Polarbear @ The Cluny 12/10/08

Sunday evenings at the Cluny are always more than a pleasurable experience, especially when combined with good company, good food from the Cluny’s kitchen, a pint of Budvar, and some live music. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the bands playing, all I had heard was that it was jazz, which I have rather mixed feelings towards. Good old Dave Brubeck and the likes, I really enjoy, ultra modern stuff, not such a fan, and unfortunately the first band fell in to the latter category.
I should have guessed, judging by the audience mainly consisting of men in their 20s to 40s, nearly all wearing trendy flat caps. This was to be a gig for musicians by musicians. The first band were a VERY experimental Jazz trio. The kind that to the unknown ear, just sounds like a really annoying mosquito that won’t leave you alone, combined with the sound of kitchen shelves collapsing, leaving pots and pans crashing to the floor.
I can appreciate the musical ability it takes to play such complicated music, with off beats, but to me the beats are so off, it seems completely lacking in rhythm. I’m sure that the music would be well fitting for an arty independent thriller film, but in this case it just made me stressed, and I have to admit I was delighted when they stopped playing at 9:45 a guy with absolutely huge hair (Sebastian Rochford, drummer) walked on stage followed by the other four band members of Polarbear, the evenings main act. The gig began with a Seb addressing the audience in his timid voice, almost apologizing for his existence. When the audience started clapping, he modestly replied shy and mumbling, “thank you, but you haven’t heard us yet”. After the short banter between Seb and the Audience, sounds began emerging from the left of the stage where Tom was crouched behind his Mac book, with what basically looked like a PS2 controller and a bag of crisps over a microphone. However pretentious this seemed, the sound was captivating and the audience where immediately enticed.
The first track, Want To Believe picked up with nice melodic sax, accompanied by up beat rocky drums. The set continued including rhythms from jungle, and drum and base to reggae and jazz, as well as “instruments” such as the electric guitar played with a bow, saxophone tapping, and squeals of a balloon loosing air.
I was pleasantly surprised by Polar Bear’s ability to combine modern jazz, with melodic dreamy tunes, which captivated the audience leaving their faces deeply serious and concentrated, throughout the gig. The set was well performed, with sexy beats, intricate and unique sounds, combined with smooth overtones from the tenor sax duo, and deep double base riffs.
The set lasted just over an hour, plus an encore requested by the applauding crowd. I very much enjoyed it, although they tended to draw the indulgent parts out a bit too long. It was slight case of the emperor’s new clothes, so to say that the audience seemed to lack criticism, and took Polarbear, as they perhaps do themselves, a little too seriously.

Set list:
1) Want to believe
2) Fluffy
3) Industry
4) Tom loves Alice
5) Goodbye
6) Dub
7) Happy for you


For more info visit http://www.myspace.com/sebastianrochford

Words and photos Emilia Flockhart

British Sea Power @ Newcastle University 09/10/08

Upon entering the Basement, I am trembling with a nervous excitement at the chance to see if an this Mercury-nominated band’s live show pays a suitable tribute to the glowing nature of their reviews for third LP ‘Do You Like Rock Music’? After all, said album (in addition to the two preceding ones) boasts beautiful, heart-wrenching anthems, designed by the band themselves to ‘challenge the listener’s perspective on what rock music actually is’. But can they cut it live? (I won’t mention at this point that I witnessed a superb display last year in the slightly smellier, colder surroundings of All Saints Church which promptly converted me to the Sea Power cause. For now, I am a neutral observer).
Well the answer is a glaringly obvious ‘absobloodylutely’. The moment the band arrive on stage, singer Yan (Scott?) Wilkinson begins proceedings with a shy ‘Hello, we’re going to play this one first for my Dad ‘cos he’s here tonight but has to get the Metro back to Sunderland in half an hour....’ the audience is smitten. Well, those down at the front are anyway, leaping around in ecstasy to a ferocious Remember Me disposed of in a three-minute flurry of furious aggression. Some have described BSP as ‘the Futureheads sparring with Arcade Fire’. Either way, it’s awesome.
As the set gathers pace, the band’s slightly eccentric tendencies (the stage is covered in foliage and stuffed owls) become prevalent. A reconstruction of the sweeping instrumental ‘The Great Skua’ slows everything down and gives fans a chance to breathe, while the backdrop of a projection of penguins on to a screen provides a welcome distraction from now static musicians. Then it’s back to business as usual, lead guitarist Martin Noble’s understated, melodic riffs sailing over the mesh of noise for the frantic Down on the Ground and, most impressively, the jaw-dropping Carrion. It doesn’t take long to realise that this band actually has everything one could want from a rock outfit, especially in their obvious joy at beating out their songs which is thus enhanced by the appearance of ‘Ursine Ultra’, a 12-foot (fake!) bear that makes an appearance during the encore for an insane Spirit of St. Louis, which sees piggy-backs among band members, the theft of Noble’s trouser leg and a prolonged crowdsurf from Yan.
One leaves the venue completely bewildered, but buzzing. And that’s probably exactly how a rock concert should be.

Review by Kate Edwards (images by Solveig Werner)

Roots Manuva @ The Sage Gateshead 7th October 2008

Hall 2 at the Sage is probably my favourite venue in Newcastle; it’s a purpose built intimate venue where the artist can get really close to their audience, it has the feel of a dingy pub without having the smell or the residue from the previous evenings festivities. This, though, was probably the weirdest and most surreal gig that I’ve ever been to.
Roots Manuva, to give you some background, is one of the most prominent and critically successful British Hip Hop artists ever. So you expect a certain stereotypical audience, like you expect old couples to be courted to the theatre, and the 14-year-old tight jeans and scruffy hair ‘emotional’ kid to go and see My Chemical Romance. So when I get to there do I then get a 45-year-old guy (age is a guess, I didn’t ask him) on one side, and a mother and daughter on the other. Looking at the standing area, I see mid 30s couples holding hands at the back as their expecting Damien Rice to spring himself out. I actually had the thought ‘Am I at the wrong gig’. So there was Root’s, his DJs, that guy (the typical guy that fills in the last parts of the sentence to amplify it), and around 300 middle class white guys.
Anyway, Roots was on great form, his lyrics meaningful. There was no bling; no East Coast culture. Just straight up music, the warm britishness of his lyrics (Cheese on Toast and Bitter) brings him away from the Americanisation of British Hip Hop, the need for excessive production, which drives away the uniqueness. Everybody, though, were waiting for Witness the Fitness, and it was done with a huge audience reaction that was surprisingly lacking in the earlier songs (probably seeing if Dad was coming down with his Porsche to pick them up).
Overall, a really solid performance, but in my thoughts as I walked away I thought about the problem that has swept to Indie music specifically. Stop making all your music sound the same! Roots has always been in that slot of critics hip hop without making that ‘one record’, that big song. If he wants to become big, like Dizzie or Sway big, he needs to think about that one song, and maybe go and get some American influences in there. Only for one song though, then he can come back and sit on his rightful place as the spearhead of the British Hip Hop scene.

Review by Izaac Carlisle

The Chevrolites @ The Cluny 04/10/08

Having previously seen local lads The Chevrolites play in Edinburgh simply by chance... I was eager to check them out in their hometown. So I scampered on down to The Cluny where the boys scuttled onto the stage. Getting straight down to business with Came Here To Fight I felt my toes tapping and the alcohol flowing. Think Milburn, think Arctic Monkeys, these influences are pretty obvious; catchy riffs and edgy lyrics aplenty, particularly in Malia. A good-time band, look into these kids if you’re one for dancing. A few gigs’ time and a larger variety of songs could see The Chevrolites stand out from the rest. Quite possibly the funniest gig I’ve ever been to, you know those gigs every so often where someone takes things a bit too far, this was one of those times. If not for the music go for the girl jumping onstage and the man rolling around on the floor whilst the rest of the crowd are bowled over with laughter. If a band can inspire fans such as these well they must be worth making a fuss over.

Review by Marzena Dabrowska

The Automatic at Northumbria 01/10/2008

For the third time in my life I attended a gig by the Welsh band The Automatic. It was in fact the second time in less than two weeks. I had not in anyway planned to go to this gig, but you can’t always plan how life works out for you. After having interviewed Frost I was asked if I would like to go to the gig later that night.
I missed the opening act Operahouse, and that when they were a band that I was really hoping on seeing. Lately it seems like that I miss out on the first support band, you could blame Rob and Frost of the Automatic for that.
The second support act was Dinosaur Pileup, band from Leeds that are on their first major tour at the moment. For me it is rather hard to describe what they were like. They put a lot of energy to show. Behaved like they owned the world when they played their music and were shy when it came to talking to the people. With their long hair they were playing heavier rock, not something that you can call indie. Some of their songs were very melodic, while others weren’t. I can’t complain about what they gave to show, I very much enjoyed myself, even though it isn’t my favorite type of music.
The Automatic! As I already said this was the third time that I saw them. I was a bit deceived by the second time, but this is about the third concert I attended. So I must say I was well impressed, the music was good, the crowed was good, which is always a good thing. I think they very much enjoyed themselves playing for a public that was to an extent made up of friends of their newest member who in fact is from Sunderland. The setlist was not just focusing on the songs of the new Album, but also on classics of the debut album, including the obligatory Monster, I feel sorry for them that they more or less have to play that song at each of their gigs. And of course Raoul got played. They almost seemed embarrassed when playing their second to last song Love In The Club the cover of the Usher song they had done for Live Lounge this August. Now I am wondering when I will next see the Automatic reform live.

Review by Solveig Werner

The Sound Ex

The End Bar Newcastle is the small bands dream: dark, dingy and cosy. The small corner pub was surprisingly packed with around 100 people ready to listen to the local boys’ second album, entitled ‘Palomino’. Sound Ex have toured with The Datsuns, and the Mooney Suzuki, and their influences were easy to see on their music. The support band came on the stage first though, but just a general hint with support bands. They need to be of a similar genre to the actual main act. This band was a punk band. I’m sorry for all the punk fans that read this, but it’s not my cup of tea, so when I want to hear Rock music, don’t pump out Punk. It’s one of those great lists called ‘the oldest trick in the book’, which they obviously didn’t read. They did have the ‘I look really bored’ bassist and the ‘I don’t think that I should be here’ lead singer that looked more like an accountant than a punk singer.
Anyway, The Sound Ex came on. As this was an album launch, it’s not the best place to judge a band on their live performances, the crowd obviously here to support the release of the album. As a band they worked well, they interacted with each other, having two vocalists sharing almost equally, except they have an obvious front man. The album as a whole is one of those efforts in which bands have fallen into the trap of producing a ‘safe’ album, one which doesn’t really do anything, but at the same time still gets your foot tapping, but this could be by the energy of the band on stage, as opposed to their music. Its interesting to see what they do from here, they are already signed with Damnation Records, so it’s not like there one of the masses of bands unsigned. It is, though, a crossing point for The Sound Ex, between going ‘reasonably’ big nationwide, regional or even going into the doldrums. Its something that could go either way, but with their life performance they have… more up than down.

Review by Izaac Carlisle

The Hoosiers Freshers Gig

This year’s freshers’ second gig was the London band The Hoosiers supported by two local acts. After having the treat of interviewing the lovely lads of the Hoosiers my friends and I settled far away from the freshers in a quiet room of the union close to the basement. We missed the first of the two support bands, which is of course unfortunate, but let our ears be virgin to the sound of Detroit Social Club or DSC.
I had heard of DSC before, but never anything by them. So it came as a pleasant surprise that they are in fact a really good live band. In a way live bands are good when even without knowing their music you are totally in the vibe once they step on the stage. There was energy present in the room that filled it from almost empty to almost completely full in a matter of minutes. I absolutely loved what I saw and heard and I believe that I was not alone on that account. Certain songs a lot of fresher’s chanting along with their hands in the air, the last song was probably the best, no one wanted the band to leave the stage behind. The ambiance was absolutely amazing, and I can’t do anything but recommend you to see Detroit Social Club.
Then it was for the Hoosiers to prove what they could do with their Yeti amps, and good looks. I had for some reason always heard form people that the Hoosiers are not such a good band. I have to say whoever told me that was exaggerating. The Hoosiers were a fun band, making the drunk and the sober students party. Their keyboard player, who was the additional member, from Newcastle, could apparently play everything. After asking the crowd what they should play, it came down to an extract of a Killers song, and the theme tune to Inspector Gadget. The Killers song was almost a mistake, as the crowd could not stop singing even though they had stopped playing it. When they did Cops and Robbers, it seemed like everyone was dancing. It is too bad that the weeks held during freshers week do not come with encores.

Review by by Solveig Werner