I missed all of Wednesday (19/11/03)(so I have nothing to say on My private life, Mika Bomb, Fonda 500 and Clearlake) and most of Thursday (20/11/03) (so I have nothing to say on Jens Lekman, Printed Circuit and Freezepop), but I do have something to say about Baxendale – and that is that they were a lot better than I thought they would be! Now that wasn’t very hard seeing as I thought they would be horrible, but I was wrong. I had disregarded the fact that the bloke can sing very well indeed, and that this would be quite enough to make the performance warm, sweet and touching, even though I am not particularly fond of the sort of songs they write and play and I like Fosca better. Oh, and they sound much better than they look! Still, they changed my mind about themselves enough to say I’d go see them again if I got the chance and that’s quite a feat.
Momus wore a pirate’s eye-cover and sang quite sweetly, too. His set was a nice and pleasant something to be around, even though I harboured no hope of him playing one of the three or so songs of his I happen to be familiar with. I left half an hour before it was over to catch the last train home, so for all I know he might have done. I would probably go and see him again too, though I wouldn’t try too hard to make it happen.
Photo courtesy of Bob Stuart of Underexposed.org.uk
Early on on Friday (21/11/03), Thomas Truax was an interesting something to look at. He used all sorts of weird instruments (the most impressive of which was one that required him to put the left side of his face into a huge horn that looked like it had once belonged to phonograph) and walked around and in and out of the room a fair bit, even asking people to sing with him. However, he sounded mostly like a young, but, alas, less inspired Tom Waits with a dark, Nick Cave-ian streak (which as you know is enough to put me off) and the stories he told were of no interest to me.
I don’t remember much about Vermont except that the last songs they played were very good for dancing indeed. It kind of made me wish I hadn’t wandered off for the most part of their set, and I should be finding out more about them soon.
Free Loan Investments were adorable. They couldn’t have been anything else, either – they can’t help it. I thought they were adorable even though they were made a little too much noise for my liking, even though they shouted a little too loud and this overshadowed all the wonderfully pop subtleties in their songs – even though they stood no chance of playing any of my real favourites (‘The city under lights’ or ‘We made it to second base’ or ‘Stand by your teddy bear’) but ‘Ronan Keating’.
But really, I would have loved them no matter what they did, except if they did it really badly, which of course they didn’t. They did really well. As Amanda shouted her way from one punk-pop gem about teenage love to the next people danced and clapped and smiled, and their new songs were brilliant too - especially the last one, called ‘Everyone can dance’. I somehow find the title very touching.
Photo courtesy of Bob Stuart of Underexposed.org.uk
And I would have had the time of my life if only it hadn’t been for a voice in the back of my head saying ‘this is all very great but soon it will be over and you will be back in Athens too far way from it all’.
I spent most part of Schwervon!’s set staring into space, trying to make said voice shut up and thinking ‘wow, I’ve just seen Free Loan Investments’ so I’m afraid I don’t know anything about them either. They sounded American and as you know this is a bad thing in my book. I must have been staring into space for longer than I thought though because before I realised it it was time to start thinking ‘wow, I’m just going to see the Lucksmiths’. And then it happened.
The next thing I remember is Tali singing it’s already Friday and a roomful of people starting to bounce and sing along with smiles on their faces and me thinking the world is not such a bad place after all. During the next hour or so I realised two things – one, that I know the words to most Lucksmiths songs without knowing it, and two, that I like them even more than I thought I did, which is a whole lot. They played a few exciting old songs at first (‘T-shirt weather’ and ‘The year of driving languorously’ and ‘The great dividing range’! What more could one ask for!) until they got everyone happy and then they did a few more, not-that-less-exciting-after-all new ones (like ‘Midweek midmorning’ which is brilliant, and ‘Camera shy’) before they said goodnight with ‘Tomorrow vs yesterday’ which sounded sadder and sweeter than I remembered it to be.
And then it was late and time to disappear – go take trains and buses and get wet...
| This article was originally page two in the 58th issue of the Friends of the Heroes. Go to the current issue or the archive index |