A few gigs

Apart from being kept away by trying to cope with way too much work, I've also attended three gigs in the past week and a bit.

First of all, The Indelicates at Metro. Now, four bands for £6 is great value and main support The Last Republic were actually really good in an overblown Boxer Rebellion style. However, when said support bands overrunning means the headliners get barely half an hour to show off their fantastic and rather lengthier album, it's not so great.

The Indelicates undoubtedly made the most of the situation but didn't seem to grab much of the audience beyond the front. They are a rather difficult proposition to explain, playing music that could almost pass as stadium Britpop but with a dark and cynical bite that's a long way from any such thing. Julia's apoplectic rage through a "Our Daughters Will Never Be Free" was quite something to behold. Actually the fact that her position seated at piano means that very few can properly behold may be part of the problem. Bigger stages may hopefully yet help.

Then Los Campesinos! at the Electric Ballroom, which looked like this:




Basically as a first chance to see much of We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed live it was almost guarenteed to be great, although a surprising number seemed unenthused by the new songs (it is already out properly! On downloads at least). And yeah, they lived up, with bonus speaker stack climbing and double Kenickie references. Even the Aleksandra songs work properly this time! No "We Throw Parties" though, sigh.

Last, Africa Express at Koko. Only stayed for three hours out of the seven or so that it apparently went on for(!) but had a great time. It was a lot less patronising than I unkindly imagined, there was a party atmosphere throughout and the constantly changing musicians on stage, with no one staying for more than two songs kept things interesting where attention may eventually have strayed with some unfamiliar material.

Highlights were Hard-Fi's unexpectedly great cover of The Chemical Brothers' "Push The Button" and the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble (below), who played with fantastic energy and matched it with impeccably synchronised moves to boot.