Giggage - And What I Thought

Now, I know this is generally a Rock Music site, but I like to vary my music intake and once in a while you'll see a review like this:



Melody Gardot
Bush Hall
1 May 2008

I've never been to Bush Hall before.
a) because I've never heard of it.
b) I tend to avoid west London.
But after stepping into the understated building and seeing the intimate, yet opulent room (chandeliers for crying out loud!) I couldn't imagine a better suited venue for a Gardot performance.
Coming straight from a long day at work, cold beer in hand, I grabbed a seat close to the low stage. Time to mellow...

The Mercury Men opened the night. This three guitar playing piece is very reminiscent of artists such as James Blunt, John Meyer and (dare I mention it) Lonestar. Yep, there was definitely a country twang to their tunes. Not too unpleasant and judging by the crowd, a perfect opening act.

The crowd in question was made up of those young professionals who worshipped Sex and the City, own Norah Jones cds and pretty much live the yuppie life. Wearing a Linkin Park t-shirt was not a good idea.

Moving on.

Miss Gardot took her place on the stage alone and opened the night doing 'No More My Love' a capella. Her voice was a little shaky with nerves, but the song soon filled out with the audience joining in. Her band soon joined her on stage for the rest of the show. She relaxed, cracked a joke and began to weave 'Sweet Memory' over the audience. The audience was silent during the entire number before breaking into loud applause after the last note had been sung. This set the precedent for the rest of the show. It was as if each song was a spell that bound the audience and as soon as it was over, the audience broke their stupor by clapping. An amazingly gloomy, heartbreaking cover of 'Ain't No Sunshine' followed. Cheese free. This is no easy feat for a song as well known as that.
Taking a sip of water afterwards she joked with the crowd in a thick New York accent.

'They asked me to play jazz. If I'd been playing rock and roll, that would be vodka.'

Her title track and Bill Withers cover 'worrisome Heart' send goosebumps along my arms. With each song, her stage confidence grew. Especially with the audience so close and near, it can be intimidating. 'All I need is Love (and chocolate and shoes and..)' and 'quiet fire' took us through to 'Love Me Like A River'.

'Enough songs about me begging for love. This is a song about how you must love me.'

'Goodnite' brought the evening to a very satisfactory end. But not before thralling and teasing us with a drum vs double bass dual. Not to be outdone by her band, Melody had a little duet with the trumpet before doing a verse in french. Mere words cannot describe the utter cool factor of that episode.

The yuppies demanded and encore.

Melody supplied us with an anecdote about her grandmother before sending us home with 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow'. But sung in a way that only Ms Gardot could have nailed.
The yuppies and I went home very happy.

BUT WAIT!!!

I have more....




The Wombats
Brixton Academy
3-5-08

The Wombats. Those three little, mischievous lads from Liverpool with their marsupial mascot sold out the Brixton Academy. I think its more to do with their infectious indie pop tunes than their looks. Most definitely.

I missed the first opening band, but caught I Was A Cub Scout doing their set. Not as good as some, but better than others, I expect big things from that band. Maybe a few more hooks in their tunes.

Anticipation builds as the kids enjoy a mass sing along to Vampire Weekend's A Punk playing over the PA system. Now they'd be a band to go see.
The lights die down and three lads strut onto the stage to stand around a single mic. They kick off with opening track 'Tales of Girls, Boys and Marsupials'. Again, mass singing from the sea of kids on the main floor. 'Kill the Director' brings a look of 'Oh so that's who they are' to a lot of parents faces. The band stomps right through it and onto 'School Uniforms' before ripping the crowd up with 'Lost in The Post'.

'This next song is a waltz'

'Laura' lulled the crowd from a frenzy down to a riot. 'Here Comes The Anxiety' (one of my personal favourites) just mixed it up into chaos! 'Dr Suzanne PhD' saw a quick bar break for everyone.

'I've definitely had more boring Saturday nights'

For our treat, we were the first to hear a new tune from the boys - 'How To Pack Your Bags'. Cute little waltzy number.
Afraid of losing more to the bar, the band whipped out 'Movin to New York'. This had us bopping. 'Patricia the Stripper' had us boogying. 'Little Miss Pipedream' had us finding a refill. And then the sneaking little buggers pulled the rug out from under our feet with 'Let's dance to Joy Division.' Not a body was left sitting. Everyone danced to this most infectious use of irony ever written.
And then the stage was empty.

The theme to 2001: A Space Odyssey filled the hall.

A 10ft inflatable wombat wearing sunglasses came down from the ceiling.

'My First Wedding' and 'Backfire at the Disco' sent us on our merry way.

I feel a special mention must be made about the amazing light show they had going on behind the band. They even had disco balls for the final number. An excellent show, which perfectly justifies why they sold out the academy on their debut album.

Reviewed and Coming Soon

CD Single

Yoav
Club Thing

Cape Town boy making good in the dance scene over here in the UK. Club Thing is a basic drum 'n bass tune with a Timberlake-esque melody. Not being a fan of dance/house/drum 'n bass, I'm not going to rave about it. But I'm not going to slam it either. It doesn't leave you tapping your toes. There's no 'WOW' moment. It sneaks up on you, taps you on the shoulder and politely asks 'Please play me right after last rounds.'

Gig Review

We Are Scientists
Shepards Bush Empire
24-4-2008

I know its the Monday after the show, but I've just stopped bouncing around from excess energy produced at the gig.

By the time we arrived at the Empire, my mates and I encountered teeming droves of teenies. We gulped nervously. Why all the teenies? Isn't it cool anymore for 20-somethings to go gigging? I missed that memo.
We took our places in the pit - second row from the barrier - and waited.

The opening acts were dull - to say the least. I didn't catch thier names as they didn't give them. There was a moment when Keith (Murray of WAS) joined them onstage for a song.

The lights went out and suddenly, the (now) duo hit the stage, opening with Brain Thrust Mastery's Ghouls. The Empire erupted! Swaggering through hits 'Nobody Move', 'The Scene Is Dead' and 'Inaction' just to remind us why we loved them to begin with, before injecting newbies such as 'Lets See It', 'Chic Lit' and leading single 'After Hours'.

Keith then took an ill judged jump off the stage towards the barrier during 'Tonight' to do the whole 'greet the fans' thing. Little did he know a close aquaintance of mine was a bottle of wine down and took it upon herself to grab and squeeze his ass. He had no choice but to laugh it off and quickly retreat back to the stage before the girls kidnapped him and they couldn't rip through 'Dinosaur', 'Lousy Reputation', 'Its a Hit'.

All the time, the crowd needed no prompting. Arms in the air, clapping madly away with voices raised in anthemic union. Shu!
Encore rounded off the night with 'Lethal Enforcer', 'Worth The Wait' and 'Great Escape' (which seemed to be written purely for this gig).

As good as thier albums are, seeing these boys live is a must! Smooth, professional, booming, anthemic (i like that word), swaggering and exhilerating!

Good job!

Boy Hits Car Gig Review - 9th Dec 2007

Yes, I know. This is nearly a month late. I humbly and profusely apologise. I've been busy.



Back to the gig...
The Underworld in Camden is one of my favourite venues to watch bands. It's a basement that smells like spilled beer, BO and vomit (formerly hidden by cigarette smoke now banned by law).
Its small enough to be intimate and large enough to hold a good crowd.

This good sized crowd filled out the club on a Sunday night to watch Californian rockers Boy Hits Car perform the second to last show of thier UK tour.
Chatting to guitarist Mike before the show, he mentioned a new album coming out in March 2008 - so keep your ears out for that.


GUITARIST - MIKE SAYS LOOK OUT FOR THE NEW ALBUM

There was also mention on red tape when they arrived in the country. Due to work permit issues (them not having any) They were deported 12 hours later only to have the permits FedEx'd to them and returning a day later. Damn red tape!!

The first three of the five bands playing aren't worth mentioning. However, the supporting band - Car Crash Television is a band worth keeping tabs on. Queen is an obvious influence as well as Bowie but if I recall correctly, they wore thier punk influences proudly.

Onto the main act...
Blown away. those are the only two words to describe it. Cregg Rondell (vocals and 12 string) blew us away with powerful, yet sensitive delivery of the songs as well as playing that 12 string acoustic and performing barefoot.

FOOT OF CREGG RONDELL

Opening with 'Going to India' then ripping through a set that included that crowd pleaser 'As I watched the sun..', 'Everything', Man without skin' to name a few.
The crowd wouldn't let them leave without an encore which they gladly obliged.

BLONDE CURLS OF CREGG RONDELL

I was invited to hang out afterwards and knock back some Jager, but the huge bouncers had other ideas, so I made my excuses and headed home, happy with the evening.
Besides, I was doing breakfast shift the next morning.

Another Show...

Thursday night I found myself at the O2 arena in Greenwich, London. Formerly the Millenium Dome, this building is now hosting music events. I personally think the venue is so big that even for a show like My Chemical Romance, who's trademark is over-the-top theatrics, it should be used for x-sports instead.
But maybe i'm just spoilt and prefer to see bands in a small venue with about 300 other people at the most.
So there I was, up in the rafters, wishing I had brought along my binoculars as the people on stage looked about 1cm tall.
The opening act was Mindless Self Indulgence (aka Mrs Gerard's Band). I sat back and watched, objectively, to thier set. And you know what? They really weren't that bad. But then, they weren't good either. Mostly rapping to punk music. With repetitive lyrics in the veins of 50 Cents. What? You couldn't be asked to try some clever word play?

So once this foursome flounced offstage, we had our headliners come on. Well, three out of five. Bob Bryar (drummer) is on sick leave due to a wrist injury, and Frank (rythmn guitar) was away due to a family illness.
But we had Gerard, Mikey and Ray to keep up the act. Now here comes the stupid part. I carefully typed out the playlist on my phone during the show and stupidly pressed the wrong button and erased it! So I'm relying on my memory from here on in.
Opening with a new track Stay Awake the band kicked off the show! Before you knew it, we were being raced through hits from all three albums, including Mama, Prison, Give 'em Hell Kid, Honey..., Headfirst for Halos, Helena, Teenagers and of course the ballady I Don't Love You.
Pyrotechics were going crazy during Welcome To The Black Parade, which still sends shivers down my spine.
Gerard is an amazing front man, even without the antics of Frank to amuse, he captivated us. Well, me at least. His banter was warm, darkly funny and went down well with everyone there.


(Photocredit to Somlanare off LJ)

Reports from Camp MCR say that this is thier last European show until thier next album. Let's just hope they don't choose the O2 arena again.