Thursday, March 15, 2007
Every time you close your eyes...
Last night Al and myself went up to London Village to celebrate his birthday in the honourable presence of Arcade Fire (look, Al, no definite article! :p) at Brixton Academy.
Supporting was Patrick Wolf, whom I'd heard of but didn't know all that much about. His voice reminded me of Jarvis Cocker, and his music isn't a million miles away either, except with more violins (his lead violinist made all sorts of crazy guitarry noises), but the man himself is a lot more of a spectacle -- some might say too much of one. He came onstage in a medieval nobleman's jacket thing, a shirt and skinny tie, braces, and unnervingly short shorts, with glitter both in his hair and on his legs. Various of these items were shed during his set (thankfully not the shorts!). I quite liked his music, and he's clearly got presence, but he came across as being possibly a little too outrageous for his own good... but maybe that's just the stuffy English male in me talking :)
The Fire themselves were as awesome as we'd been led to believe. Even more so than on record, each of their songs builds into an overwhelming wall of noise... but instead of being created by 3 guys with guitars turned up to 11, the 10 musicians each contribute a small amount to the whole. Three or four of them constantly changed instruments and stage positions, and at different times there was a double bass, a church organ, a hurdy-gurdy, a xylophone, an accordion... all sorts. The only downside was that between songs there needed to be a couple of minutes' gap while they prepared for the next song, during which the cheering would, understandably, gradually subside... but instead of bantering with the audience in these gaps, the lead singer tended to admonish us for not being loud enough. Maybe they're just used to crazy North Americans :p During the songs was a different matter, though -- there was some full-on jumping, moshing and crowd-surfing going on, especially towards the end when "Power Out" and "Rebellion" were played back-to-back!
All in all, a fantastic evening. Cheers, Al! Chal.
Supporting was Patrick Wolf, whom I'd heard of but didn't know all that much about. His voice reminded me of Jarvis Cocker, and his music isn't a million miles away either, except with more violins (his lead violinist made all sorts of crazy guitarry noises), but the man himself is a lot more of a spectacle -- some might say too much of one. He came onstage in a medieval nobleman's jacket thing, a shirt and skinny tie, braces, and unnervingly short shorts, with glitter both in his hair and on his legs. Various of these items were shed during his set (thankfully not the shorts!). I quite liked his music, and he's clearly got presence, but he came across as being possibly a little too outrageous for his own good... but maybe that's just the stuffy English male in me talking :)
The Fire themselves were as awesome as we'd been led to believe. Even more so than on record, each of their songs builds into an overwhelming wall of noise... but instead of being created by 3 guys with guitars turned up to 11, the 10 musicians each contribute a small amount to the whole. Three or four of them constantly changed instruments and stage positions, and at different times there was a double bass, a church organ, a hurdy-gurdy, a xylophone, an accordion... all sorts. The only downside was that between songs there needed to be a couple of minutes' gap while they prepared for the next song, during which the cheering would, understandably, gradually subside... but instead of bantering with the audience in these gaps, the lead singer tended to admonish us for not being loud enough. Maybe they're just used to crazy North Americans :p During the songs was a different matter, though -- there was some full-on jumping, moshing and crowd-surfing going on, especially towards the end when "Power Out" and "Rebellion" were played back-to-back!
All in all, a fantastic evening. Cheers, Al! Chal.
# posted by Pgd @ 11:35 am 
