went on Thursday night. as you say, new LP in full was predictable - but there were some highlights. Lady Boston & Drifters & Trawlers in particular. second half was absolutely cracking tho. might be favourite incarnation of all things Albarn.
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Nils Frahm @ Hammersmith Apollo. one of his biggest gigs, apparently. was fully expecting it not to live up to the smaller venues i’ve seen him in, but i was happily proved wrong. acoustics were surprisingly impressive. and the last student of the last scholar of Tchaikovsky got a standing O for his troubles too.
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Mercury Rev doing Deserters Songs at The Gate in Cardiff, stripped back, no drums or bass or strings. Was absolutely amazing. Jonathan Donahue is such a great frontman, brilliant stories all the way through. And Adrian Utley from Portishead turned up to play on three songs as well.
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I think it depends on whether the artist suits the venue. The lecture theatre was great for Mulatu Astakte and the club room suited Sunflower Bean, but the other way around would have been awful. The seated venue was no place to see Rival Consoles.
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Yup, even though I was dancing up the front, the venue murdered that gig.
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I’m off to see that in London on Tuesday week. Looking forward to it even more now.
You are in for a treat.
Makes me even happier that when I saw they were on and went to buy one, the alttickets website said “Would you like to buy the last ticket?”
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Regarding gigs at EartH, go to
Events • EartH (Evolutionary Arts Hackney) and select “learn more” for each gig. It says if the gig is the circle or the basement.
Imagine choosing a venue name where you can’t do a simple Google search and the state of their URL.
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Looks like all my gigs for that venue are at the downstairs mini-aircraft hangar.
The Poppy Aykroyd might be worth going to as it’s seated according to the website.
Easily my favourite British band. Always great live. That was them at The Waiting Room at Stoke Newington.
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Sunday was Counterparts / Stick to your Guns @ Bristol Fleece
Loud, heavy, dudes doing ninja stuff in a pit that took up half the venue at times. You know what you are getting with hardcore, by far better live than on record much of the time too so I always check out a show if I can. I went mainly for Counterparts, probably my favourite band in the genre around at the moment.
Not so much “last night’s gig was”, more the gig that I walked out of after two songs was Julia Holter just now.
Not a fan of her new album and EArtH (crap name for a venue) was oversold.
I don’t mind a crowd but I didn’t fancy moving passed loads of people to get to the bar and downing a can of Estella and then leaving…so I left.
That downstairs basement venue is a pile of shit. The Koko and Scala are better venues. Didn’t think I’d type that anytime soon.
Loved Julia Holter’s last album and her Islington Assembly Hall and Oval Space gigs but the minute I walked into this one I knew I’d be leaving after no more than 10 minutes.
Sorry to hear that. Very disappointing.
Not been to the venue before. Besides the overcrowding and the crappy name, does it have other rubbishnesses?
I’ve been to the downstairs area three times now. There’s a tiered balcony thing that’s shown on the venue’s website but I’ve never been to that part. They’re separate venues apparently and balcony tickets aren’t available like The Forum/Brixton/Islington Assembly Hall etc.
I been there for Stephen Malkmus, Hinds/Shopping/Girl Ray on an all dayer and tonight. It’s just an atmosphere void venue. I don’t think there’s draft at the bar. I got wine and cans in on the all dayer I was there but I’m not 100% certain. There’s two bars on the side but half way down the side of the venue and so on a night like tonight I was too lazy to get past a hundred people to queue for a can of Estrella. Having said all that, the door staff and bar staff are all fair enough, no issues. Just a crap dull venue. Malkmus was sold out too but not as packed as tonight.
Maybe for loud/noise acts it might be ok but for Julia Holter and Soap&Skin who I’ve tickets for next year it didn’t and won’t work well.
Again, they’re my own quirks and preferences. If anyone went tonight please post how your night was.
Julia Holter at Earth Hackney. Enjoyed it on the whole but I also felt the strain of the venue and really wasn’t enjoying the night until a few songs in.
However Julia Holter is a magical performer and the gig tonight was quite special, one of the better times I’ve seen her, although personally I love Aviary and a lot of it really worked live which was pleasing. Nice long set too, played about an hour and a half. Aside from the venue itself being not that good at all, which I guess I can live with for I’ve been to many bad ones recently, the main downside to the gig was it did seem like the quieter songs were let down by the staff at the venue quite a lot, which was strange to see as the crowd on the whole were really rather quiet in general, unfortunately for the right side of the room the bar staff really needed to have more respect for the musicians/attendees as they were quite loudly talking over the top of Julia and laughing between themselves, and generally getting on the crowd nearest to the bar’s back, which I’ve never seen before and it really wasn’t cool. Poor show EartH.
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Soap&,skin looked like it would be in the smaller part of the venue from when I checked last week. I’ve not been to either part, but am definitely hoping it’s the smaller part now! The website mentioned unreserved seating I think.
Yeah, the venue was bloody awful, but the actual performance was probably the best I’ve seen from her (100x better than her awful EOTR set). Soap & Skin is definitely in the upstairs theatre bit, which is a relief.
I saw Johnny Marr the other night in the upstairs venue, I didn’t mind it (though just having cans and a few bottles of wine and spirits is never good) but I know from a friend i was with who knows someone who works for the venue they’re still sorting stuff out there and wanting feedback on how to improve it.
For those that weren’t happy definetly give them an email with feedback, any venue is gonna be more interested in long term attrition than just making £20/30 quid off one time punters who come to a gig and never want to go there again.
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Slowdive @ Concorde 2
Wow. Just wow!
On top form, playing a very intimate venue, and they performed ‘When The Sun Hits’. I can die a happy man now.
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