If you don’t believe me…

The Herald 05/01/11

One of those ones…

So, King Tuts were doing this “New Year Revolution” thing, where they had local bands playing every night from the 3rd of January until the 16th. Now I would have very much have like to go to every gig, but alas January is not really a month where I have spare cash kicking about, so I had to limit myself to one.

The one I chose was on the 4th of January; She’s Hit, Marco Polo, Suplex the kid and Sing-Kill-Worth. To be honest, the one I was really wanting to see was She’s Hit. A couple of my amigos went to school with them and the guitarist happens to be my friend’s brother, so I felt obliged to pop my head in and see what they could offer my ears.

We got there in time to see the band before them, Sing-Kill-Worth. I was completely mesmerised by them. The Glaswegian five-piece perform what they describe as “post-rock;” an ambient, experimental and progressive sound of music. They have no vocals to their sound, but do not for one second thing that is at all detrimental to their music or their band. This is what they say on their facebook page:

This music we have written has allowed us to vent the emotions that are going on in our lives and the situations that are all around us. We feel that every piece of music we write, or song, is very special in its own way. Not sticking to one particular style or sound, but what immediately comes out. We want to write music that makes people think a little and to see what it is really making you feel. What better way to reach out to people than that?

The band had a spectacular turn out. The room was full of fans which might had lead to the atmosphere; when the band were performing, an almost wave of music was pulsing through the crowd. I don’t know if it’s because they were without a singer that it made the crowd hang on their every beat, every sound, but it was bloody brilliant anyway!

I’m hoping to try and get the guys into my show when we’re back up and running. I’ll let you know in due course!

It’s safe to say, that after Sing-Kill-Worth, I was excited. The crowd was buzzing in post-awe-ness, and as She’s Hit took to the stage, I was suitably ready to have my socks rocked.

Disappointment’s a horrible thing…

They just didn’t do it for me. Honestly and truly I wanted to like them. I was ready to love She’s Hit. But sadly I found that they just looked really bored while performing, which was exceptionally unattractive. The singer was… I think the phrase “too cool for school” just about covers it. One thing I love about seeing bands perform live, is the excitement you can see in their eyes while they play, how they grow and strive from the reaction of the crowd. But these guys, just look, sounded and for all intensive purposes were bored!

The sound they band produced was… good. I think it’s definitely something they could nurture and develop into being really great. There was debate amongst my amigos and myself about the drums… they didn’t use a bass drum! The drummer stood to perform a la Florance and the Machine and Dananananaykroyd. The guys thought it was limiting, that a big part of their sound was missing. I was and still am undecided; I thought it made the sound quite different, not quite unique, but definitely different to the sounds kicking about Glasgow at the moment. However,  their singer wasn’t really my cup of tea; I think he managed to make noises my cat would be proud of. And he had a weird fixation with the smoke machine which was a bit bemusing to observe.

So in brief, Sing-Kill-Worth, beautiful, established and entirely intriguing. She’s Hit, young, bored, could be great but they’re requiring a new singer.

Ready to start my love affair with Arcade Fire!

Now, I’m just going to say it; considering that their first album Funeral came out in 2005, I’m just starting to get the whole Arcade Fire thing… I know I know, hardcore fans will be disowning me for even thinking such things never mind writing them down for the world to see! But really, I just never really got it before. I’ve listened to their music, and don’t get me wrong, if one came on during a good old i-pod shuffle, I wouldn’t skip on by, but I most definitely wouldn’t have sat down and listened to their album.

So when my bruv offered me a ticket to their gig in December, honestly… I only went cause it was free and it was a Sunday and I wasn’t doing anything anyway. I was actually shocked to hear that the gig was in the SECC, and it was sold out!!! Considering it holds 4656 people standing and seated I was somewhere between impressed and bemused. So Sunday 12th December, Arcade Fire…

I’ve never been so impressed with a live band before in my life. Maybe it was because my expectations were non existent, but I’m going to go with that it’s because Arcade Fire but their heart and souls into their concerts that I had no option but to succumb to their energy. The stage was full, like ridiculously full of talented musicians who all switched instruments for each song; and they could play each instrument they picked up effortlessly and spectacularly! One guy continued to skip about the stage with a drum in hand during one song; suitably distracting and mesmerising, to the extent I couldn’t even tell you what song it was during that he did this!

I have to admit, for all that they had a super strong start, there was a couple of songs in the middle where the energy seemed to… lull a wee bit. I’ve heard mixed reviews from their most recent album The Suburbs, released last year, and considering that it was songs from that album that were being performed during that lull… I don’t know. Maybe it was just a poor set list choice as they were all slower, less energetic songs.

But out with this run of maybe 3 or 4 songs, the crowd were loving Arcade Fire. It was one of those gigs where although it was December in Glasgow in an indoor arena, it felt like you were dancing about in a field in the sun at a festival. Everywhere you looked it was just people dancing with their hands in the air and singing their hearts out.

So as a result of this one off, spontaneous gig that I happened to toddle along to, my love affair began. I went straight home and listened to The Suburbs over and over and over again. Three days later I purchased their second album, Neon Bible, then a week later, Funeral made a reappearance to my i-pod from being left redundant in my i-tunes library for over a year.

For all that I don’t think their albums could ever really make you experience their music and their energy that their live shows do, it’s a lovely way to remember what it was like, how their excitement and energy in their music seemed to ooze out of the speakers and into you, whether you want it to or not. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t so keen before… maybe their albums should come with a warning; “You won’t love me until you’ve seen the band live.”

Here’s a wee video of Arcade Fire performing at SECC Glasgow. I’m suitably Ready to Start
Arcade Fire, Ready to start (LIVE)

Frightened Rabbit Review (finally!)

Better late than never I guess, I’m starting to think I should just rename my blog to that!
I do apologise, but due to working part-time in retail, and the festivities of the season, I have been sorely neglecting my blogging. BUT I’m now off work for a whole week and a half, so I’ll suitably make up for it in the coming days!
Anyhoo, down to business… Frabbit! Now I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m quite the Frightened Rabbit fan; since their first album, Sing the Greys (2006), through to their second album, The Midnight Organ Fight (2008) which I have to admit is my personal favourite, to their spectacular new album, The Winter of Mixed Drinks (2010), I have wholly and truly loved every second of their music that I could get my little hands on. So it’s safe to say that my expectations were exceptionally high when it came to their gig.
The guys completely sold out their two dates in Glasgow, the first on Friday 3rd Dec and the second on Monday 6th Dec 2010, both at The Barrowlands Glasgow.
Now The Barrowlands, I think, demands a wee paragraph to itself. It opened in 1934, originally as a market hall and occasionally used as a ballroom, but after a fire and a refurbishment in the late 1950s, it opened as a fully functioning ballroom and music venue on Christmas eve, 1960. It’s spectacular acoustics (as it was designed to stage unamplified orchestras) and it’s springy floors (it was originally a ballroom after all!) just reminds you that this venue was designed to stage music. The hall holds around 2,000 people, which makes it quite a small venue in this day and age, it is definitely worth the experience; it’s slightly bigger than King Tuts Wah Wah Hut, but hugely more intimate than some where like the SECC. It is also echoing with the history of musical legends, as artists and bands such as Bob Dylan, The Cure, Franz Ferdinand, Blondie, The Smiths, David Bowie and The Ramones, to name but a few, have all graced the stage at Glasgow’s Barrowlands.
I had booked my tickets in June or July for the Monday gig; I’d like to say it was for a pretentious or super cool reason, like “I wanted to see them give it there all as it would be their last night in a town they consider to have one of their strongest fan base.” Really, the Friday was sold out by the time I booked my ticket, so alas, I went for the Monday one. (How very rock and roll…) Now a lot of my friends had managed to get tickets for the Friday gig, so as I sat in the pub on Friday the 3rd of December, my phone’s inbox suitably filled up with mini-reviews of the gig. Words like “spectacular,” “beautiful,” “spine-tingling” and “F***ing Awesome!!!” were perhaps the most frequently used. Jealous? Me? Pah, never… ok maybe a wee bit! But I knew, come Monday evening it’d be worth the wait.
So, as I explained in the Admiral Fallow review that I did (they were the support for Frabbit), it snowed- A LOT- over the weekend, meaning that taxis and buses weren’t running, pretty much at all in Glasgow. There was even rumours that the gig wouldn’t go ahead because of the weather- but these rumours were futile, and after an hour and a half trudge in the snow, we made it just in time to see Admiral Fallow take the stage. They were beautiful (see my review for more details) and by the time the roadies were setting up Frightened Rabbit’s instruments and sound equipment, I was bopping about like a kid at Christmas!
A very nervously-excited looking Scott Hutchison, Frabbit’s lead singer and guitarist, took to the stage to the background of a huge roar of cheers from the crowd.

[A wee picture of me and my little bro at the gig, you can tell by his facial expression that I bullied him into being in the photo!]

All he could do was thank everyone for coming! Considering that the weather was… well it was rubbish put it that way, the hall was still mobbed. Excited fans had braved the cold and the snow just to see his band, you can understand why he seemed so humbled. So the rest of the band took to the stage, Scott toasted a scotch to the crowd, and away we went.

My expectations for Frightened Rabbit were ridiculously high, however, the band did not disappoint. Every song they played, be it old stuff, new stuff, popular stuff to album tracks, they were perfect. And not in a “they sounded exactly like the album” type perfect, but perfect in the way that you could hear their raw talent in music, you could feel the emotion behind every lyric, you could see the love and enthusiasm the band had for their music and their performance; they literally ticked every box for what you would want from a live performance. And the crowd loved them. Every lyric was echoed by the crowd’s singing, every note was sung along too, every break resounded in cheers, claps, whoops and chants of “here we, here we, here we f***ing go!” (It’s a Glasgow thing. I can honestly say that even though I am a born and bred Glaswegian, I do not get it; you just have to realise it’s what crowds do here when they’re collectively happy, and go along with it.)

The only complaint I have about the entire gig was actually about the crowd. I don’t know, I’ve been to Frightened Rabbit gigs before, but the crowd just seemed a bit weird this time. I can’t really put my finger on it exactly, but a lot of them just seemed more interested in mosh-pitting and pushing people about, than the music or the band. I’d understand it if Frabbit were a “mosh-pitting” kind of band, but I really did not, actually, I do not think they are. I actually think that some of the people involved completely tainted the experience of the gig for many of the gig goers, especially the ones who were being hurt as a result of their actions. I’m all for a jump about and having an arm splaying dance when you’re so lost in the music that you can’t help it, but the people I’m moaning about were just being rude and inconsiderate to the people around them, which is not what true music and gig going is about. Peace and love, not elbows in faces and squished feet please!!! Anyway, moan over! Frabbit’s performance was spectacular enough to almost completely over ride my complaint. They blasted out their classic hits, such as Modern Leaper, The Twist and even broke out a song off their first album, Be less Rude, which they’d previously said they wouldn’t do in future at gigs, so it was a great wee surprise and treat for old-school fans like myself. The songs off of their new album, such as Swim until you can’t see land, Nothing like you, and Things, went down just as well. It was great to see how well their entire back catalogue of songs went down with the crowd, rather than the crowd favouring a particular album. It just shows how strong the band are with their music, and why they are considered by many to have truly arrived as one of the heavyweights of the Scottish indie scene.
I think perhaps the most goose-bumpy-moment of the night was when Scott came back on to do the encore, starting with Poke, off of their second album. I absolutely love this song. Wholly, truly and completely love it. The lyrics are so beautifully raw and honest; there’s no clichés, nothing feels false or exagerated. The acoustic guitar picking in the background as well as the haunting, almost wolf-esque howling in the interlude in the middle and at the end of the song. All of this intertwined into one song near the end of their album shows how modest and understated the band are; they’ve (in my opinion) completely encapsulated the sound, the feeling, the words of a broken heart and put in in a quiet song at the end of their album. Listening to it live, with what felt like the entire audience singing along, word for word, howl by howl, note by note, was just mesmerising and magical to be apart of. There’s a link to the video that I took of it from the gig on one of the blogs before this one; it’s no where near as spectacular as it was live in person, but if you fancy a swatch it’s there for your viewing pleasure.

In conclusion, you’ll be glad as this has turned into quite the mini-essay, Frabbit were spectacular. I can’t stress this enough. I would recommend any or all of their albums, as they’re all as great as each other. Lyrically they are spectacular. Musically they are talented and original. CHECK THEM OUT! If you can, buy their album, do so. If you’re at a festival and they’re playing, go and bop along. If they’re playing near you, go and see them. I promise you that you wont regret it.

For more information on the band, check out their website: http://wearefrightenedrabbit.com/
There’s updates of their gigs, new music, where you can purchase their previous albums, reviews, their blog and any merchandise you may want to purchase. This is on my wish list if anyone can hunt it down! It is a limited edition FR badge, it originally £8, but is now unavailable on their website. Ebay ahoy me thinks!

Frabbit Videos

As I finish my last piece of course work for this term, here’s a couple wee videos to keep you entertained until I have time to write this review!

Deadline’s 5pm for my course work, so I promise it’ll be up after that.

In the meantime, enjoy Frabbit, from their Barrowlands gig 06.12.10
Frabbit, Backwards Walk

Frabbit, Loneliness and the Scream

Frabbit, Good arms vs. bad arms

Frabbit, Keep yourself warm

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