Thankfully, tonight, Oslo seem to have dialled back their policies and it felt like a normal gig. If this is now standard practice, then I will go to more gigs here. 

Opening the evening was a rusty Lindsay Munroe. The set was rather pleasant, as was Lindsay, apologising for singing a sad song, ‘Andrew’. It wasn’t particularly sad and it didn’t alter the flow of the upbeat set. Stoping regularly to retune, unfortunately, Lindsay kept rushing her retunes, causing her to stop songs. Personally, I don’t mind mistakes. They add a human touch. But there wasn’t any need to rush. The audience were very accommodating. 

Next up, TIIVA wasn’t my type of music, mainly electronic but thankfully with live drums and accents of bass and sax. Performance wise, TIIVA were pretty good. Though I felt most of the songs were lyrically repetitive often comprising of a verse and then a repeating chorus for the rest of the song. In fairness, this allowed TIIVA to move around the stage and perform each song, which she did really well. But the music didn’t work for me.

During lockdown Bryde released ‘The Volume of Things’, her second solo album. This was meant to be the tour for that album and sadly this was our first opportunity to hear many of these songs live. It also featured a few songs from her forthcoming third album, released later this year. This gap is meaning many great albums aren’t being given their chance to shine as artists understandably hit the studios when they were unable to tour and have their minds on new music. It will be interesting to see how many of these songs stay in the set.

The thing I love about Bryde is how she switches from quiet to loud so effortlessly in her songs. Something played to great effect on her first album. She moved from the ‘Paper Aeroplanes’ folksy sound to sprinkle in a more direct rock sound allowing her to change up songs. It worked really well. Her latest album turns down the notch slightly and makes less use of these changes. But the mix tonight of a more laid back sound interspersed with songs from the first album worked really well and there was a really nice flow which helped showcase Bryde’s fantastic vocals.  Closing the evening was my highlight. ‘To Be Brave’ effortlessly sliding into ‘Less’. A really fine set.

Set List

• Paper Cups
• The Trouble is
• Peace
• Wouldn’t that make
• Honey
• To Be Loved
• Wait
• Silver Suns
• 80 Degrees
• Algorithms ??
• Flies
• To Be Brave
• Less

I never expected to write this review.

Sometimes surprises aren’t all positive

Torres over the last few years has been consistently amongst my favourite artists. All her albums have been amongst my favourites of the year and in 2015, Torres was my favourite artist who produced the best album and put on the best gig of the year . I have never seen a bad performance from Torres, and I still haven’t. Kind of…

The evening started badly. It wasn’t possible to drive to my home railway station as the motorway was closed so I had to drive a station where there are less frequent and slower trains which meant it was going to be a very late night.

Arriving at Highbury and Islington, I was directed to catch a bus as the Overground was closed due to a power failure. The bus had just departed and the next one was 20 minutes later. So I headed off walking to Hackney, figuring that I could pick a bus up on the way.

20 minutes later, the right bus hadn’t passed so I took a more direct route to the venue. Arriving drenched through, thinking I would buy a Torres t-shirt so I had dry clothes. No, no merch. I had to apply the old drying clothes under the hand dryer routine. To cap off the trip, it turns out Beats headphones aren’t waterproof and they started to play up when I tried to switch them off! Not a good start to the evening…..

Still…… It’s Torres. Torres. Torres who never fails to impress…….

Torres was touring with a new band to support her new excellent album, Silver Tongue. While, I don’t think it is her strongest album, by all other metrics, it’s a great album and will most likely feature in my top albums of the year. So I had no worries about this being another blinding Torres gig.

Unfortunately, I didn’t factor in both the venue’s sound and the new band. In my usual position, ‘Down at the Front’, there’s always the risk that the sound in a small venue is a mixture of sound system, amps and monitors. I’m not sure if some of the monitors were really loud, but the sound balance was awful. With Torres low in the mix and her new guitarist and drummer over-powering the sound.

Normally, this isn’t too detrimental. But I’m not sure the band members were suited for Torres music and the sound balance seemed to highlight this. The drummer (who looked familiar) had a very big sound, like he was backing an arena rock band. Often, the drum patterns didn’t seem to be for the same songs. At certain points it was really distracting as he powered through songs significantly altering their dynamics.

Also really distracting was the second guitarist/slide guitarist. Slide is an acquired taste and to be honest, the slide guitar wasn’t too distracting but equally, it didn’t enhance songs I had heard previously. However, it was when the guitarist switched from slide and acted as a second guitar that things went really wrong.

I have seen Thurston Moore loads of times. Thurston likes surrounding himself with guitarists who are interested in building music from lawyers of noise and who can improvise. The guitarist seemed to be a lost member of a defunct Thurston Moore band. Playing lots of noise and feedback on his guitar that often appeared to be improvised. I suspect this would actually work if it wasn’t for how loud he was in the mix. Whenever he played, he completely drowned out Torres’s guitar and vocals and his scratchy guitar became really distracting. I hope it was monitor leak and on a different night at a different venue, I would love the sound. But tonight, the balance really undermined my enjoyment of the gig.

Given all the travel issues and how much I had been looking forward to this gig. This was a major disappointment. When I could hear Torres she was her usual self. Her stage and vocal performance was up to her usual standards, but tonight it seemed like there was less of Torres performing and this was more of a shared performance. Maybe that’s the direction she wants to head. But having seen Torres hold a Primevera crowd in rapt appreciation with just her guitar and her amazing voice. I didn’t feel new band enhanced her sound. I wanted more Torres

With all the disruption to the Overground, I could see that the later train had been cancelled and it would lead to a lot of waiting around at stations and a very late night before I got home. At all previous Torres performances, I would have been happy to accept this. Tonight, I didn’t feel that way and I sadly bailed on the last song as I didn’t want to hear another song undermined by a poor sound mix. I suspect this was a one-off. I really hope so.

Set List:

• Good Scare
• Dressing America
• Three Futures
• Last Forest
• Cowboy Guilt
• Record of Your Tenderness
• Skim
• Sprinter
• New Skin
• A Few Blue Flowers
• Honey
• Gracious Day
• Good Grief
• Helen In The Woods

The evening didn’t get off to a strong start. Laura J. Martin was the support. Laura is a flautist who plays pop folk songs. They’re clearly written to be quirky and there was something interesting about them, but never quiet completely interesting. Unfortunately, this really wasn’t the audience for her. She needs a respectful audience and unfortunately too many people weren’t interested and talked through her set. I’m not sure in a quiet environment I would have necessarily enjoyed her performance more, but tonight really didn’t give her a chance. One for another time maybe?

The reason for Laura being here, was that she features on the Joy Formidable’s forthcoming album and tonight’s small warmup gig was an opportunity for the band to try the new material.

In the main, the new material sounded reasonable. Nothing seemed to have the manic energy of their earlier material. But it was still interesting nonetheless. These small venue gigs providing the band with an opportunity to blow off the cobwebs after spending the last year recording the album and they effortlessly slipped back into performance mode. Ritzy especially seemed happy to be out again and was in a very talkative mood.

A nice departure was coming down into the crowd to play and acoustic encore. Interestingly, the crowd were able to keep quiet.

They’re touring later in the year and hopefully, so I look forward to catching them after the album out.

The evening started off with a glam rock psych band. They did nothing for me. I hope this isn’t a sign that glam is the next retro genre to return. It needs to be left in the 1970s.

Fever the Ghost

Fever the Ghost

Fever the Ghost

Next up was H.Hawkline. The tour is actually a co-headline tour. With Gwenno and H.Hawkline swapping duties at different venues. Tonight, Gwenno had the honour of headlining. But that doesn’t mean that H.Hawkline was second best. Far from it, he put in a strong performance.

H.Hawkline

H.Hawkline

H.Hawkline

H.Hawkline

Closing the evening was Gwenno. I’d imagined that the Gwenno was a band. But in reality, it’s only the heavily pregnant Gwenno and her samplers. This was a major disappointment. Although it’s electronica, it can still be played live. With Gwenno being pregnant, she understandably isn’t the most expressive performer. Luckily, for some of the songs, she did have a bassist and drummer and this gave the performance a much needed boost.

Even though I don’t understand Welsh, the album is really interesting and Gwenno has a beautiful voice. It’s a pity I didn’t enjoy this performance more. But I think if she could get herself a permanent band and leave the keyboard duties to concentrate on being lead vocalist. This material could really work. But tonight I was left slightly disappointed.

Gwenno

Opening the evening were Our Girl. I thought it took time for them to get going but once they hit their stride I enjoyed their performance.

Bloody Knees were next. I’ve seen them before and they hadn’t made a memorable impression. But I enjoyed tonight’s performances. They have a grunge sound and although the music wasn’t anything to write home about, their set was energetic and they seemed to be having fun.

Honeyblood followed. It was an up to their usual standard, great performance. The singer has such a lovely voice, I could listen to her all day. But it’s the new drummer that adds so much to the band. She really goes for it. Important when you’re a two piece. They just look and feel a much more complete unit.

Kiran Leonard

Stealing Sheep

Stealing Sheep

Stealing Sheep

Stealing Sheep

Stealing Sheep

Stealing Sheep

Stealing Sheep

Stealing Sheep

The Jezabels

The Jezabels

Lola Colt

Bleech