alone. This time his performance blossomed into the throbbing My Queen Is Harriet Tubman, a blistering, relentlessly volatile piece that remains the band’s best song to date. It took genuine restraint to stop myself from singing along to every last squeal of Hutchings’ sax line which I had learnt by heart – I sensed from the largely quiet dancers around me that screaming along wasn’t the done thing at jazz gigs. Instead I found myself jumping up and down with glee to a tumult of cowbell as both Hutchings and Cross fired off one killer riff after another. Hutchings, bandana-clad and ready for battle with his sinewy biceps bulging from the sides of a sleeveless shirt, ruthlessly attacked every last note like a boxer fighting for the world title. Cross bobbed up and down just a couple of metres away from me, cheeks puffing under the strain of an almighty bass line as Hick swayed along in time behind him, his remarkable dexterity on percussion filling the room with noise. About a dozen gigs in, this surely ranks as my most thrilling live music experience to date.

From there, it was a victory lap for the quartet who were clearly enjoying an audience that would gladly stomp their feet at every last thump of Skinner’s kick drum. There were moments of delightful experimentation – Hutchings took to what looked like a recorder at one point (an atenteben would be my guess after a bit of Googling) and Cross added atmosphere to My Queen Is Nanny of the Maroons with some conch playing. Frustratingly neither instrument had been amplified at all, so the effect was more of a mood-setter rather than an attention-grabber. Nonetheless, it added a needed element of light and shade to the evening’s performance. To Never Forget the Source turned out to be a slightly perculiar closer as one of the more downtempo and less remarkable numbers from the band’s latest album. The choice to use an improvised solo piece from Hutchings as the encore was stranger still. His playing was nonetheless mesmerising – a song with a bassline, melody and percussion all conjured up by one man and his saxophone – but it was far from the crowd-pleasing finale I had come to expect.

It was barely 10pm by the time I left Gorilla, but there was a sense among the crowd that we had just experienced something special. Someone next to me remarked that the 90 minutes had flown by. It was true that with virtually no speaking let alone the inter-generational racial hatred I had anticipated, the gig had run like a particularly good concept album: seamless, beautifully crafted and with a vague sense of a journey. Like all the best gigs, I took home a resounding feel of awe – both at the incredible musicians I had come face to face with and the fantastic pieces of music they had brought to life. The long journey had been undoubtedly worth it in the end. What’s more, I didn’t even need to use my shovel.