Britney Spears @ The O2 Arena, London, 11th June 2009

Britney. Meh.



It’s probably worth saying that I’m not a massive Britney fan but I managed to blag a free ticket from work for one of her many dates at the O2 and it seemed silly not to go. I really like some of her bigger hits (Toxic, Piece Of Me) and I did buy Hit Me Baby One More Time on CD single back in 1998 so I’d describe myself as a casual fan – I don’t have any of her albums but if I’d been impressed with the gig I would have bought one.

To let the cat out of the bag on this one, I am still a non-owner of a Britney Spears album.

The set up for this tour promoting her latest album, The Circus was built unsurprisingly around a circus theme with Britney as the ring master. In terms of the actual stage, the whole set up of the venue had been changed to accommodate performance in the round, with the main stage moved into the centre of the arena with the audience all around. This was a genius move from my personal perspective as it meant that the corporate box we were in half way down the arena had a fantastic view. It did mean that there were no big screens showing in close up what was going on – some uncharitable people have suggested that this is because it would have been too obvious that she was miming – but the people sat up in level 4 would have struggled to identify which of the small gnats running about on the stage was actually Britney. Also, as she was moving from one ring to another the people at each end of the arena probably had a less than ideal view.

I presume most of the material that was performed in the set was from her most recent albums as I only knew a few songs. As I’ve mentioned previously, I can find gigs where I don’t know the songs to be a bit boring – and I’m sorry to say that this was a definite case of this. There was lots of dancing and circus tricks and the like, but somehow it all got lost in the vast space of the auditorium and just didn’t come across as being that impressive. It felt like a well rehearsed routine rather than an individual show – I hear that when she went up to Manchester she said “hello London” to the crowd, which obviously went down well. I have to say that the couple of songs she played that I knew I really enjoyed – Toxic was great, and she proved that she actually could sing (whilst sitting) when she did Everytime so I’m not sure why she didn’t do more of it.



When the set finished there was no cheering for an encore and when the lights came up the seats in the arena were empty. And I mean, completely empty. People obviously didn’t feel like it was worth staying for any more songs and I can’t say I blame them. The show was quite a spectacle but didn’t make a lasting impact. I can only hope that the Take That version of the Circus contains a bit more fibre…

Athlete @ The Picturedrome, Northampton, 9th June 2009

Good band in Northampton gig shocker



The reasons that I got tickets for this gig were very clear:

1) Athlete are a band I have heard of and I really liked Wires
2) A band I had heard of was playing in Northampton
3) Not only was a band I had heard of playing in Northampton, they were playing The Picturedrome, a nice pub that often hosts comedy nights but seldom gigs

You will notice that these reasons are 66.6% Northampton related and only 33.3% band related, which is perhaps a little harsh on Athlete. Although I had heard of them I have to say that I wasn’t that familiar with most of their back catalogue (although – interesting fact alert – I had last seen Tim the keyboard player explaining the pre-recorded beginner tutorial on the piano at the British Music Experience at the O2. OK, maybe not that interesting…). Anyway, I invested in Athlete’s debut album, Vehicles and Animals, before the gig so that I would have some idea. And did I mention that they were playing in Northampton?

I missed the first support act of the night but arrived in time to catch the main support act The Official Secrets Act. I’m fairly certain that I had heard of them before but I didn’t know any of their music. They were actually pretty good and yet again I have been inspired to look up their myspace page to have another listen. I don’t believe that there are many bands out there whose drummer also manages a solo on the French Horn, so for that reason if no other I would urge you to check them out. OSA seem to specialise in what I would loosely term ‘angry pop’ and also had a random plastic crow (rook? raven? pigeon? it was unclear…) perched on their keyboard. Unfortunately I think they lost the audience when the lead singer said how much they were enjoying being in Nottingham...

After a relatively long wait while they changed over all the set – having three acts on a small stage appears to be something of a logistical nightmare – Athlete took to the stage. It was an interesting audience, mostly comprised of thirty-somethings and a surprisingly high proportion of skinheads. Not the indie crowd I had expected but there we go, there were obviously fans who had seen the band before and had even attended a previous acoustic session they had done at The Picturedrome a long while back. We were treated to an unusually long set for a band at a small venue with 2 support acts but I suppose it accurately reflected the wealth of material the band had to choose from as they have 3 albums behind them and another in the pipeline.



And they put on a great show. It turned out that I knew a few of their songs, but even the ones I didn’t know sounded great. They were playing with a replacement bass player as one of the main band members had just had an operation on his knee but the replacement guy seemed to do an amazing job – the whole set was very polished. Their lead singer (Joel?) was very engaging and the whole thing had a really warm feeling about it, like they were all getting back together and just having a bit of a jam. There was an opportunity for audience participation with a bit of singing (never goes amiss in my book) and they came back on to do their encore even though they must have been running over. Sometimes I don’t know the songs there is a risk that the gig can get a bit boring quickly (I found this with Kings of Leon) but the beats and the melodies of Athlete’s music kept me interested and not at all tempted to slope off to the bar for another glass of wine.

For this tour, Athlete seem to be going for breadth rather than depth as they seem be playing small venues but making a stop almost anywhere you can imagine. I’m not sure what the strategy is as that seems like quite a lot of hard work to me but maybe they just enjoy the smaller gigs. Or perhaps this is like a bit of a warm up for something else. Because it seems to me that Athlete are much too good a band to be playing Northampton. Not that I’m complaining!

Athlete’s fourth album, Black Swan, is out later this year

The Feeling @ Ha Ha Hammersmith, 7th June 2009

Laughter + Singing = Awesome


The Feeling were playing at a charity gig called Ha Ha Hammersmith, which as you might guess from the title was predominantly a comedy gig, raising money to support the community outreach programme at The Lyric theatre. Janet Ellis, ex-Blue Peter presenter and mother-in-law to The Feeling’s base player, arranged the night explaining TF’s participation to close the night.

Key learning of the night – you can get away with sitting in the third row of a comedy gig as long as:

1) The lighting is quite low
2) There is someone much more interesting sitting in front of you
3) You don’t heckle
4) You’re not a bloke

Luckily all of the above were true so I didn’t have any problems – I can’t say the same of some of the people around me. Overall the comedians were pretty darn good and the couple of people who tried to heckle didn’t stand a chance. Highlights of the evening were probably Lee Mack, who was given a great gift by one of the hecklers and ran with it, a guy whose name I must look up who did a hilarious set featuring flip charts and jigsaws (it was funnier than it sounds) and my friend Alec’s 12 year old son Jack who built up a strong rapport with Richard Herring who was comparing the evening (man I used to love Fist of Fun – anyone else remember that??).

To close the first half of the show was an unexpected bonus in the form of String Fever, a male electro-string quartet version of The Corrs who performed quite brilliant items including the history of music in 5 minutes that you can watch here. I would really try and catch them if they play anywhere near you, they were pretty amazing musicians and funny to boot.

Anyway, The Feeling came on at the end of the show when proceedings were already running late and we as brilliant as usual. They played a selection of hits from their first album, including Sewn, Fill My Little World, I Love It When You Call and Never Be Lonely (including the mandatory audience singalong). Apparently they had only been planning to do 2 songs but ran to 6 in the end, including a genius version of Nobody Does It Better that you can see here, which was a fantastic way to end the evening.



As I am now contractually bound to say, The Feeling are really good live and everyone in the country (hell, in the world) should be encouraged to see them play in the flesh – if you don’t like them then that’s fair enough but my guess is that you will. They are fantastic musicians, especially when you consider that they haven’t performed together as a band for 6 months and I have a sneaky suspicion that they didn’t practice much beforehand. And they have great stage presence and interaction with the audience – they really looked like they were enjoying themselves and this was the first gig that I’ve been to where I really felt that the encore was a result of the enthusiastic reception. The thing that always impresses me most about TF is their vocal harmonies which are always spot on – that and the fact that I find it impossible not to dance when they are playing (apologies to the people sitting behind me!!). It’s also worth saying that it would be hard to find a nicer group of guys who always make loads of time for their fans.



I don’t really understand why their second album didn’t take off in the same one as their first one – 2006 the band were the most played on UK radio and they won an Ivor Novello award for songwriting, while although Join With Us got to number 1 when it was released in 2008 none of the singles really captured public opinion in the same way as the songs from Twelve Stops and Home. For my money JWU needed a few more listens to get into, it is nearly as good as their debut and has some classic songs of it’s own (I Thought It Was Over is my favourite TF track) – maybe the promo wasn’t quite right, or it wasn’t what the industry wanted – they certainly struggled for radio play. And then again, maybe it was down to the appetite of new music that seems to be insatiable at the moment. Other great bands including The Fratellis and The Kooks really struggled with their second albums last year.



Oops, I seem to have strayed away from a gig review into a random rant. So what else can I say?? Hurry up with the third album please boys – looking forward to the next tour :-)

The Feeling are Really Good Live and are currently recording their third album

Gary Go @ The Soul Tree, Cambridge, 30th May 2009

The last small gig before the big time?

OK, I know, this is threatening to turn into a music blog about Gary Go rather than gigs generally but bear with me…. I went to see Gary Go at a very low profile gig at the Soul Tree in Cambridge which was acting as a warm up for the Take That support slots that kick off this month; excitingly his debut album had also just come out and was flying high in the iTunes chart. Actually, the gig was so low profile that it wasn’t in the local paper and he hadn’t even admitted to it on any of his online presences, of which there are far too many (at last count he had 3 of his own websites, a blog, a fan forum, and profiles on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Bebo, YouTube, audioboo….all being updated at different times with different things – sometimes less is more). Sorry, rant over. As I was saying, the gig was somewhat under the radar it was unsurprising that the turn out was small and although perfectly formed – possibly not the best preparation for a stadium tour…?

Support was forthcoming from local boy Tom Copson, who is a one man singer/songwriter. General feeling from the crowd was that he had a Jeff Buckley sound about him, and he coped very well with the intimacy of the gig and the slightly boisterous nature of the people who were there. I was inspired to check him out on MySpace (you can do too if you click here) and it’s also worth mentioning that he has some music available for download on iTunes. We saw him after the gig and he seemed like a nice chap.

After only a short wait, Gary Go and his band came on to the small stage and opened up (appropriately) with Open Arms. Their set was plagued with technical difficulties – one of Gary’s keyboards didn’t work until three quarters of the way through the set and he also had problems with one of his microphones (unfortunately the one that was attached to the working keyboard…), while lead guitarist Andreas couldn’t get any sound out of his acoustic guitar at all and had to swap instruments half way through a song. This isn’t the best omen for their support slots for Take That and bass player Tim quipped that they wouldn’t be supporting for very long unless things improved.



Despite this, the band are a really great set of musicians and they coped with the technical problems really well. Gary was on good form and it was great to hear the different arrangements of the songs that will be blasting out from the various stadia over the next few weeks. Rockier versions of Black and White Days and Life Gets In The Way were forthcoming, although they shied away from playing the rockiest number in the GG cannon – Refuse to Lose – even though it was on set list for the encore. Actually, this was the first time I had seen Gary with a prepared encore, which excitingly included The Diary of Rodney Harvey, which I haven’t heard before and was apparently the first time it’s been performed live. With a bit of persuading from the audience, the band also pulled off an impromptu performance of Brooklyn, which Gary says he hates playing but I for one really like.



The next time I see Gary Go will be in the big top of the Take That Circus tour. Given the quality of his songs and general brilliantness of the band as a whole I suspect there won’t be any more gigs like The Soul Tree…and while I will be thrilled for MrG as it’s nothing less than he deserves, I’m sure myself and the rest of the Go Go Girls will miss them.

Gary Go kicks off Take That’s Circus tour on June 5th in Sunderland

VV Brown @ Selfridges, 29th May 2009

OK, first things first – how annoying is it that this gig happened in May but my blog will only let me post it in June!!?!?? Well never mind, hopefully the title will help to communicate the fact that it was part of Musical May, even if it was a late and unexpected addition.

I first saw VV Brown as part of her joint headline tour with Gary Go earlier this year and although I wasn’t sure about her music from a brief peruse of MySpace (where it was almost impossible to make friends with her – go figure), her live set was enough to convince me that she is a really interesting talent. Well, that and the fact that she hails from Northampton – posh Northampton I would like to point out, but Northampton none the less. She was one of the artists tipped to make a big impact in 2009, along with her singer/songwriter brethren Little Boots, Florence and The Machine, La Roux and Lady GaGa, but has yet to bother the UK charts. As with a lot of the new artists around at the moment, she has her finger in many a creative pie, including a vintage fashion line and a comic book as well as a sideline in modelling – you get the picture that she is generally too cool for school.

I was hoping to get to see her again and when I found out quite late on that she was playing in store as part of Selfridges 100 year anniversary it was a bit of a no brainer. Playing the basement of a department store under bright lights on a warm Friday evening is probably not ideal, but VV and her excellent band, who deserve a special mention for being thoroughly nice chaps, did a great job. The crowd that had gathered beforehand were obviously VV fans and friends and therefore too cool to relax into the show (I obviously didn’t have that problem), and they were joined by people with shopping bags mid-shop once the gig started, so there wasn't a great atmosphere from the get go. Despite this, VV and the band pulled a great little set out of the bag, including the following (I think the order is a bit off but as we are in a whole new month now it’s not surprising I’ve forgotten ;-)

Crying Blood
Everybody
Leave
L.O.V.E.
Bottles
Game Over
Shark in the Water
Crying Blood (reggae mix)



The sound engineers at Selfridges also deserve an honourable mention as the sound was great and I imaging that a shop doesn’t have the best acoustics to start with. In fact, the sound set up was significantly better than when I saw her perform at Bush Hall in March, where the sound engineer should have been fired on the spot for her having zero mic volume at the start of the set - perhaps we should be looking at retail outlets as being the training ground for sound engineers of the future. Just a thought…

Anyhoo, the set went down well considering the environment and VV and her band were all in good spirits. The songs are insanely catchy and are a new take on pop with ska undertones – Bottles, L.O.V.E. and Shark are the standout tracks for my money. VV herself is almost impossibly tall, thin, beautiful and “fashion forward” (I’ve watched too many episodes of Project Runway) and she looked amazing as well as sounding the best I’ve heard her. On the encore version of Crying Blood her vocal was pretty darn amazing – see for yourself (the sound doesn't help but it gets better in the middle):



VV’s music cries out to be played on a summer evening so I’m hopeful that new single Shark in the Water, which is due out July 7th, will pick up more radio play than previous singles Crying Blood and Leave. She’s also doing the rounds of the festivals including the main stage at Glasto so she has a great opportunity to getting her music out there. Her chances of success are, in my very humble opinion, slightly dented by the attitude that radiates off her on her Twitter updates (sample: "is angry when people think that this project is contrived.. thanks to all those who support us and come to our gigs and see that its not."), and her blog, where a tirade against a thread on an internet chat room was removed not long after she posted it, both of which suggest that she is carrying a huge chip about something or other. Incidentally I read the thread and there wasn’t anything for her to get upset about – it was actually mostly positive and in terms of criticism I’ve seen MUCH worse. If she is successful I’m guessing that she will have diva tendencies, but then which of the great female singers don’t? [EDIT: Kylie and Annie Lennox spring to mind on reflection, but you get the gist]. Also, she needs the big radio break, and I just hope that the attitude doesn’t stand in the way of that.

In summary, I love VV Brown’s music – I am borderline obsessed with Shark at the moment – and she and her band put on a great live show. The only problem is that I’m not sure I like VV herself that much – and that likability factor can go a long way.

VV Brown’s next single, Shark in the Water, is out 7th July