Tag: music

Morning Parade @ The Scala 26/09/11

It was pretty handy that I didn’t have any lectures on Monday, because I discovered on Wednesday that the journey on the train takes a fair amount of time and… I would have missed this gig. Which would have been unfortunate.

Veto were the support band – I had been expecting two for some reason but I was kind of glad that there was only one in the end. They were pretty good – the singer reminds me a bit of a friend of mine, only my friend didn’t have quite such an epic beard.

Morning Parade were aces. Apparently the guy standing behind me has known the singer for TEN YEARS. SINCE THEY WERE THIS TALL. TEN YEARS. YOU KNOW. TEN YEARS.

Yeah. I got the picture after the 5th or 6th time he told me. Mostly that he’d been drinking.

Then after about ten minutes some other guy behind me grabs my shoulders and says “This is your fifth time?”. So I turned round and was BAFFLED by what appeared to be Frank Turner asking me a question, only… Frank’s had a haircut AND he’s on tour in the US. So clearly, this was not Frank Turner. Just some guy. So I told him “no, this is only my third time seeing Morning Parade.” Random.

Incidentally, the first time I saw Morning Parade they were supporting Feeder and Grant Nicholas FORGOT their name. Oops. He was adorable about it though and got the in the end. The second time I saw them… they were also supporting Feeder (do you see a theme here?) and Grant did remember their name.

I’ve got a couple of Morning Parade vinyl singles, but nothing more. I should really sort that out. It’s occurred to me that if the Stereophonics made music that was catchy and danceable and that I liked, they might sound a bit like Morning Parade.

In other news, I’m sure I installed a last.fm plugin into my wordpress blog but it appears to be missing. 🙁

The Kill Van Kulls @ The Social 11/07/11

I <3 The Kill Van Kulls. Really I do. They were an unexpected bonus when I saw The Naked & Famous last year and when I heard that they were releasing a new single and doing a small gig to launch it… well. I was sold. They remind me a little of Tears for Fears crossed with Patrick Wolf, which is actually a pretty nice-sounding hybridisation.

Anyway, they were great. Their music really filled out the venue (yeah, I know it was small, but still… you’ll see what I mean later) and, of course, they played the one song that I really know too. I guess I should really try to hit up more of their music, but have a sneaking suspicious that there isn’t really a lot of it about.

Also, as soon as they have a tangible EP or album out? It shall me mine. Definitely. And yeah, I know, CDs are getting a little old-fashioned now, but I like having music I can hold. Especially when you’ve had several hard drives die on you.

Support came from Ben Burrows and We Human. We Human were OK – as it’s over a week since the event, I don’t really remember much. I know I thought they were OK, but they could have done with being a bit louder somehow or bigger sounding (the music didn’t really fill the place, like I mentioned TKVK’s doing before) and maybe it was down to there not being that many people there… but I don’t know. Maybe there wasn’t enough banter between songs. Maybe the sound needed turning up. They were OK. That’s all I’ve got. They’ll probably be more to my exact taste in time.

Ben Burrows was pretty good. Just him, his guitar and his laptop with a sizeable chunk of “you know, I think he listens to a lot of Jeff Buckley” with a smidgen of “a bit ramshackle” for flavour. In contrast to We Human, he really filled the tiny stage and not just because he’s like… a giant (seriously, he was really tall). There was chitchat, there was poking the laptop to make it work without making it fall off its stand and there was guitary bits with some drum bits. I liked it. There was one song that had a one word title beginning with L, I think, that I really liked and now can’t remember the name of.

So. In conclusion, We Human were OK, Ben Burrows was pretty good and The Kill Van Kulls were aces because I don’t go and see bands I don’t think will be aces. Unless someone else has kindly given me a free ticket.

And now that I’ve had some time not trying to remember that Ben Burrows song? I think it was called “Lariat”.

December 2010 Gigs

I…went to a whole load of gigs and never really got round to blogging about them so here goes:

1. Frank Turner @ Brixton Academy 12/12/10

Frank Turner was ACCCCES.  I’d never seen him before, had an unlistened to album and it turned out that I’d only actually listened to one song. He was rocking. The old songs were ace. The new songs were ace. The cover song was ace. Everything was ace.  Support were Dive Dive and Ed Harcourt. I love Ed Harcourt. He started the evening with a full beard and then he came on later to perform with Frank…and surprised us all (even Frank) by just having the moustache.

2. XFM Winter Wonderland @ Brixton Academy 15/12/10

This was also ACES.  Manics were ace. Suede were ace. White Lies, Two Door Cinema Club, Mona and The Drums were all ok.

3. The Twang @ The Relentless Garage 22/12/10

The support were Tantrums who I really liked. Had to leave before The Twang did their encore because of the snow, Christmas and trains and that but they were fun and played all the songs I actually knew 😀

 

Of course, I would remember more if I’d blogged all this 4 months ago!!!