Alessi’s Ark at The Lexington

Come to this. It willl be so made of win.

Perfect to fill the gap between Here We Go Magic Monday and St Vincent Wednesday. What a joy. I think everyone in London should come to this. It’ll be fun. Alessi’s Ark are brilliant live. If you haven’t seen her yet then you need to come. If you have seen her before, you still need to come.

Extra warm birthday wishes to Alessi today. Hurray!

Leah Hayes animaton

Oh!

See!!! See how amazing she is! Listen to that song! Whenever I type about Scary Mansion everything must end in an exclamation!

Really, though. Leah is so talented. Amazing amazing amazing.

My Heart

Shhhhhh. Do you hear that? It’s the sound of me heart melting into a thousand pieces. How is it that a song can have so much power? 

YOU SEE I’M LOST WITHOUT YOUR RHYTHMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM! Ahhh. My goodness. Is this my favourite live song ever? Yes, yes it is. My heart loves it. That steel drum part (that isn’t on the album version) absolutely kills me. 

So much passion! I love this. 

Review: Nouvelle Vague at Pure Groove

I popped along to Pure Groove to see Nouvelle Vague, despite never properly listening to them. What a wise decision I made. All I knew is they’re French and they’ve played at The Forum. I was chatting with friends before the band played and they said they do alot of covers and that I’d recognize songs as they’ve been in adverts.

Pure Groove was pretty busy and I was quite intrigued. The band have a date at the Roundhouse later this year, so I knew it was pretty special to see them in such a tiny venue. For non-London folk, you should know that London is HOT right now. So all these people crammed into tiny little Pure Groove made for quite a HOT show. The band played a full set of 10 songs, opening with Killing Moon.

There were two singers, a guitarist and a keyboardist. The singers were both very charismatic, dancing about and singing passionately. The keyboard guy was fun too, shaking his hips around and getting the audience to clap. Pure Groove’s audiences can be pretty dead sometimes, but this crowd was brilliant! Dancing along and clapping, there was a sweet atmosphere. For the final song both singers left the stage to dance in the audience. I know that if the crowd had been more reserved then it could have been quite awkward, but it wasn’t like that at all. There seemed to be quite a few big Nouvelle Vague fans about who sang along. After their set they got a huge cheer and applause, and deservedly so. I loved them and I would be more than happy to catch them again some time. Fantastic, I love when you go to shows not knowing what to expect and then come away thinking ‘wow’. Wow, indeed. 

Photos: Nouvelle Vague at Pure Groove

Here are 3 photos. But there are 10 here. Clicky clicky. 

Nouvelle Vague at Pure Groove

Nouvelle Vague are playing a free instore at Pure Groove tonight. I’ve never listened to them but I will check it out. I seem to remember they played The Forum last year, which is a pretty huge venue. 

I Would Be Sad

I love the Avett Brothers. They are amazing. I can’t wait for their new record, I sometimes forget that it’s coming. Emotionalism was one of my favourites from 2007. I listened recently and remembered how absolutely much I adore this song. It’s beautiful, so sweet. The crowd are up for a sing a long, which is brilliant to see. The ‘girrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrl that I adore‘ part is my favourite. Love. Love. Love. Swoon. Gush. Ahh!

I love this band and I can’t wait to see them live, and hopefully that will be soon.

Alessi’s Ark- The Dog

Awwwh. This is swoon inducing. Alessi dedicated this song to me. And the Action Aid people filmed it. So, at the start of the video when Alessi says ‘this song is for Anika’ picture me on the left hand side swooning. In fact, picture me like that whenever you think of me. Everything is so wonderful. I am always swooning when I’m seeing my favourites. Except when I’m hungry, then I am not happy. But, now I have a job, I am no longer in a perpetual state of hunger anymore. YAY. And also, if you ever wondered how to say my name, Alessi says it right. She’s a winner. The ICA looks smaller from above.

Actually, I’m hungry now. I want an ice cream.

Review: Hard Rock Calling at Hyde Park

Haha. This was awesome. I left my camera at home today, which was quite refreshing. Because Alessi is such a kind, lovely heart, she let me and a friend come to see her at Hyde Park today. Because I am lazy and made of fail, I drew a review, which I will supplement with more words below. 

Here my day is summarized in 16 steps, followed by a spider diagram of ‘things that were awesome’ and a list of things that would have made the festival better.

Part One (steps 1-13)

SEE

Part Two (steps 14-16, things that were awesome and things that could be better)

SEE

More stuff:

Alessi’s Ark

We found it pretty amusing that they managed to get Alessi’s band name wrong on the stage times and merch, simply having it as ‘Alessi Ark’. Proof reading: FAIL. I went and sat down in front of Alessi’s bandstand and she was wonderful. I do that geeky thing where I smile through her whole set. Yes, I am one of those audience members. After the set a gig friend who also happened to be there showed me a photo he took of me watching Alessi while she was playing. I looked seriously hypnotized. I feel so lucky to see her play so often, my heart swells in pretty much the same way it swells when I see Wildbirds. She is a huge favourite of mine and I’m so glad to hear her play her beautiful songs. The Ark were on top form and they sounded brilliant together. What a joy to behold. Gush gush gush. I could go on and on and on, but, I will refrain. They played Robot, Over The Hill, The Dog, Dancing Feet, Asteroids Collide, The Horse, a ridiculously cute little bit of Neighbour’s Birds, and Glendora. So much love for Alessi. She is brilliant and I can’t recommend her enough.

Fleet Foxes: They didn’t play Tiger Peasant Mountain! Hrmrmpf. It was interesting to see them play on such a ridiculously huge stage. This was the second time I’ve seen them. They were pretty sweet, the harmonies were lovely and they played some new songs too. White Winter Hymnal got a great reception and was unsurprisingly brilliant.

Neil Young: he was pretty cool. We didn’t stay for the whole thing, we were hungry and everything was so expensive.

More gushing:

I saw a few others but nothing much to say. Alessi was the best, for me atleast. Alessi is always the best, she is a consistently fantastic performer and one of the sweetest people you could meet. Here comes a big gushing sentence with alot of weight (!!!): If I had to choose one act out of all the acts I’ve seen this year (260+), one act that I could see play again, and the rest I am banned from seeing until June 2010, I would choose Alessi. And obviously there are other acts I’ve seen this year that blow my mind and I love hugely too (a certain Swedish act, amongst many others) but, I would chose Alessi. Alessi has been a gift, a real gem of a find. Listen to her songs and see her live, I hope you get to love it all as much as I do.

St Vincent- Marrow

H-E-L-P, help me, help me. Oh, my. This song is so brilliant. Everything is perfect. Annie’s voice is superb. The guitar is rockin’. The horns are tasty. I’d love to see Annie with a big band like this.

Check out Actor. One of my favourite records from 2009.