Guillemots @ The Octagon, Sheffield

Possibly the best concert experience I've ever had.

My sister and I had just stepped out of the hotel and were walking towards the venue when in the distance, 20 metres away, I recognised someone who was walking towards us. As she got closer I realised it was Arista and that Magrão, Greig and a few roadies were following a few metres behind. After they'd passed us, me and my sister stopped and turned around to see them walking into a restaurant just opposite our hotel.

After a failed attempt at snapping a photo of the restaurant window from outside, my sister convinced me that I was a wimp and would be missing out on meeting one of my favourite bands if I didn't go in.. so I did. After apologising for disturbing their meal, we got a photo with them, left the restaurant, went around the corner and squealed a bit.


Two hours later...
On the way into the concert Magrão stopped me and my sister, much to our surprise/delight, and handed us VIP passes.

The concert itself was fantastic. They played a lot of crowd favourites such as 'Made-Up Lovesong #43', 'Annie, Let's Not Wait' and 'Trains to Brazil' as well as less popular EP tracks like 'She's Evil' (where Magrão takes centre stage), 'The Dormouse and the Meerkat' (a b-side rarely played live) and four new songs. Fyfe also played a memorable solo acoustic version of 'We're Here'.

After asking the "Golden Ticket" holders to come backstage, they band proceeded into their final song, 'São Paulo'. We were given labcoats and then, during the final half of the song, we were led onstage by a roadie and told to hit a large metal bird with the drum sticks we'd been given. We happily obliged. When the song ended we were led backstage to have a few beers with the band and the rest.. well, that's saved for the deep inner faults of my mind (and possibly my livejournal..).

The morals of this entry.. stalk your favourite bands, always accept VIP passes (apparently they have a lot of trouble finding people to accept them!!) and.. look out for members of Guillemots before the show if you ever go and see them.




Photographs courtesy of my sister.

Regina Spektor @ The Astoria

The pleasingly central location in London of the Astoria was the setting for one of the many NME-branded Award Shows, showcasing a diverse range of headliners and a larger than normal set of support acts. First up to support Regina Spektor was Only Son, an unintelligible New Yorker who gained nothing from the sound setup in the venue. Using an iPod as his backing band, he strummed his way through a series of unremarkable yet fairly pleasant songs. He ended his set with a bizarre 'acceptance speech' for nothing in particular which no one could understand.

Next on stage were Brinkman, a three piece London band playing fairly standard Britpop, but an enjoyable performance with the standout track being the heartfelt A Real Thunderbolt which has been a favourite of mine for a few weeks. Sweden's Love Is All were the third support band, and they were very Swedish indeed. Punky, energetic indie pop with a shouty female singer and enthusiastic saxophonist who refused to allow Regina Spektor's grand piano, taking over much of the stage, stop him from pogoing about as much as possible.

After more music over the PA from a DJ with a Radiohead fixation (5 tracks were counted through the course of the evening), Regina Spektor made her way onstage and delivered a stunning unaccompanied Ain't No Cover and from then onwards she had the crowd transfixed. The majority of her set came from her two most recent albums Soviet Kitsch and 2006's Begin to Hope. She also played fan favourites such as Bobbing for Apples and Baby Jesus.

For the second half of the set, Regina was accompanied by a band, unlike her most recent visit to the UK. Songs like Carbon Monoxide and Better were reproduced far closer to their recorded counterparts than had previously been seen at Regina's shows.

Regina was amazing, showing off her vast range of vocal talents as well as piano and the odd bit of guitar. Her personality shone through the songs; no other performer could ever get away with covering her. A truly captivating, brilliant gig.

Patrick Wolf @ The Junction 2

February 2007 has possibly been the best month I have ever experienced gig wise. I've played my first proper gig as well as going to see the likes of The Decemberists. With Regina Spektor to come this evening and The Shins later in the month you'd be forgiven for forgetting about Patrick Wolf and his relatively lowly levels of stardom. On the basis of this performance, ignoring him would be a great sin against the world.

He played in a small theatre type venue in Cambridge known as the Junction 2. At only 300 capacity the gig couldn't be described as anything but highly intimate. The gig began with the weirdest/scariest support act I have ever seen in my life; "No Bra" (literally). No Bra is a 6ft naked she-male (complete with moustache), mumbling her depraved insanities over simplistic techno. Personally I found it both hilarious and scary in equal measures. Yes, if she'd taken one step forward I would have taken two back, but at the same time when she moved onto another purely shocking topic it still raised humoured eye brows.

After an inordinately long wait Patrick Wolf entered the stage to face a crowd that had started to grow increasingly impatient. His stage presence and charisma was magnificent; I'd been expecting a slightly over-theatrical kid, but instead he paraded the stage with elegance. Playing through a good selection of songs from his two released albums, and new effort The Magic Position, everything sounded perfect other than, strangely, the ukulele, which sounded horribly tinny and scratchy - like the strings were far too tight or something.

Highlights for me were my new favourite The Stars and emphatic closer The Magic Position.

Arcade Fire Vs The Decemberists

After having so much to do recently my review of seeing Arcade Fire live late last month got pushed back and back. All the way until past me seeing The Decemberists a week ago today. So now instead of writing about both the events separately, I'm going to face them off against each other in a North American, Canada vs USA, fight to the death.

The first of the two gigs took place in St John's Church, Westminster. The church's large stage is normally put to use for orchestras but took a break from it's classical background to welcome Canada's finest, Arcade Fire. In fact they seemed slightly out of ease with the run of three concerts, not even publishing them in their official listings for the month.

The band ran through 10 of the 11 songs from their new album, the aptly titled (for the surroundings) Neon Bible. To my vast disappointment only a couple of songs from the band's debut, Funeral were bellowed around the church. A couple more songs really wouldn't have gone amiss, as without a support act, and a set length of only 1 hour 15 minutes did make the gig seem a little short (especially considering all the traveling I had done that day to get there).

The performance of course though was outstanding, with up to 10 members on-stage at once, all singing at the top of their voices whilst playing a powerful mix of unusual and not-so-unusual instruments. Everything sounded perfect, acting as a real compliment to the acoustics of the church. The talk-about moment of course had to be the unexpected acoustic, mid-crowd, performance of The Clash's Gun's of Brixton which opened the gig. Megaphones, a double-bass, and a mandolin, made this a very different kind of cover. The picture above (taken by me of course :P) is of Win standing on a chair in the middle of the crowd mid-song.

Eight days later The Decemberists took the stage at the far more normal venue of Shepherd's Bush Empire. To begin they played absolutely breathtaking performances of The Crane Wife and Island, Come and See, The Landlord's Daughter, You'll not Feel the Drowning. Performances which I would have been very happy with as highlights of the evening, only they were not; there was not a single song The Decemberists performed that didn't have me spellbound. They performed songs from all of their albums giving the crowd, in my opinion, almost exactly what they wanted (of course if the crowd had been just me, the crowd wouldn't have been so happy with the lack of The Gymnast, High Above the Ground).

The showmanship of The Decemberists almost stood out even more than the songs themselves. They got the crowd participating in a surprisingly large range of activities. Front man Colin Meloy started these proceedings with a bout of "mid-show calisthenics" and this was followed by the old splitting the crowd into several large choirs to sing in 16 Military Wives. Whilst we've all been in a crowd doing this kind of thing before, it really worked here, and I enjoyed it far more than I'd ever expect to. A devastatingly good rendition of Sons and Daughters climaxed with the whole crowd smiling wholeheartedly whilst bellowing out "Hear all the bombs, they fade away" with their exhausted voices. Several crowd members even got to go on stage and bounce around with Colin Meloy, who was obviously enjoying himself, which is always nice to see.

The fun continued right through into the two encores with guest appearances from Robyn Hitchcock and Mike Scott (who are a little unknown to someone my age, but evidently from the reaction of the crowd, not to everyone else). They finished the evening with a highly unexpected reenactment of part of the American civil war during A Cautionary Song, where the crowd were split down the middle so we could scowl at each other from the opposite sides of the battle.

Whilst both gigs won't be forgotten by any of there attendees easily. Arcade Fire were forced into retreat by the sheer amount of smiling The Decemberists caused. It wasn't the songs that put Decemberists far and above on top for me, but instead the showmanship; those little extras that showed the crowd that the band really cared about making sure their fans have a good time. All other bands should take note and follow The Decemberists' example.