Review: Charlie Simpson at the Waterfront, Norwich

Charlie Simpson at the Waterfront, Norwich, 21/10/11 (support from Andrew Balkwill, We Were Evergreen & Dave McPherson)

Charlie Simpson – familiar to many people my age as “that guy who was in Busted”. Well, he's matured since then, but his voice is as good as ever. Before I get onto that though, let's have a quick look at the support acts.

Kicking off the evening was Andrew Balkwill. One man and a piano and one hell of an opening set. Bluesy, jazzy, sing-along-able goodness. I feel he took the audience slightly by surprise, but the crowd was soon getting into the spirit of things – his is music that makes you move. To be honest, I'd have loved for him to play a slightly longer set, but at four (or was it five?) songs, it was a nice little introduction.

Moving on, We Were Evergreen. A somewhat avant-garde, slightly poppy three piece band from Paris. And they were oh so good. Bouncy, energetic and loud. Take loud as a good thing here. Plus, there is always something awesome about a band that uses a ukulele and xylophone in their music. The crowd really took to them – plenty of bobbing and bouncing going on now. Then of course there was the epic outro to their final song, which unfortunately I can't remember the name of. When I say epic, I mean it. This outro just didn't want to end.

Having ramped up the energy with We Were Evergreen, Dave McPherson slowed the pace a little. One man and an acoustic guitar this time. He might be familiar to some as the frontman of alternative rock band InMe, but for the most part I think he was pretty unknown at this gig. His set got off to a decent start and then he managed to break one of the strings on his guitar. Then he managed to hurt his finger while restringing it. Kudos to him for keeping up the banter and generally keeping the crowd entertained while he was solving the problem. All in all, he played a pretty good set, although given the high energy performance of We Were Evergreen, it seemed a bit of a come down. That said, he closed with a cover of Boom Shake The Room (y'know, the Fresh Prince and Jazzy Jeff?), so I think it can be forgiven.

And so finally, we come to Charlie Simpson. Yes, that bloke from Busted. He was in Fightstar too, not that I've personally ever listened to them. Moving on... Tonight's set was made up of a selection of tracks from his solo album, released this year. More towards the mellow side, with some lovely vocal harmonies. The energy levels spiked again and give or take a few girls screaming “Charlie, I love you”, pretty much the whole crowd was singing along. Tucked in amongst his own material was a brilliant cover of Cutting Crew's (I Just) Died In Your Arms with some lovely harmonica parts courtesy of Nick Worpole (also of Me And The Mountain, shameless plug). Overall, a wonderful set with yet another epic outro going on. Oh, how I love outros...

Ahem. So anyway, if you're in the UK, totally check out the tour dates and if you can get to one: GO. A nice mix of support acts and a fantastic headliner.

Review: The Woman In Black at The Fortune Theatre, London

Book by Susan Hill, adapted for stage by Stephen Mallatratt.

The Woman In Black is a ghost story, plain and simple. But oh, what a ghost story. Seated in the tiny Fortune Theatre, the atmosphere began building from the very first lines. A man, wanting to tell his story, asking for help from an actor. Why is his story so important? Why does he feel it must be told? Some humour to begin with – the man, Mr Kipps, is struggling to get into the spirit of acting, reading his lines in a dull monotone. The audience smile, laugh a little.

The humour is short lived. As the play switches from the present to the past, the true horror of what Kipps witnessed becomes clear. A marvellous array of characters from the sleepy backwater of Crythin Gifford builds the tension – what is it that terrifies them so much about Eel Marsh House, the place Mr Kipps has been sent by his law firm? What mysteries lurk in the fog over the marshes?

The wonder of The Woman In Black is that all of these brilliant little characters are portrayed by just two actors. Props are sparse – most are pure make believe, such as the cart which takes Kipps across the causeway to Eel Marsh House each day and the little dog Spider who keeps him company in the old house. And yet the cast conjures up such great empathy, even for this little pretend dog.

And then there is the Woman. The cast is technically three people, but the Woman makes very few appearances. The atmosphere in the theatre is so effective that when she does make her brief appearances, the entire audience jumps. It should also be noted that in order to adapt the book for stage, a clever little plot device has been used, which effectively makes Kipps' story a play within a play. Tragic, chilling and downright scary. Be prepared for the ending.

Review: Enter Shikari @ Norwich UEA, 5/10/11

Enter Shikari @ Norwich UEA (support from letlive. and Your Demise)

Barely five minutes into letlive.'s opening set and security are already telling their vocalist off for climbing on the speaker stacks. The set got off to a somewhat lacklustre start, given the hype around letlive.'s live act, but a couple of songs in it became clear that this is a band to watch. Loud, energetic and non-stop, they're a perfect opening band so I can only imagine how amazing it would be to see them play a full, headline set. In amongst the high octane tracks was a little gem in the form of “Muther”. Beautiful, melodic and a great track to involve the crowd. I admit to being almost completely unaware of letlive. other than knowing they played some sort of post-hardcore. After tonight's set, however, I'm hooked. Actually, I'm listening to one of their albums as I type this.

While Your Demise certainly matched letlive. in volume and general raucousness, their set felt a little messy. They play hardcore of some description (which I'll admit to not being a huge fan), but while there were a few moments of brilliance, their tracks just didn't have the intensity of letlive.'s. The structure of the set itself also felt slightly stilted – there was a fair bit of talking in between tracks, which isn't a bad thing, but there has to be that balance between talking and playing.

So, after a slightly disappointing set from Your Demise, we moved onto the headliners, the band I really wanted to see. Enter Shikari. Brief introduction needed, methinks. Enter Shikari play post-hardcore, with strong electronic influences (especially dubstep on more recent releases). I've seen them twice before and they're incredibly high energy and very big on crowd involvement. Tonight's show lived up to, even surpassed expectations. With a set taking in tracks from both LPs as well as recent singles Destabilise and Quelle Surprise, there was something to please fans of all their material. The light show was, as always, brilliant although it must suck to be an epileptic Shikari fan – I've not seen them play without strobes yet. Sad to say they didn't play Fanfare For The Concious Man, but having played so many fan favourites and closing with Juggernauts and OK, Time For Plan B, Enter Shikari really are a band that you need to see live to really appreciate.

“We are the world and we are the people and we will be heard.” - Fanfare for the Concious Man - Enter Shikari

Rough setlist for Enter Shikari (not in order)
Destabilise, Mothership, Zzzonked, Hectic, The Jester, No Sssweat, Sssnakepit, Return To Energiser, Sorry You're Not A Winner, Gap In The Fence, No Sleep Tonight, Quelle Surprise.

Encore: Juggernauts, OK Time For Plan B.

Randomness: 20 years since Nevermind

I think we can safely say I am not the biggest Nirvana fan. That said, I do have a bit of a soft spot for them and this Saturday 24th September marks 20 years since the release of their iconic album Nevermind. So I thought I'd just share some of my favourite bits of Nirvana. Let's start with this gem of a performance on Top Of The Pops.



On the off chance that the story isn't as well known as I think it is, bands had to "play" to a backing track at the time - the only live element was the vocals. So Kurt Cobain decided to sing in the style of Morrissey (of The Smiths). It's probably worth pointing out that several years prior, The Smiths had been in the same situation, so Morrissey had taken to the stange with a bunch of gladioli and proceeded to wave them about while sort of taking part in the song.

Next up, Heart-Shaped Box and In Bloom, my two favourite Nirvana tracks.

And next, I highly recommend checking out Kerrang!'s Nevermind Forever CD (it's on the front of the magazine this week). The entirety of Nevermind covered by a variety of bands. It's pretty good - some have worked better than others, obviously. Frank Turner's take on On A Plain is one of the best, while We Are The Ocean's Sliver (which was released in between Nevermind and In Utero) is pretty weak, but overall, it's just a good fun album. No, it's never going to live up to the original, but it's decent in its own right.

And then I think we just have to finish with what is probably Nirvana's best known track and the one that catapulted them to superstardom. Finish as we started with Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Current Love: Tara Priya's Rollin', EatLiz's Hey, Aqua's Turn Back Time

Tara Priya: lovely retrosoul stuff. Just released her video for Rollin'. It's fun.

And then there's this funky little video from an Israeli rock band called EatLiz. I found it by accident - the joys of clicking random links.

And finally, this little 90s gem from Aqua. One of their less bubblegum tunes. Love it.

Enjoy.

Band of the Week: Bayside, Nine Inch Nails, Enter Shikari

'K, so Band of the Week is getting a bit revamped. And by that I mean simply that I am a lazy cow who very rarely remembers to write a post about a single artist. As such, Band of the Week is going to become more of a feature jobby, showcasing random stuff that I've found in the last week or so. I'll probably still forget to post, but it's worth a try. Anyways, on with the show.

Firstly, Bayside. I've known about them for a few years now and have always loved their song Masterpiece from the album Sirens and Condolences. However, me being me, totally kept forgetting to check them out properly. And then they played at Soundwave in February so I thought they deserved my attention properly. Then I promptly forgot again and then last week I got Sick, Sick, Sick from their latest album Killing Time stuck in my head so I bought the album. Suffice to say, it's made of awesome.

Also, rambling paragraph is rambling. Bayside are pretty much straight up rock. Really good, makes you want to move sort of rock. Sick, Sick, Sick is a good example as is Seeing Sound (also from Killing Time).

I've mentioned Nine Inch Nails before and they hardly need mentioning again, but I got hold of The Downward Spiral and Pretty Hate Machine this week and felt the need to gush about them. I love them. Not entirely sure why I didn't check 'em out sooner. Anyways, have a listen to Heresy, Closer and Reptile from The Downward Spiral and Head Like A Hole, Terrible Lie and That's What I Get from Pretty Hate Machine. TDS is a bit heavier than PHM, but they're both awesome. Good industrial rock. The video for Closer is also pretty cool. Weird, slightly disturbing, but cool. And Trent Reznor was hot when he was younger.

Finally, Enter Shikari. I LOVE Enter Shikari. Anyhoo, found out this week that they're playing at my uni in October so guess who's excited? Enter Shikari are not everyone's cup of tea. They play a peculier brand of electronic post-hardcore often labelled as trancecore for it's dance influences. It's not a combination that goes down well with everyone and I know some fans now are getting annoyed because their more recent work is heavily dubstep influenced. That said, I still love them. They put on an amazing live show and they're very much worth checking out. Try Adieu, No Sssweat, Mothership and Labyrinth from Take To The Skies, Zzzonked, Antwerpen and The Jester from Common Dreads and the two latest singles Destabilise and Quelle Surprise. Love the Zzzonked video - I was at that gig (trying my hardest to avoid falling in the numerous mosh pits).

That'll do, right? Check it out, let me know what you think and pass it on.

Band of the Week: super-mega-awesome feature... again

Yeah yeah yeah, blog neglect. But anyhoo, I has music scrummies to share.

First, earthtone9 and particularly their new EP For Cause & Consequence. I don't think it's available digitally (and legally) anywhere outside of PledgeMusic, but if you can find somewhere to listen to it, DO IT. And you can always get hold of a physical copy. I only started listening to them after getting their greatest hits compilation free sometime last year and I've still not got round to properly checking out their material, but they're a pretty great British alt-metal band.

Next... hmmm... choices. How's about There For Tomorrow. I only know a couple of songs by them, but they're a decent alt-rock/pop band. Lovely stuff.

That'll do on the artists front. Now for some songs.

Japanese Voyeurs just released their new video for Cry Baby. Awesomeness as always.

Then, there's this epicness, which I already posted yesterday, but it's awesome so I'm posting it again.

And then this, because I think I've fallen in love with the Wicked soundtrack. I should probably point out that I usually hate musicals. Something about them just grates on me, but I love this. And I just had it stuck in my head all the way through my Tasmanian Fauna exam.

Anything else... Lady Gaga's Judas has become a bit of a guilty pleasure. Although, I wouldn't exactly call it a guilty pleasure - I try not to feel guilty about anything I listen to.

And this. I've never listened to Yellowcard and then I got a free sampler from Hopeless Records last week. This track's pretty cool.

And to finish, one of my favourite videos of all time to go with one of my favourite tracks of all time. I'm not much of a fan of Avenged Sevenfold but this is just epic.

For some reason the official video doesn't show up when I search via Blogger. How odd...