Thursday, June 19, 2008

Gig Review: Broken Records and The Twilight Sad (Bodega Social, Nottingham) 18 June 2008

Let us deal with the night overall. Shite day at the office. Had heard Twilight Sad on Marc Riley doing a session and quite liked them. Thought we would take a punt on seeing them live. Got tickets on the door.

First support: man with guitar (that's not his act's name). Pleasant enough but.... yawn, there are a ton of these guys about and there wasn't much to identify him as standing out. Apologies.

Second support: Broken Records from Edinburgh... oh my GOD. I'm coming back to these guys in a moment.

Main act - The Twilight Sad: they're a FatCat band with a wall of sound and noise. Not at all bad.

BUT...

Dude - Mr Lead Singer: take a recommendation.

Stop watching 'Control' on repeat.

You are NOT Ian Curtis.

You were born AFTER Ian Curtis died for heaven's sake.

Rolling your eyes and feeling/conveying a sense of fear and loathing of being on stage may well be 'true' for you but it comes across as a performance and it sure detracts from the music.

And that's a real shame because you may say you are "just a little band from Glasgow" but you have energy in bundles in the music.

Sort the 'tude, and you could go much further!


ANYWAY: to Broken Records.

Hellfire: these guys were the highlight! I knew we were onto a winner when they came on stage - cello, electric violin, trumpet, accordian, ukelele, and SEVEN of them on the tiny stage. Brilliant.

And they totally lived up to it. Arcade Fire come back to Scotland (from whence many Canadians originated!), Broken Records had truly mastered the art of the crescendo. Pounding, melancholic, churning music. Just glorious!



This gives a flavour, but seeing them on a cramped small stage was just incredible!

Update: And a good dose of Waterboys influence as well - hey, so far it's all good by my accounts!

5 comments:

chrissie_allen said...

Oh I do like that Lisa.I bet they WERE great to see live! Ta for video. x

Stuart Douglas said...

Spot on with the Twilight Sad - great debut album, excellent live sound, singer acts like an idiot on stage :-)

Lisa Rullsenberg said...

Stuart, that is SO reassuring a comment! Mind, following up on you I nearly blew my self-imposed silence/absence online in the waiting for DW tomorrow. I blankly caught your blogpost header about finale speculation and had to swiftly exit before my eyes could inadvertantly focus.

If it wasn't so damn stupid I would say I deserve an award for my avoidance!

Stuart Douglas said...

I wouldn't worry Lisa - my predictions about the season finale were mostly tongue in cheek and all based on watching no trailers and reading no press for the past week.

Like you I'm terrified of being spoiled for tomorrow. Still, better safe than sorry :)

Lisa Rullsenberg said...

I daren't even voice my own comedy and otherwise speculations! And to demonstrate how low you can go/how excessive you can take avoidance there was me tonight listening to the Now Show on R4... mention comes up that "this weekend marks the season finale of Doctor Who..." and I'm already runnning from the kitchen screeching "la la la!!!"

God, I'll be glad when I have gotten home tomorrow night and actually watched the bloody episode!