First up was Matthew Stephen Cooper who I've only seen in the teenytiny space at the Alley Cafe when he played Jumpers For Goalposts. It was really good to see him with a big soundsystem and to hear his playing & singing properly.
THEN came the wonderful Smell of Success, aka the very talented Joe & BD. They played some new tunes which BD told us he'd only learned 1 week ago. It showed a little round the edges, but not in a way that took away from how good the songwriting was and they were still full of heart and melody and sounded great. Plus Joe looked super cool with a sharp suit and shades and an old-school keyboard.
NEXT came the big BURLY NAGASAKI set. Having been lucky enough to hear the album when we made the video for forthcoming single Fools' Gold, I was really excited to hear it live. They opened with a supercool Berlin-influenced underground dance piece with an awesome performance art aspect to it in the shape of an awful ear-splitting electronic feedback-type of noise which prompted some kindly help from a member of 20 Year Hurricane who thought that something was genuinely going wrong. Music where people think something is going wrong is brilliant, like the Tom Tomas Club at the Alley Cafe covering Prince and having a member of the audience genuinely concerned shouting "What's going wrong?"! Anyway, awesome intro over Tez & Joey treated us to a full live album set including the following instruments: guitar, drums, saw, keyboard, sandwiches, scissors, ukelele, a giant cardboard gun, an apron and probably more that I've forgotten. There was a brilliant air of rehearsal about it, with a few false starts and a couple of "who begins the next one?" moments. I was really into that, like this was the rehearsal show and next week the whole night would run again and everyone would be note perfect. We were seeing something special with a few charming, minor imperfections which gave it its heart.
I think my favourite moment was the crowd singalong to "look at all the babies we've killed" and then Joey's explanation story about Elvis. Ask him if you want to know what it is.
LAST but of course not least, were Twenty Year Hurricane. Despite Nick's proclamations that their opener was a new song and was probably going to be rubbish it worked really well. The sound in the chameleon is really good, credit to Simon the sound engineer, and it's so nice to hear bands you like playing there. the Hurricane sounded great and even though the crowd thinned a little they still really created an atmosphere. Gareth is ace on the drums, really playing and smiling and involved, Chris on bass is focused and intense and Nick singing has a charm all of his own. (Nick if you read this i mean that in a good way I promise x).
Anyway, few pics here, more Burly gigs to come, can't wait!
Bought a Burly Nagaasaki album for only £4. Haven't looked through it and my goodies properly yet as I'm waiting for Anders to return from a stag weekend. Can't wait though, looks choc-full of fun!
bye for now
x
Bex
