🎵 Last night's gig was PART TWO (gifs welcome) 🎵

[JaguarPirate]

No Windows - Assai, Edinburgh

Free in store for the launch of the new EP by these locals (very local - Morgan works in the shop)

Short but sweet set. Good chemistry on stage, fun banter, great voices and some really cool chord choices. Makes me think of Wolf Alice at their folkiest or Divorce, 90s influenced but doing original stuff with it. They’ve put out a few good EPs now, so I’m hoping a good album is not too far away. They’d be good with a full band sometime too, so they can cut loose

And then, in true @BMS1 fashion …

[JaguarPirate]

Death Valley Girls - Bongo Club, Edinburgh

A weird one (apologies to the guitarist missing from my clip)

Recognised DVG as a name from peak Pitchfork days but never listened. Gave them a shot when I saw this announced and loved it - LA witchy garage psych, killer vocals. And live they were amazing, legitimately one of the best sounding small gigs I’ve ever been to. Wild-eyed vocal intensity, girl gang chants, huge rhythm section, screaming sax adding so much punch - she was the show’s MVP

But while the rest of the band seemed to be having a good time, the singer was clearly having a mare. Couldn’t hear herself for the whole show basically, had a few lengthy pauses while they tried to sort things out, and some awkward rambling to try to cover the silences. Danced through the audience for a few songs which was cool, but I think it was actually just so she could hear better on the floor than on stage. She wasn’t being crappy about it but you could tell it irritated to be told how good it sounded for us (which it did) when she was clearly having a different experience.

I have a very low tolerance for awkwardness so it did colour the gig for me a bit. But that aside it really was just a fun gig by a great sounding band, sadly playing to a very thin crowd when to me they easily deserve a cult following and ripping up late night festival slots. Assuming the sound issue was venue-specific, I highly recommend anyone curious to catch the last few dates in Manchester or London

Got a chat at the merch stand with some of them, seemed very chill, complimented my shirt. Signed my poster too which was only a fiver for some reason? I tried to pay more as that’s a mad tour poster price but they wouldn’t take it

[paulo13]

Beirut & Efterklang @ Brixton Academy, London

This gig was sold out by the time Efterklang were announced as support, so I tried my lucky at a resale Twicket on the day and put in an offer for £30 (plus Twicket fees) instead of the £50 price and got me a ticket!

I got there earlyish, and as I was walking through the quick moving queue, I saw the Efterklang singer off to the other side of the road having a smoke, so I shouted out that I was looking forward to seeing them later, and he shouted back 'We’re looking forward to seeing you!'.

I got a position on the third row to the side, and then proceeded to thoroughly enjoy Efterklang as per usual. They did five songs on stage, including one of my favourites, Modern Drift, and the duet with their drummer for Hold Me Close When You Can got giant cheers when she sang with her great voice, and nice spine tingling moments.
Then they left the stage and went into the middle of the stalls/audience to sing acoustically, which didn’t quite work too great if you were too far away (especially up in the balcony), but partway through the song (Getting Reminders), Zach and his two Beirut buddies came on stage to play brass for that song, which got a massive cheer from the audience. The singalong at the end of the song worked well, with the venue singing the ahh’s.

Next up was Beirut. I’d made a Spotify playlist in advance, based on their Belgium gig, so I knew which songs to expect. But it was fun to see them all performed live with the audience singing along. Plus I’m always over the moon to hear Postcards From Italy, their first song that I became obsessed with way back when.

For one of their encores, they performed three songs from the new album, which Zach mentioned as being recorded for/about a circus, so the first song had a woman come out to do some impressive acrobatics, then a juggling/performance artist chap with smoke constantly coming out of his jacket for the second song, and then the two performers doing some lifting/acrobatics with each other for the third song.

I snuck to the back before the final encore, just so I could have a quick escape after. and then saw the Efterklang trio stood there, enjoying the Beirut gig. Afterwards I went to say hi/thanks, and grabbed a selfie with them to top the evening off!

Just checking my spreadsheet, and the Beirut gigs I’ve been to have all had great support acts:
Dirty Projectors
Shearwater & Sharon Van Etten
Tune-Yards & Brigid Power
Helado Negro
Efterklang

[paulo13]

Beirut & Efterklang @ The Troxy, London

and then I repeated it all again last night!
This venue is a lovely 15 minute cycle away from home by the canal, and I had a couple of friends going, a couple of drinks beforehand, so was clearly in good spirits for it.

This time I/we stood in the middle of the audience, for a bit of a more relaxed atmosphere, but mainly in preparation for Efterklang’s final song. They played one different song from their last album, and they seemed to go down a treat. They then came through the audience, and I was all ready to start planning on how I could get close to the action, but they ended up right by us, so I got a front row seat (with the audience sitting down to help the view further back). So much better to see and hear the acoustic song and singalong up close, and Beirut added their trumpets again, and big singlong at the end to finish it off.

Beirut had a horrendous start this evening though. The first two songs had an awful crackling throughout, and I was worried they would just continue like that the whole time. Then the sound went off, and we had to wait five minutes for it to all get up and running again. Thankfully thereafter it went all perfectly. Nothing different from the previous evening, which meant I was super happy again. Just with a bit more dancing and spirits in me this time.

[zahidf]

Was at the troxy gig. Was great fun!

[Icarus-Smicarus]

Mohammad Syfkhan - Black Box, Belfast

Kurdish musician who lives in Leitrim and put out a great album on Nyahh Records last year. I caught him twice in Dublin last year, once at In The Meadows festival (he came up and played the tiny American Bar in Belfast that same night which I missed) and then a few weeks later at a Palestine fundraiser with OXN. Busy gig week so I thought about skipping this one but had mates going so went along. Mates were late so I watched the first few songs up the front before heading to the back to find them. Some great bouzouki shredding with drum machine beats, good crowd who loved him and did a good hour and a half set with no support which was longer than I expected. Seems like such a gent as well.

Mates were heading to a Ross From Friends club night afterwards which I intended to skip but ended up heading along to, decent fun and then went back to my mate’s house until the early hours and got home at 7am which I am regretting a bit today.

[iamwiggy]

rolling techno/house/electronic/dance/whatever thread 2025

my mates have opened a nightclub it’s near Brixton opening party was last night and holy christ it sounds good in there shout if you wanna come down there some time (will post in here once there’s more nights booked in, there will also be gigs during the week)

[Lo-Pan]

Sweet, good review. Was just saying to the tv that I haven’t been to stag and dagger in years but use to go all the time

[MrSibson]

Jeffrey Lewis and the Volts @ the Brudnell Leeds

Second trip in a week to the Brude for a great set from the multimedia troubadour . Very entertaining and completely different set from the one a few posts higher. Highlights include a cover of Evil Dead 2: dead by dawn!

[rich-t]

Snapped Ankles @ The Boileroom, Guildford

First gig this year and first gig at Guildford’s premier music venue. Really impressive venue tbf to them.

Support (no pic) was bada duüm, a laptop electronic noise artist. Similar to The Haxan Cloak in a way. What I heard was decent enough.

Second time I’ve seen Snapped Ankles, but I’m not familiar with much of their music. Good fun band. High energy. And the type of band that works amazingly live, don’t need to know much of their music to have a great time.

Decent gig

[Icarus-Smicarus]

Paddy Hanna - The Sunflower, Belfast

This must be Paddy’s first Belfast show since 2019, and he’s released another 3 albums since then. I hadn’t realised it had been so long as I caught him at Musictown Dublin in 2023. This show wasn’t advertised very well, I think he booked it himself without a promoter, and it’s in the middle of an arts festival but not part of it, so I was worried it was going to be absolutely dead, and when I poked my head around the door a good while after doors it looked like it was, but I went for a walk for 10 minutes and came back and a good few people had turned up, there was a decent little turnout in the end, though he deserves a lot more, didn’t spot many of the Irish music heads I’d expected to be there. One table looked like they might have been tourists who’d wandered in out of curiosity so I hope they had a nice time. His side project Autre Monde cancelled a Belfast show the other year I think because of ticket sales so I was glad this didn’t suffer the same fate.

Doing the live show a bit differently now, the new album is a lot synthier so the drummer is playing a lot of the synth parts and extra layers from a laptop, and they did it for a few of the old songs with string parts etc - they were also missing the usual guitarist/keyboard player for this show so they might have been laptopping in more parts than usual like the guitars on Yoko Ono. Paddy’s playing less guitar live now and just being a frontman which he’s mentioned being more comfortable with but played guitar on the two oldest songs and piano on another three. Slightly preferred the more fully live sound of those songs but really enjoyed his frontman moves for the rest of the set, and lots of good between song chat, just a very funny stage presence.

Love the new album so was great to hear most of that (all of it except the closer I think), nothing from the debut but played two tracks from the non-album 7"s that followed it and two from each other album, a good cross section. Enjoyed the commitment with the jumpsuits and the big light up ‘Oylegate’ signs (the title of the new album) - it was only when he sat down at the piano that I noticed he’d also written Oylegate on his shoes. Lovely stuff.

[Shoebox1976uk]

Saw them in Tunbridge Wells on Friday and had a jolly good time

[Icarus-Smicarus]

@rich-t

And the type of band that works amazingly live, don’t need to know much of their music to have a great time.

I know their previous albums to varying degrees but when I saw them last year the bulk of the set was new unreleased stuff and I still had a very fun time.

Keep forgetting to listen to the new album now that it’s actually out

[SimonT]

Gig of the last three nights was…

Focus Wales, Wrexham

It doesn’t get anything like the coverage the big southern Welsh gathering did but it does feel like Focus, fourteen years after the first one, has taken over from Swn as the country’s prime multi-venue showcase. A sprinkling of big names - as well as those to be mentioned Sprints, Nova Twins, Getdown Services, Girl Ray, Muireann Bradley, Pom Poko and Kathryn Joseph played - a whole host of Welsh talent, a good amount of overseas artists (usually Canadian) getting multiple opportunities and showcases and a liberal attitude to genre with rap crew takeovers and an opera pop-up abounding.

So… THURSDAY was We Hate You Please Die (French, prowling dark post-riot grrl post-punk), Diary (part jangle, part power-pop, part psychy shoegaze, frontman with permanent shades), Seazoo (breezy bedroomy indie-psych long stayers’ first gig in ages), em koko (floaty shoegaze-lite probably better on record), Campfire Social (big room emo in tiny room, penultimate gig for ages as the co-singer is very pregnant), Eitha Da (spiky short lo-fi like Superchunk on speed), Maquina (Portuguese propulsive motorik groove trio with lots of bodily convulsions, RIYL Snapped Ankles) and Mclusky (no gods no kings only Falco)

FRIDAY: SUN (French enigma somehow fusing meaningful alt-pop with death metal), Nap Eyes (Canadian, vaguely Byrdsian), Panic Shack (yes, I know I saw them last week but they seem to get more party-intense every time; weirdly I found out afterwards that their soundman is originally from Leicester and went to some of my gigs), Tara Bandito (Cymru pop auteur/show-woman, has song about partying in Rhyl, tremendous hat pictured below), The Pill (sarky Isle of Wight punk-pop duo, Panic Shack all down the front, overran by two songs and nobody cared), Anna Erhard (lyrics like Courtney Barnett but Swedish so more awed)

SATURDAY started with a choir covering Super Furry Animals’ Do Or Die, because why wouldn’t it. Then it was Laura J Martin (flute and electronics, been around for ages, I put her on supporting Euros Childs on the day Lou Reed died), Mowbird (fuzzy lo-fi, again first gig in literal years), eat-girls (enveloping minimal space-synth post-post-punk from Lyon), Sahra Halgan (spectacular singer and propulsive band), Sister Wives (bewitched ritualistic post-prog-psych, new song features Black Sabbath riffing, now sometimes singing in English which feels wrong), Gruff Rhys (Gruff Rhys)

All in all, another top fun weekend. Early birds for next year should go on sale this week, though since Wrexham became the location of streaming hit series Stranger Things (subs pls check) the central chain hotels especially have become basically unaffordable.

[Shoebox1976uk]

It’s really good. Would definitely put them in that Holy Fuck or AK/DK bracket

[Petagno]

Been blasting it this very afternoon

[JaguarPirate]

sounds excellent!

hope you liked Nap Eyes, I’m a huge fan and feel they’re criminally underrated (though the last album may be their weakest sadly)

[Icarus-Smicarus]

King Creosote - Black Box, Belfast

Final night of the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival. Had been looking forward to this one, I hadn’t seen him since 2018 in the same venue/festival (just noticed it’s 7 years almost exactly to the day) but started to dread it after reading the recent posts in the King Creosote thread and recent reviews saying that he’d been spouting some conspiracy nonsense at the UK shows and doing one or two new songs with questionable lyrics. Thankfully we didn’t get any of that here and it was a completely normal show - no dodgy chat and no weird new songs, he seemed in good form throughout, funny, charming and self deprecating, so hard to reconcile with the recent reports. Closest he got was making a pun about not being a fan of wind turbines before Melin Wynt (really like that song, hadn’t really noticed it was anti-wind turbine) but that was as close to controversial as he got. Thank fuck.

Good set played as a duo where they alternated between ‘big songs’ where they’d play along to some backing from a laptop, and ‘small songs’ where it was just the acoustic guitar and keys, also a bit of a mixture of songs from his widely available Domino albums and from his obscure physical only Fence releases so some songs I was less familiar with. Was great to hear the I DES songs live for the first time, I think it’s a stunning album and maybe his best. They had banks of electronic gear on stage from the support set so I assumed they’d be doing more of the I DES electronic elements live rather than from a laptop but still sounded good. Felt like I didn’t necessarily need a full band backing being played from a laptop on a lot of the other songs as I was happy enough to hear stripped back versions (stripped back Spystick worked very well, especially with a chorus of Not One Bit Ashamed thrown in towards the end) but only a minor gripe. Kenny did go to the back of the stage to set up an electronic loop for one song at one point though and got the keyboard player to come up to the mic and tell us all about his hometown of Blantyre to fill time which was quite funny.

Kenny had his daughter along doing the merch and as it was her birthday the next day (today) he had someone bring out a birthday cake for her and sung happy birthday before My Favourite Girl which was quite sweet. I wondered if he’s reigned in the weird stuff at her request (no idea if she was around for the UK shows).

Opening set was an electronic project from Kenny, the keyboard player and a third guy under the name KY10 which was really good, played a long continuous electronic piece with some spoken word samples of an old guy talking with great gravity about a jellyfish, with lots of cool visuals (the words in the audio went out of sync with the words on screen I think due to a mistake triggering a sample which distracted me a bit but easily done). Wouldn’t mind hearing this stuff again but I think it’s another physical only release.

I hope he doesn’t go fully off the deep end from here but if he does at least I got to see one more lovely and very normal gig from him first.

[weeber]

@Icarus-Smicarus

Kenny had his daughter along doing the merch and as it was her birthday the next day (today) he had someone bring out a birthday cake for her and sung happy birthday before My Favourite Girl which was quite sweet. I wondered if he’s reigned in the weird stuff at her request (no idea if she was around for the UK shows).

She was there on the first night of the tour when, coincidentally, he was also completely normal / charming, and there was no conspiracy theory bullshit.

@weeber

Kenny’s daughter was running the merch stand. When he got to that line in Blue Marbled Elm Trees ‘I had the best time laughing with my girls’ he looked straight over to the merch stand, with a beaming smile on his face. It was a really beautiful moment, for a sentimental old fool like me.

[paulo13]

Rich Aucoin @ Strongroom Bar, London
It was a free evening of 12 Canadian bands playing over two stages from 6-11pm, but there wasn’t any indication of timings of bands. I mainly wanted to see Rich Aucoin, so I messaged him and found out he was on stage at 22:30-23:00 (ugh!), so I hung out at home and headed out late just to catch him. Which worked out well in the end.

I first saw him at Great Escape Festival back in 2019, and it was great euphoric fun. The gig originally started off with maybe 20 people, increasing to about 50ish, but he encouraged everyone to get closer, and got everyone to sing/shout out loud along to the 20th Century Fox cinema intro.

He played one instrumental song I knew from a previous album, then a few other dancey instrumental songs, presumably from his synthy/moogy albums he’s been releasing recently. It was almost too electronic-dancey for me, but not quite, and so I joined in with the dancing. Then it came time for the multi-coloured parachute, which he brought out into the audience, with as many people as possible dancing underneath it for the final singalong song “Are You Experiencing?”.

I don’t think he played for much more than 20 minutes, but it was an intense fun 20 minutes, grins everywhere. Looking forward to repeating it one or two more times at the Great Escape Festival in a couple of days’ time.