Ane Brun Barfly, M Ward Bush Hall

Ane Brun at the Barfly, February 5th. February is such a gig clash hell. I’m going to Frida that day. I’m thinking of actually going to the Union Chapel show and giving Woodpigeon a miss in Brighton. I haven’t decided yet though, it’s a toughie. Also, for M Ward fans, he’s announced another date February 24th at Bush Hall. It clashes with Fleet Foxes but I don’t mind as I’m seeing him on the 25th anyway. More info here, not sure if tickets are on sale yet.

Track: Metric-Help I’m Alive Acoustic

Try to picture me here in my room brimming with absolute pure JOY! Download an acoustic version of Help I’m Alive on the Metric website. I have to say, I kind of wish Jimmy didn’t sing on this one, and I wish it was piano all the way through. Basically, I wish it were a Soft Skeleton song. Nonetheless, it’s so good to hear more Emily (!!!!!!!!!!!!). I went to Bush Hall on Friday and has several pangs of pain in my heart imagining how good it must have been to hear Knives Don’t Have Your Back there. Ouch, that hurt. The new album which is called Fantasies is out on April 14th. “We’re also working on worldwide touring plans, dates will be announced soon.” Wow. I think my heart just exploded. Time to listen to Knives Don’t Have Your Back.

Review: Martha Wainwright in Seven Deadly Sins

After unsuccesfully finding a friend as enthusiastic as me to see Martha Wainwright sing at The Royal Opera House I decided to get a ticket and go anyway. I’m glad I did, it was a new experience full of unintentional hilarity.

Before I left I checked the Royal Opera House site for some more information. No dress code, though it did note “You can wear jeans (although most people don’t)“. I thought this was pretty funny. My jeans have big gaping holes across the knees but I didn’t feel like changing into un-holey jeans so I stuck with it and set about walking to Covent Garden.

I got there in plenty of time and collected my ticket. At first I went to the wrong desk and a rather smug, snotty receptionist told me so. I went to the right desk and the guy there was much friendlier, I got my ticket then went off to mill around Covent Garden for a while. I watched a busker playing Don’t Think Twice, he massacred it with his fake American accent/Bob Dylan impression.

I headed back to the Opera House and went to find my seat. I couldn’t help but feel ridiculously out of place. The bag search lady clearly hated me for having a backpack with a zillion pockets. I stood and waited for the doors to open, the hordes of old people were sitting on a bench and it was really cute watching them shuffle along and make room trying to squeeze more people in.

We went in and I took my ‘restricted view’ seat. If I leant back I truly could see nothing, but if I lent on the ledge I could see brilliantly. I was right at the top, Amphitheater left on the front row. I had about 1cm between me and the ledge anyway, so it was fine leaning forward. I was pretty pleased. I watched people filtering in and wondered about the people down at the bottom in the boxes that cost a couple of hundred £, whether they just really love ballet and it’s a treat for them, or if they’re just super rich. I think the latter was probably the case mostly. 

Now, I am disposed to saying please and thank you whenever I see fit. There was one lady who I took an immediate dislike to after she looked at me and bluntly said ‘I need to get to my seat’ instead of ‘excuse me, can I get past you to my seat please’. She was about 50 and pretty haughty and rude. I stood up and let her past and wondered about how some people can get to that age and still have not learnt their manners (!). That same lady would go on to cause some very funny drama that caused me to laugh out loud in my seat, more on that later. Luckily, the seat next to me was free so I could spread out a little bit.

So the first of the three short pieces was Seven Deadly Sins, which featured Martha Wainwright. From what I gather (and to be honest, I didn’t gather much) it was about two sisters, mysteriously both called Anna who look the same (one of them was Martha) traveling across some seedy parts of the USA. The set was pretty cool and had a giant moon that moved around (cool!). The best part for me was all the parts where Martha sang, she really has a spectacular voice. What a talented lady. It lasted about 40 minutes. One thing I noticed at the ballet is they expect you to clap for about 5 minutes after, literally. I think because at gigs you clap after each song the clapping doesn’t build up into one epic clap-fest at the end, like it did here. Because you can’t clap during the show, you clap for about a century at the end while the dancers take about 15 bows. Martha got the biggest claps and she deserved them. 

In the interval, aforementioned rude lady came up to me and asked if the seat next to me was free. Indeed it was. She left, and then when she came back declared “My friend is sitting there now.”. I was stunned at how rude this woman was! She didn’t ask me to move my things, she just looked at me and expected me to move them. I did, and internally laughed at how bizarre this all was.  The best drama from this lady was yet to come.

The second piece was called Carmen. It started off OK, it had some pretty brilliant dancing from a lady in a big red dress. Unlike Seven Deadly Sins, this had no singing, and for me, soon deteriorated into a snorefest. I think it was partly because it was dark and I was tired. I also started to get hungry for something sweet during this part of the performance. I remembered I had a banana in my bag, but I didn’t know if it was proper Royal Opera House-etiquette to eat a banana during the ballet.

In the next interval, the rude lady decided to pick a fight with an old man a couple of rows behind her. He and another lady were complaining about how they couldn’t see because the rude lady was leaning forward and blocking their view. They got the Opera House staff involved, it was pretty epic! The rude lady went up to their row and started arguing. Clearly fuming, she returned to our row and started moaning to her friend. She was saying about how rude he was and was fake laughing at him, then said loudly “I’m going to lean even further forward NOW!”. This is the point where I laughed out loud at how ridiculous this all was, isn’t this meant to be a civilized affair!? The Opera House staff lady was a bit baffled too, the old man and the lady in the row behind kept complaining to her about it all. The guy sitting in the seat next to me also found it pretty strange and turned to me and said “looks like the drama’s not just down on the stage”. I agreed and said it was pretty funny for me seeing these people double/triple my age being so silly and immature. 

Finally the interval drama was forced to end when the final performance started. It was called Danse a Grande Vitesse and was a ton better than Carmen. It had music by Michael Nyman and was really epic and brilliant. The dancers were amazing and I got the impression that they must really, really love what they do. It also made me think about how lucky I am to get to go to stuff like this, I’m sure people all over the world would love to attend a performance at the Royal Opera House in London, and I can just walk 30 minutes and see one with ease. There were over a dozen dancers on the stage, it reminded me of that Feist video. After about 10 minutes of clapping at the end I made a speedy exit. 

Overall, I’m glad I went, it was only £11 (good value for 3 hours worth of stuff). I had a pretty good view and it was good to try something new. The walk back was brutal, the wind is so cold. Hopefully it’ll snow soon. Next time Martha performs her songs in London I’ll definately be going. You can watch Martha talking about the ballet here.

Video: Emmy the Great- First Love

I’m pretty sure I’ve posted several videos of Emmy playing this song, but what can I say, it’s a great song. You can watch a nice high quality acoustic performance for Clash Music here, there’s also an interview at the end . Because it’s not youtube I can’t embed it, so here is another video of Emmy talking about First Love and the music video:

January: A Summary

We have reached the last day of January already. It’s been a fairly quiet month in terms of music, February looks to be doubly as busy as January. At the start of the year I initially set a ‘200 bands this year’ quota but  I think this could be easily achieved at this rate, but while we are in a boom at the moment, we never know when the live music recession will strike its icy claws into my calendar. Also, worryingly, I haven’t checked my bank balance in over a week, I keep forgetting.

Here is a list of all the musicians I saw this January:

Pocketbooks, Help Stamp Out Loneliness, The Ballet, The Leisure Society, Emmy the Great, Puzzle Muteson, Ora Cogan, Jane Bartholomew, Ben Weaver, El May, Lymbyc Systym, The Bowmans, Anais Mitchell, Kat and the Half Step Uncles, Ark People, City Reverb, Hjaltalin, Casiokids, of Montreal, Darren Hayman, Blue Roses, Loney Dear, Little Death, Pulled Apart By Horses, Sky Larkin, Samamidon, Doveman, David Thomas Broughton, (and then later today) Matha Wainwright.

of Montreal were the best. Loney Dear, Hjaltalin, Sky Larkin and the Emmy busk would also make the top five. There were also quite a few really impressive support acts, Blue Roses, The Bowmans and Jane Bartholomew were all brilliant.

I only went to one instore this month, I look forward to Pure Groove re-opening its doors. My goals for February are: Go to all the shows I want, take a really killer photograph, and not fail at my university course. I’d also like to see more bands that fall into the ’super love’ category to announce some tour dates, there are quite a few that are well within the realms of possibility (Metric, Au Revoir Simone, Whispertown- I’m looking at you three in particular.) I have also decided to allocate myself £3 spending money a day for food, because while music may well be the food of love it does not fill the void in my stomach.

Photo: David Thomas Broughton at Bush Hall

Bush Hall is alovely venue, but the lights are absolutely dire. What a contrast to the photographic heaven that is the ICA. Here is a photo of David Thomas Broughton in the audience doing some weird dance moves that he does. The red/blue/green lights were not nice to the camera. I have so many tricks I need to learn for venues like this! Review tomorrow.

Video: David Thomas Broughton- So Much Sin To Forgive

I’m going to see DTB tonight at Bush Hall.  He’s got a pretty spectacular voice.

I hate Time Out

Epic fail Time Out, epic fail: “Sorry, We are unable to invite you to the VV Brown+ Alessi’s Ark+The No Sorrows+Ronojoy Dam (Real Gold) gig on Fri Feb 6. ”

I really wanted to see Alessi’s Ark. Sad times. EDIT: Adam saves the day! Happy times!

Review: Sky Larkin at the ICA

Yesterday I went to see Sky Larkin at the ICA. It was brilliant. First I met up with Bobbles and we went to Chinatown and ate some expensive yet delicious duck. We headed over to the ICA across some zebra crossings which protected us with ‘the spirit of the zebra’. The ICA is in quite a posh area not far from Charing Cross station. I had never been there before so I didn’t really know what to expect. We took a seat and then met up with James and went into the venue.

The first band Little Death had started, the crowd were hanging back. We glided to the front and marveled at the absolutely brilliantly fantastically wonderful EPIC lights! It was like photographic heaven. Little Death were quite laid back and enjoyable enough.

Pulled Apart By Horses were next. They couldn’t be any further from the folky stuff I usually listen to, but they were alot of fun! It’s nice to have something a bit different from the quiet acoustic folkies I see so often. They were jumping around the stage playing really loud rock, rolling on the floor, screaming. It was epic. The singer jumped from the stage and rolled around on the floor in the audience. They had one song where they wanted to give everyone hi fives, which was a nice gesture I suppose. It was all very crazy and very fun.

I wanted to buy a Sky Larkin watch, but alas, I had no monies left at all. I do actually really need a watch as well, my university clearly doesn’t see having clocks anywhere as a worthy investment. They played the BSS song Cause=Time (win!) on the sound system, we watched some girls doing some mad dancing, then Sky Larkin started. In the words of Katie ”We make noise. A girl and two boys.”. They were indeed very loud and I think I will loose my hearing if I ever stand that close to the speaker again, but it was so worth it! The band had so much energy, Katie was bouncing all over the stage and Nestor has to be one of my favourite drummers ever. I think the venue worked well for them, the epic lights and smoke made for a great atmosphere. Set highlight for me was Fossil I, just because I really like that song and it’s pretty catchy. The new songs sounded great too. I had a great evening and will definately be catching the band again next time. Tour dates across Europe and their new LP The Golden Spike is out February 9th, check their Myspace for more details and information.

Sky Larkin @ Rough Trade

I thought I would do a separate post for this as oppose to lumping it in with my review of yesterday’s show that I will write imminently. 

Before maths I was browsing the interwebs and thinking that I’d really like to see Sky Larkin again. I checked their Myspace. A couple of shows left in the UK, lots of Europe dates and an appearance at SXSW, but no London date yet. I then felt compelled to check Rough Trade, and, what luck! Sky Larkin instore on February 11th! After a moment of rejoicing, I remembered my February is practically full and the chances of clash are very high. I checked my calendar, I was going to check our The Rifles that evening at Pure Groove, but they can make way for Sky Larkin. YAY! More information on Rough Trade.