Monday, October 13, 2008

Gigs update 2008/10/13

Adding to yesterday's list, today I found out that Emiliana Torrini is playing at The Powerhouse in November and Fleet Foxes will be at The Tivoli in January. Details here.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Gigs update 2008/10/12

The gig page has been updated with dates for The Panics, The John Steel Singers, Bob Evans and The Mountain Goats.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Supergrass @ The Tivoli October 2nd

Despite arriving after the initial crowd rush at the Tivoli, we managed to find an empty spot upstairs on the balcony to take in tonight's performances. I don't usually find myself upstairs because the good spots are usually filled by the time we get in, but tonight was a pleasant change and surprise.

Cloud Control were an interesting choice as a support act. To me, they lacked some of the confidence I would have expected of a band that were supporting the likes of Supergrass. At times, the performing wasn't as tight as it could have been for their sound, and they were a bit awkward when it came to addressing the crowd (neglecting to mention their name until one of the last songs). Having said all that, the music was generally interesting with hints of pop among the low-fi indie sound, and I really enjoyed some of the hypnotic parts of their set.

I wasn't really sure what to expect from Supergrass, as I hadn't seen them play live before and don't have a lot of their back catalogue. So it was brilliant to see and hear them come out with the infectious energy that they had. From the first song all the way through to the end of the encore, it was difficult not to want to move along with the sounds of their music.

Most of the set was played in their current formation as a five piece, but for a few selected songs, they stripped back to the three and four piece incarnations. Surprisingly, this didn't seem to affect the completeness of the sound at all. There were a number of songs where I thought the absence of the rhythm guitar or keyboards would have been noticeable, but I had clearly underestimated Gaz Coombes' impressive guitar work.



Speaking of impressive, the light show tonight was the best I'd seen for a while. I assume they brought their own lighting personel with them on the tour, because the design and execution were spot on (no pun intended!).

Highlights of the set for me were definitely Mary and Moving. I don't recall them playing anything off their Life On Other Planets album (the only other album I have), and don't know enough to fill in much of the rest of set list with the exceptions of Pumping On Your Stereo, Caught By The Fuzz and Strange Ones (I think!). However, that didn't affect my enjoyment of the set one bit.