Filed under: live, review | Tags: 2009, alan pedder, music, the bush the tree and me
The Bush The Tree & Me
Dingwalls, London •••
September 23, 2009
A bright red teapot and a vase of flowers sit next to the monitor at the feet of Paula Cox. Behind her, above drummer Jimi Ashmore’s head, is a framed painting of a pair of swans, glaring in the stage light. There’s a lamp, too, to the right of heavily pregnant clarinetist and keyboard player Natalie Barowitz, and various other bits and bobs scattered around the stage, which also plays host to cellist Emma Puskás and guitarist Belinda Cullen. More than just a cute nod to the car boot sale chic of the artwork for their 2001 debut album, How To Get Home, this assorted bric-a-brac is also part of The Bush The Tree & Me’s drive to raise money for UK charity Sands, which supports bereaved parents, and is auctioned off at the end of the show. The foliaged friends are celebrating several things tonight: the release of their long-delayed second album, Mouthful Of Bees; their first gig together in goodness knows how long; Paula’s birthday; and their 20th anniversary as a band. The excited crowd, many of whom clearly go way, way back, add to the buzzing atmosphere (though perhaps with a little too much excitable chatter for us first-time observers) and if the band are nervous then it doesn’t show.
June Tabor
Topic 70 @ Queen Elizabeth Hall, London ••••
September 18, 2009
Though she keeps up a fairly consistent touring schedule these days, a London appearance by June Tabor has become a rarity and, therefore, something to be treasured. Having been performing live for over 30 years now, she remains a thoroughly commanding, singular stage presence and was the ideal choice to bring the 70th anniversary celebrations of Topic Records to a close. As is often the case with Tabor, tonight’s show was organised thematically, in this case focusing on songs reflecting upon the relationship of the British people to the sea. The selection of material was solid and in some cases surprising, including many songs that Tabor has not yet recorded, encompassing the dolorous and the humorous, the intimate and the epic, the ancient and the contemporary. Surrounded by a superlative quartet of her regular musicians – Huw Warren on piano, Mark Emerson on violin/viola, Andy Cutting on accordion and Tim Harries on double bass – she supplemented the songs with instrumentals and a couple of poems and prose pieces, all thoughtfully and elegantly sequenced.
Filed under: live, review | Tags: 2009, emiliana torrini, léigh bartlam, music
Emilíana Torrini
Royal Festival Hall, London ••••½
September 13, 2009
“This is a gig that has been making me shit my pants these last few months,” chirps Emilíana during one of her many adorable rambles between songs as her band of dapper musicians retune. She might not have been joking either. For an artist whose last gigs in London were at ULU (800 capacity) and the Union Chapel (500 capacity), the near 3000-seater Royal Festival Hall is a dramatic upscale. Despite it being one of the Italo–Icelandic folk-pop singer’s most important, and no doubt intimidating, gigs of her career to date, she really needn’t have worried. While there were still a fair few empty seats, the audience were incredibly receptive and well behaved.
Filed under: live, review | Tags: 2009, deradoorian, music, scott sinclair, the dirty projectors
The Dirty Projectors / tUnE-yArDs
The Scala, London ••••
September 13, 2009
It has been a scant five months since The Dirty Projectors last visited London’s Scala. Over the season we whimsically refer to as summer they haven’t exactly conquered the music world, but they certainly have been busy. They have achieved critical acclaim; their vociferous fanbase has grown ever larger; they’ve composed a suite of songs for Icelandic diva Björk and performed them to a rapt New York audience; and experienced a car crash that was at first reported as having casualties. Throw in a busy festival schedule and it’s probably understandable that when they take the stage they look remarkably tired. Dave Longstreth and Amber Coffman, in particular, look almost skeletal under the Scala’s notorious terrible lighting.
Filed under: live, review | Tags: laura marling, richard steele, music, peggy sue, johnny flynn, alessi's ark, 2009, andrew bird, mumford and sons
Laura Marling & Friends
Royal Festival Hall, London ••••
August 11, 2009
Laura Marling is now such a respected and recognised name that not only can she sell out the Royal Festival Hall, she’s also allowed to bring some friends along for the evening. And not just any friends, but Wears The Trousers’ favourites Katy, Rosa and Olly from Peggy Sue, and the lovely Alessi Laurent-Marke (oh, and some boys too, most notably Andrew Bird, Johnny Flynn and Mumford & Sons). Walking onto a stage filled with mic stands, lamps and sofas, Laura’s tiny frame looked smaller than ever, but she’s clearly grown in confidence since her early gigs. Her boyish crop having been swapped for a longer, more sophisticated affair, she almost looks like Laura Marling’s big sister, despite being only 19. It’s not only her hair that’s grown; her voice has developed into a fuller, stronger version of itself, more than capable of holding its own in such an intimidating venue.
Filed under: feature, live, review, special | Tags: 2009, 6 day riot, don blandford, eliza gilkyson, kate stables, katie harkin, music, rachael dadd, ritzy bryan, sally saveall, sarah dodd, sky larkin, tamara schlesinger, the joy formidable, the long insiders, their hearts were full of spring, truck festival, whalebone polly, whispering bob harris
wears the trousers goes to truck festival 2009
Some festivals cater for weekend rebels – people who do festivals like they would do their gap year in the Far East, ticking it off as an experience fulfilled before gorging on the next cultural snack on their list. They are the future: the future accountants, the future lawyers and the future bankers. The coming establishment. Now in it’s twelfth year, Truck Festival at Steventon’s Hill Farm is different. Truck attracts rebels of the heart. Deep in rural Oxfordshire, by the real ale tent, local Rotary Club smoothie bar and the smelly barn, you’ll find the ones who are truly impassioned. Music really matters here.
Wears The Trousers braved the dodgy weather forecast and spent some time with some of the ladies appearing on Truck’s rebel playlist.
Filed under: live, review | Tags: 2009, anika mottershaw, music, richard steele, slow club
Slow Club
Institute of Contemporary Arts, London •••••
June 22, 2009
Just weeks before the release of their hotly anticipated debut album, Yeah So, indie-folk duo Slow Club launched their new single ‘It Doesn’t Have To Be Beautiful’ with an almighty bang earlier this week at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts. After getting up on stage for a brief warm up with support act Viking Moses, their own set began with an Arcade Fire-style in-crowd rendition of new B-side ‘Wild Blue Milk’. The crowd was hushed and attentive as Charles and Rebecca proved they’re more than just a one-trick perky pop pony with perhaps their most mature sounding tune to date. Taking to the stage, Rebecca quipped, “Seamless, eh?”, but as their devoted fanbase surely knows by now, seamless is not what Slow Club have ever been about. It’s the frenetic punk ethos that they bring to the new folk scene that continues to make them such a popular live act.
Filed under: live, review | Tags: 2009, amy turnnidge, don blandford, music, theoretical girl
Theoretical Girl
Culture As A Dare @ Cobham Lodge, Westcliff-on-Sea ••••
June 19th, 2009
I am in Essex searching for the young cultured rebels but I can’t find them anywhere – where are they hiding? The Southend Fringe has begun but nobody has told the locals. My only cultural encounter so far has come at the apostrophe-less Sunnys Café where a tattooed army man and the owner finished a tabloid crossword with a flourish of a betting shop pen. Whoever dares bring culture to this particularly English seaside ghetto is either very brave or very foolish, or perhaps both. Ah, but beware those first impressions. This is, after all, the seaside town that forgot to close down and conform to the Essex stereotype. A town that has nurtured Ipso Facto, The Horrors, Get Cape.Wear Cape.Fly, and now Amy Turnnidge aka Theoretical Girl.
Tori Amos
Savoy Theatre, London ••••
May 11, 2009
“How crap was that?” purred Tori Amos conversationally, addressing her expectant audience for the first time. Four songs into her one-off solo show at London’s elegant Savoy Theatre to promote her new album Abnormally Attracted To Sin (out on Monday [review]), she wasn’t talking about the flawless version of ‘Crucify’ she’d just hammered out of her trusty Bösendorfer grand. She was referring to the food poisoning that had her doubled over in pain a fortnight ago, forcing an exceedingly rare cancellation that saw many fans who had travelled from as far as the US turned away from the venue at the eleventh hour. One fan shouted something back, perhaps a little sore that Tori won’t be covering her travel expenses, while another asked her if she was feeling better. She was, she replied, before expertly seizing the opportunity to launch into one of her famed piano improvs, enhancing an off-the-cuff story about her new security guard Sade with a brilliantly cheeky riff on her namesake’s ‘Smooth Operator’.
Filed under: live, review | Tags: 2009, léigh bartlam, music, SCAM, skin, skunk anansie
Skunk Anansie
Water Rats, London •••••
April 3rd, 2009
Despite their huge success, Skunk Anansie were a strange band who never seemed to be taken all that seriously by many music critics. Perhaps a skank-rock band fronted by a bald, black, righteously feminist lesbian was too much of a novelty, or maybe their penchant for churning out as many power ballads as they did face-melting rock pelters softened their cause. To their fans though, this genuine mix of stadium anthems and tender but teeth-baring love songs made an indelible impact.
Rumours of a ten-year reunion had been circulating for months before tickets finally went on sale for tonight’s ultra low-key comeback in the venue that first launched the band in the early ‘90s, and two things were made instantly apparent as Skin, Cass, Ace and Mark bounded onto the stage 40 minutes late: firstly, that this writer is now far too old for a full-on mosh pit, especially in a venue the size of his bedroom; and secondly, Skunk Anansie have been greatly missed.
