Ellie Goulding @ The Garage, 10th February 2010

Ellie Goulding has been much heralded as the sound of 2010, winning the BBC Poll of the same name and being high up on any list of the Next Big Things.It was therefore only fitting that she should be headlining one of the nights at the HMV Next Big Thing festival, which took place over 6 London venues and a week's worth of gigs in February, the premise being that you get to see 3 'hot new acts' and all for the princely sum of £10. With no booking fee. NO BOOKING FEE. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!

Anyway, the first act was a guy I hadn't heard of called Tinashe, who played the acoustic guitar and was accompanied by a great drummer who, now I come to think about it, looked quite like Animal off of The Muppets (he also had a sort of 'fallen Erik Hassle' hair cut, but more of that later). Tinashe interacted really well with the audience and between the 2 of them they created a pretty cool sound. The music was fun and upbeat, and really made me want to hear more. Check out his myspace or catch him on tour with the Noisettes later this year.

Next on was Erik Hassle (he of the hair and the electro-pop sounds). He has some good songs - his current single 'Hurtful' being my favourite - but he didn't make a huge impact on the night. He was given a warm reception but not an excited one. In an age of female pop princesses I sense that he's struggling to find his niche. I shall see him again at the end of the month when he's supporting Mika, so we'll see how well he comes across there.

Finally the main act of the evening, Ellie Goulding, came onto the stage. She had that slight confused air of someone who isn't used to the limelight, saying that she hadn't expected so many people to be there. Given the amount of hype behind her she's better get used to it.

And what of the hype? Well, she can certainly sing - her voice is sweet and she trills like a little bird. Her folk / electro sound comes together best on new single 'Starry Eyed', which she closed the night with. Previous single 'Under The Sheets' also resonated but the rest of her stuff sort of washed pleasantly over me without making too much of an impression, including a cover of a track by American band Midlake (there's been quite a lot of fuss about them recently, I must check them out). It was all very nice, but not hugely memorable. Maybe hers is the kind of music that needs a couple of listens before it lodges itself in your brain. Who knows.

Well, on the basis of that performance I'm definitely going to get a copy of the album when it comes out, but I probably won't be going to see her play live again until her music has got the better of me...

Starry Eyed is out on February 22nd

Vampire Weekend @ The Garage, 3rd February 2010

Ready for the Weekend

The Relentless Garage is a recently refurbished venue just by Highbury and Islington tube station, and on Wednesday it played host to a few hundred Vampire Weekend fans who had won an HMV competition to see the band play by pre-ordering a copy of their second album, Contra.

The band took to the stage surprisingly early at 8.30pm and performed an hour-long set including favourites from their eponymous 2008 album and songs from their new album, which recently topped the US Billboard Chart.

The lead singer Ezra Koenig mentioned several times that they were just getting back into touring so they were grateful of the opportunity to practice, and it was probably a comfortable experience playing new material in front of a crowd who has definitely all purchased the second album. But the band seemed pretty polished, even with the new tracks, and are obviously great musicians. The crowd went pretty wild and personally I find that Vampire Weekend churn out they type of music that it’s impossible to stay still to.

Following on my last gig when I saw Editors play at the Water Rats, Vampire Weekend definitely continued the trend of band members who look like they turned up to the wrong gig. They keyboard player seemed completely out of things, wrapped up in a thick cardigan in a room that wasn’t at all cold, and although he managed to play all his parts, some of them did seem slightly slower than they should have been. The views from the audience included ‘stoned’, ‘on heroin’, ‘jet lagged’ and ‘flu’, but what ever it was he was definitely somewhere else.

Having said that, it didn’t impact on the gig as a whole and it was great to be up so close to the stage when previously I’ve only seen them on huge outdoor stages, including supporting Blur in the summer at Hyde Park. Although the set was short and they didn’t do an encore, it was more than enough to make for a fantastic evening. I certainly now have higher expectations of them when I seem them play Brixton later in the month!

Vampire Weekend are touring the UK in February