Music Reviews / Previews

Fact One: The Jackson 5 don’t blame it on sunshine, moonlight or bad times. They blame it on the boogie.

Fact two: The Carling Academy are bastards for charging nearly six quid for two shots of vodka.

Fact three: Elbow are the most underrated band in the UK.  

With four albums under their belt, Elbow took their latest offering, The Seldom Seen Kid, on the road to showcase a few of the brilliant tracks that are featured on it, alongside mixing in a few older hits.

While talking to a friend who worked at the bar, she uttered the words “I’ve been told there like one of those miserable Radiohead-style bands, so I knew you’d be here tonight.”

Hmm, great that our music tastes have been pinned down, but slightly wrong about Elbow being the soundtrack to a suicidal cult's last few hours on earth.

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King’s Cross may be the organised and illustrious (read overcrowded and stinking) gateway to our fair capital for many visitors, but pitch up at the station on a Monday evening and you’re not exactly overcome with options for that something special.  

Yes, there is the excellent Water Rats venue just up the road, and passing The Scala the strains of Infadels drift out from their live show, but the area is more of a specialist in chain pubs, disgruntled travellers and tramps selling travelcards than in any kind of enjoyable experience.  

However, tonight is a little different, and the promise of a free gig at The Big Chill House (easily the best bar around here) has brought a fair crowd to the Pentonville Road. And not just any old crowd either, because picking his way through the chattering punters is Romeo Stoddart, Richard Bacon’s best chum and lead singer of hirsute harmonisers The Magic Numbers. As with all aspects of life, celebrities validate our own actions, meaning there must be something of interest here tonight.

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We saw The Long Blondes at Fibbers, York - a place they had previously been banned from for using foul language(!) You would never believe it to lay eyes on them; Bassist Reenie in particular looks like a head girl.

So, there we were, bottle in hand at 10.00 pm still waiting for the headline act to perform on a rostrum no larger than a paddling pool; tired and our feet aching from perching up on tippy toe for the last hour and a half.

This was a strange and very tall crowd: teenage boys modelling themselves on Tony from Skins, young girls trying to ape lead singer Kate Jackson by wearing ballet shoes and stripy tops, miserable loners fake-frowning for England and the odd drunk standing at the front when, frankly, they could have seen the stage from the bus stop outside.

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Jim Reid once described the experience of playing in a band with his brother William as ‘like being locked in a cupboard with somebody for 15 years’, the point being that if it was anyone else you could open the door, push them out, then kick them in the arse for good measure.  

Of course, you can’t really do that to your brother (just think of the trouble you’d be in with mum), but the Reid boys managed something similar when they killed The Jesus and Mary Chain live on stage in 1998 with a raging argument.

Unfortunately, there’s no footage of that event on YouTube, but you can find a video of the 1985 riot that the band were blamed for. It’s legends like this, coupled with the bickering of the brothers Reid, that built the bands reputation as mad, bad and dangerous to know, and it continues to linger today.

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Way back in 1979 at 33 years of age, Neil Young famously sang that it was better to burn out than to fade away. It was advice taken rather too literally by Kurt Cobain, quoting the lyric from Hey Hey, My My on his suicide note before taking a shotgun to his head, but it seems Young himself decided long ago that burning out simply wasn’t an option.

That’s not to say that he’s faded away - far from it for his fans. The now 62-year-old Young is back in Britain for the first time in five years tonight and there’s real anticipation in the air at the Hammersmith Apollo. Of course, this is a pretty hardcore crowd - the leather waistcoats and beards on display highly reminiscent of Steve Coogan’s Saxondale - but with six further sold out dates, there’s every reason to be excited.

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As we arrive at the entrance a reporter from a lesser publication, standing immediately in front of us, is struggling to convince the ticket booth lady he’s on the guest list.

“But you’ve got to let me in! This was arranged a month ago! I love this band!”

The ticket booth lady looks at him as if he’s a mirror and she’s a cat who’s caught sight of her own reflection and says she can’t do a thing. Disgruntled man leans forward and whispers something. Ticket booth lady turns around and delegates the decision to a younger lady, who further delegates it to some hidden face in the next room. A minute passes. The queue behind disgruntled man grows in synch with his humiliation. Eventually the word comes back and he’s allowed in. He snatches the tickets and makes a grizzly bear sound as he storms inside. We approach the desk.

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London’s public toilets have long provided ageing single men with a source of entertainment, and Ginglik, a converted ex-loo underneath the sharp end of Shepherd’s Bush Green, is keeping this fine tradition well and truly alive.

The Duke Spirit are playing here tonight, and this rather excellent little venue is inexplicably full to the rafters of greying rockers, nervously sipping their beer as sweaty young support punks Dead Kids leave the stage and push past them.

Far from being the onlookers at a gig by a band returning with only their second album, it feels like being magically transported to row A at an Oasis stadium-stuffer, but the presence of these obvious rock aficionados does attest to the underground popularity of the band’s first album, Cuts Across The Land.

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It wasn't so long ago that we were banging on about Stars in our MySpace Trawl feature. Whilst we'd like to think that it inspired somebody to invest in their music, we couldn't be quite sure. No banners were on prominent display with slogans such as "Hecklerspray brought us here" and "honk if you like hecklerspray".

Still you can't have everything you want in life, but regardless of our own potential ego-boosting propaganda of this band not being recognised, the venue was still rammed to capacity. For those who had never been to the place before, it was a unique little venue. The theatre-style layout presented the perfect viewing platform from nearly every angle. Though if you wanted to be packed in close with your fellow gig-goer, the chance was still there.

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As informed members of the music buying public, there are a few things that you should know before reading a live review of Cat Power.

Not the fact that her real name is Chan Marshall (pronounced ‘Shaun’), nor that she has recently become the face of Chanel, handpicked by Karl Lagerfeld himself.

No, we refer to the Winehouse - sized back catalogue of problems that recently looked set to cut short her career.

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Last year was a good one for the comeback. Everyone pined for the 90s as Brit behemoths Take That returned, everyone invested in earplugs as the Spice Girls reformed, and a lot less people were excited by Shed 7’s reunion.

It’s a shame really, because the largely-forgotten indie stalwarts performed a string of sold out dates, taking them (and us) back to a time when they toured with everlasting dad-rock purveyors Oasis and the girls screamed their names.  Also on that long lost 1994 tour were pop rock scousers Cast led by ex-Las bassist John Power, who went on to give us Britpop favourites such as Sandstorm and Walkaway before taste got the better of them and they went their separate ways.

Now John Power is back, but in the paraphrased words of LL Cool J, don’t call it a comeback, because he’s actually been here for years.

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Like most heterosexual males, seeing Take That in concert is not at the top of this writer's life experiences, but last week that exactly thing happened when a girlfriend situation forced us to attend their latest concert on their Beautiful World tour.

We found ourselves surrounded by thousands of women, baying for the blood of the objects of their desires. The gig began with support coming from an unnamed woman, whose talent with a saxophone and vocals proved far superior than the other supporting act; Sophie Ellis Bextor (yes, she is still trying to give this singing lark a go) who was living off past glories for duration of her set, the only song garnering any kind of crowd reaction was the 2000 summer hit Groovejet, a collaboration with that household name DJ Spiller.  

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This is one of the few gigs where, days before it started, the emotions of giddiness and excitement were already awash in just about every lucky ticket-holder. Underworld have been performing in various band set-ups for the last 20 years or so. As they have grown up and evolved, so has their performance.

Always known as the “Lager lager lager” band, tonight was a chance for Underworld to show they have more material that should really cement them as a UK dance heavyweight act like The Prodigy, Chemical Brothers and Massive Attack. Tonight was the planned first night of a three-night residency at the newly-renovated Roundhouse venue in Camden. Unlike a lot of conventional bands, Underworld do not use setlists. Each performance on any given night is unique and thus makes it a little bit more special. While maybe some of the songs may be played on different nights, even the length and structure may be different. Who knows, one night may see hits such as King of Snake begin with the main piano chord before the full weight of the pounding drums and Karl Hyde’s voice are added for the entire package. 

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