White Lies – Welcome to the Fairground

Is that a clown?  No, just Robert Smith riding the carousel.  Ian Curtis spins on the dodgems, while Editors pull scares through the Tunnel of Love.  Usual suspects but new shapes, new settings… The ice cold drums and sheer key slices are almost classical, cinematic jolts breaking free of this history through eating itself alive.  The jarring middle eight contradicts itself through persevering and pulverising beliefs and fears, running away from the safest place.  A cavalcade of dramatic tension taken from the carnival to Palace grounds, under moonlight and supernatural bearing clouds.

The Noisettes – Don’t Upset the Rhythm

Funk fun and Boney M induced shapes to buy a car.  Ignore the early sell out factor if you can, and the dubious rhymes that knock the titular rhythm for six, and this takes a Lady GaGa disco plumage to costume change central, and a primate-sexual gyrating bassline bounce that leads singer (and dancer) Shingai Shoniwa to dress and manoeuvre surely illegally around the stage (of performance and mind).  As catchy as swine flu, but unequivocally more thrilling.

Peter, Bjorn & John – Nothing to Worry About

Move along please, no more whistling here… that’s been swapped for chanting children.  And handclaps.  Don’t forget that.  Such aside, the music seems to suck itself in backwards, with a lazy hypnotic dreaming vocal from … Peter (?).  It’s a flimsy rap wrapped around low production values, but stills packs swoonsome values of stoner carelessness.  Its indie schmindie-tastic that sidles against you in the early hours when all your friends have left with someone, and all you want to do is grow a beard. 

It Hugs Back – Now & Again

Getting grungier and more stifled with every release, it’s a claustrophobia that tightens your senses to a heightened tune.  These muddy and crammed guitars are warmed by detuned radio whines and the whitest noises that Sonic Youth ever paraded through the gloom, across two minutes of distant vocals and mumbled “ba-doo-bah-dooh-ba”s.  It’s a sighing extravagance to lo fidelity convenience.

Dananananayroyd – Black Wax

A manic energy and singing drummers (and former drummers) with counterintuitive Fallesque slouching in the corner; keyboard throughlines with no obvious player in their midst; a more clattersome  Los Campesinos! which encourages you to “write your name in cellophane strips / across contours of your bloodied mouth”.  It’s Friday night out in Glasgow, the gangs all here, celebratory cheers and the drunken embodiment of angelic screeching being pissed out under the halogen blinking lights of a closed supermarket car park, fit with bouncy castle fun factor.

Little Man Tate – I am Alive

Now deceased, with probably their least offensive song in their four years existence as a final offering.  Still mundane and vulgarly dull, but what’s expected from a band who can’t even stick to an ‘our final ever gig’ announcement without adding an extra date?  Just because there’s nothing explicitly wrong, doesn’t mean that everything is right… about as modern as Mr Motivator and Quantum Leap on a prime time channel, with the anything but “this is my time” a monotonously intoned inverse epitaph to cringe by. They could cover the unending joyous sunshine sounds of The Wannadies (which this basically adheres to) and manage to break thunderclouds overhead. 

When the planet is finally destroyed, it won’t be due to a catastrophic ignorance of environmental concerns or an abhorrent level of disparate understandings or an unapologetic, apoplectic lack of caring; it will be a stroke distilled from a mass consciousness  of boredom, an inherent bubbling psychosis of mind numbed wonderless degenerative listless neurosis, the population as one looking out of the window and seeing a reason for nothing,  a lust for a physical attrition, to screw the world into a (tighter) ball and hurl it through a black hole, to blink a universal blink and fuel a gas explosion of sun powered proportion, away to sleep to the peacefulness of non-existence.


Until then, be thankful for new music.  A quartet nailing the zeitgeist picking back the scab and pouring on bleach, to necessitate a scream, to feel alive.  Except, perhaps, for pre-headliners Friendly Fires, who seem to generate as much if not more excitement to the encroaching hordes, but appear as an 80’s throwback disaster, disfiguring the face of dance and promoting the chicken funk.  Maybe I’m discophobic, but such a technotrocious display carrying a synthetic energy erodes with an erudite plasticity, instilling a dystrophy with pre-recorded elements of entropic moulded antiseptic traces.  Feels debilitating not euphoric, like Shania Twain backed by the sound of KIT.

She shrieks and bursts lungs with her opening assault, and showers a shimmer of healing harp over open wounds at the close.  She is Florence Welch, a writhing yogic cat, pouncing and gyrating, a modern day female Elvis phenomenon, Harvey breathing life back into Joplin, and her Machine tonight includes Charles Cave from White Lies on bass.  From sex-fuelled blues attacks, all danger and dirt, brazen screeches that stem from the guttural and raw and end breathless and vengeful, kicking out literally flat on her back, to leading her microphone like a ballroom dancer and fading gently to the floor.  Largely the former, though.  “Howl” appropriately lets reel banshee wails of werewolves and eating people, calling up the 80’s with power-plink piano and devilish enticing drums, and there’s hardcore excitement in a Kate Bush reminiscent mould as she literally beats her own drum to er.. “Drumming Song”.  It’s Egyptian dreaming, flailing, bashing, and then audience diving and crowd surfing for the riled “Kiss with a Fist”, an accomplished and competent Ting Tings wonder.  Possession as a horned fairy takes over on the demonic baiting, fit inducing, shakedown exorcism of “Dog Days are Over”.  It’s a sequel to music, the next chapter, told in a fantasy forest, enthralling, beguiling, destructive.  My wife senses sexual frustration; I propagate sexual manifestation, a total consumption of heat and desire.

Ahead lies the sweeping glacial constructs of ice synth monoliths heralded by White Lies, charging forward on the back of Goliath, pulling his hair and laughing in his ears.  A three piece formerly partying in a rock indie Ash way under the moniker Fear of Flying, painting themselves black and finding a new found respect for “Death” (their closing towering moment, capturing the slinkiest keys of the night, almost jazz in the moonlit woods, turning to a behemoth basilisk of defiance, a majestic push towards life).  Indeed, the opening opus “Welcome to the Fairground” brings on the Reaper trailing Echo and the Bunnymen, creating a terrifying, fascinating Wizard of Oz-esque darkened fairytale.  “To Lose My Life” accedes to the seed of doom laced hope (or should that be hopeless doom?) sown throughout UK musical heritage, from Ian to Robert to Tom, Harry McVeigh a worthy successor to the throne.  With a beat to guide a UFO home safely, a deluge of bass drawn in, and guitars reflecting off the Manics’ devastational heart (Grace of God anyone?), "A Place to Hide” cowers from the scissors and hands awash with blood turning up next.  Charles Cave, bassist and lyricist, stares out demons and pushes out fears, “Unfinished Business” buoyed afloat a bottomless black ocean by electric pulses and sonic echoes, breaking vocals joined by Florence (ultimately the best vocalist on this tour, no doubts).  “Fifty on our Foreheads” kicks out a simmering hearted Dirty Dancing theme, an epic haunting of Machiavellian proportions, guitars transcribing to bagpipes on a windy moor.  Muse correlated space rock absorbs and coordinates the cosmos through “The Price of Love”, to plummet on the aforementioned “Death” finale.  Is there a more appropriate end?

Towards the end of their set, Glasvegas bestow upon the backdrop a headspinning cyclical illuminated collage of iconological reference – James Dean, Martin Luther King, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Joe Strummer, and randomly, themselves.  The fact that they fit already, despite not being the band on the bill to earn a number one charted album (that virtue belongs to White Lies, but come on, Glasvegas were up against the monstrous gigantic Metallica’s near decade comeback), is the spurs that crown them headliner status.

Rewind and a 3D crystal cracked statuesque angel hovers above the stage, flickering as though trying to make contact, reach us from another world, a floating holographic seraph.  And then “Geraldine” explodes from a tremor to a bang, soaked with so much reverb it’s like an earthquake riding choir summoned by James Allen’s care-fuelled epithet.  This same energy lyrically observes a disused liner on “Lonesome Swan” and propels it ghostlike across placid waterways, with a bombastic flare and chilling moonlight passage.  The entire oeuvre set down by James Allen exemplifies a massive conscience, whether socially established or mechanically steered, but especially when encountering the personal vitriol of the heart’s consumption.

“It’s My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry” rains diamonds of torment and wages a personal war being drained in ravaged epiphanies.  It’s a savage incarceration to the self, made butterfly beautiful nonetheless, and their distinctive mould is chipped further with the aching fall from grace “Polmont on my Mind”.  Angelic drawls are stretched to elegiac white noise to create a shadow pop meditation, before dropping the dramatic and intense bomb of immeasurable misunderstandings bestowed in “Flowers and Football Tops”.  Another social mediation, it carries the weight of teenage murder and the inconsolable loss attached, with a segue to the traditional “You are my Sunshine” that will burn a hole through your heart.

There’s a scrum with emotive sensation, the immensely intriguing “Ice Cream Van” charging forward with man mountain guitarist Rab Allen rocking against keys to erect whit is almost a lost Spiritualized track, blaring out to the frantic and expletive “Go Square Go”, a national anthem that deserves a manic synchronised polka dot 60’s dance troupe stage front, Caroline McKay’s stand up drumming a force to break dams and flood cities.

The ever sensational “Daddy’s Gone” ends the drama, brining a sublime revisitation on doo-wop, that vein to the past still wide open, those images flying behind.  The emotion instilled in the unsettling story of growing up without a father is exaggerated and surpassed only by the cohesiveness of collected wet faces and exploding hearts throughout the venue.

Polar Bear Club arrive (appropriately) amidst the worst UK snowstorms to ice the UK like a cake for some eighteen years, and lack the cute and cuddly factor paraded on sumptuous and inviting winter wonderland documentaries, with fur ball cubs and doe eyed fluffed up bundles of Arctic loveliness.  Here roars ferociousness incarnate, the inner protective violence of debased and devolved nature, reminiscent of hardcore skater park kitsch.  See closer “The Bug Parade” if you want to hear a prime example of Jimmy Stadt, a vocalist who sounds like he’s been gurgling on the remnants of a porcupine corpse in his warm up.

Frank Turner is in a sense the biggest treat of the night, and shares more in the punk root values of our headliners than perhaps realised.  He may be standing solo, with semi acoustic strapped across checked shirt, but a cult following ensures the venue is already packed, and his anthemic, flawless superior set of independent and triumphant songs fuel the hearts and minds of all.  Starting out with “I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous” spins a nostalgic optimism, an Irish tinted soulful tune about everything at once, into “Father’s Day” and the passion of a broken promise.  “Substitue” manages to cultivate an array of tunesmithery, from a sweet melody and lyrically astute rhythm; to frenzied hoarse impassioned almost screams, re-imagining his previous life with Million Dead.  This bleeds into tracks like “Back in the Day”, about punk rock and its importance, and lends raw honesty and value to modern protests like the pacey and motivational new song “Try this at Home” and “Love Ire and Song”.  There’s an immense intensity on board, and part of his greatness is the ability to focus your consciousness with an easy zeal, our impotence with clarity.  Activate yourself, construct with meaning, anticipate the positives, draw together an understanding of the unique of being and rebel predictability (“Photosynthesis”).  Like Chris T-T (who, Frank has played with in the past, and dedicates the gentle and plucked “Casenova Lament” to), he returns your brain to a new frequency, turns an inner valve and shows the world in a different tone, shades falling against new textures in everchanging patterns.  The gentle urgency of “Long Live the Queen”, for  a friend who recently passed away, reconfigures the anthem, stumbling words battering into the back of each other, while the musical microscope plays over friendships on “The Real Damage”, a sorry tale of a night out and realisations of making things worthwhile – albeit lacking perfection.  There is a circular closure, a meritable reflection on evolving emotions, with the final “The Ballad of Me and My Friends”.  Empowering.

New Jersey’s The Gaslight Anthem are high on the critics’ lists at the moment, and subject to the SOLD OUT signage on the door tonight, on the people’s too.  Using Tom Waits as your intro tape will do nothing but endear you to the musical elite either.  When the band take to it, their leader Brian Fallan done out in tattoos and flat cap (like some jubilant Steptoe in a punked up time warped Bugsy Malone vision), you can feel the snow being shaken from the roof, defrosting before it hits the ground.

Two albums old and ravaging roots claiming a nostalgic simplicity, their furious raw stomps forge links to melody and history.  They’re a punk band of pure independence meddling in a commercial fold, looking for a home as much as their audience (“Everybody leaves, so why wouldn’t you?” asks Brian), and perform melody encroaching buzzsaw surgery to get there.  Ripping through next single “Great Expectations” with Replacements style gusto, a bristling on edge Hold Steady clawing “The Patient Ferris Wheel” and the break neck paced high fever of “Senor and the Queen”, sees an uproarious trio opening salvo.  And in the manic pace, the musical hysteria lighting up your mind, you can feel the wonder, the longing, the rain within.

Having been formally ordained by The Boss (opening for him at this summer’s Hard Rock Calling) they throw flames through “Old White Lincoln”, still their most melody ridden, peerdelic inspiring – think Bruce covering Killer’s hurtling into space, fuelled by pure sunfire.  There’s a moment where it breaks down to E-Street style drumming from Benny Horowitz with humming buzz bass electrifying your blood line, projected out of Alex Levine.

There’s a rush on, and at times through the middle of the set the sound gets muddied, as though everything hits the wrong level in the mix, much to the chagrin of discovery that could be made here.  “The 59 Sound” and “We Came to Dance” are like dirty shadows clinging to brickwork, while “Film Noir” encouragingly seems to claw back from a cliff edge into a country drunk abyss.  There’s a smooth rolling drum intro on boogielicious “Casanova Baby” and the stadium in waiting punkism explodes like an expurgated Pollack spunked across the sky when “Wherever Art Thou Elvis” sheds itself like a hard edged Bon Jovi (yes - how much proof do to you need of the NJ credentials??), flashed in lightning fork detail.

“Miles Davis and the Cool” is a frenzy of cinemascope, widescreen freshness and pogo friendly delirium, a danger of the murky sound the same syndrome zone being entered, but goodwill holds out for the remarkably brilliant “Here’s Looking at You Kid”, dedicated to the thought provoking in ways you’ve never thought before realism of Frank Turner.  It’s slender and stripped, ice cold honesty and shivering beauty, a red eyed torch song of affection and everlasting melancholy chivalry.

The Gaslight Anthem are nothing if not a people’s band, they care and make you deeply aware of the truisms and the faith of the good.  There’s a soulful musicianship on display, not always easy to hear in a dive bar, but like emotional darts they still find the bullseye, the meaning and classic meandering of subtle rhythms and mystical melodies plastering smiles across faces en masse during “The Backseat”.

The encore includes “Boomboxes and Dictionaries”, and inspires enough differential from the punk core attitudes in lairy blues howl jewel “Say I Won’t Recognise” to keep the connection alive, to maintain the quality and classicism gloriously longing, creating a futuristic nostalgia for the next generation of musical anarchists.

A gloriously referential, beautifully designed, tastefully rendered and wonderfully realised document which trails Richey throughout their career as a trio; a tributary testament to his genius across a subsequent legacy of James, Nicky and Sean.

Book-ended by the true pilgrimage to The Holy Bible, with the acid bass and raw open wounded kit beats of Peeled Apples and the unsymmetrical hidden Bag Lady, in between comes a collage of musicality passing through time.  Jackie Collins Existential Question Time and Me and Stephen Hawking offer a rifftastic gleam and James’ organic howl which could settle amongst the Sent Away Tigers, while the acoustically divine This Joke Sport Severed – with its bugs crawling over insects midway delight, like a beehive opened – could be made for This is My Truth Tell Me Yours (being as personal in its way as ‘Born a Girl’).  Find too dramatic strings and the most spacious drums since the Heavenly era.

Title track Journal for Plague Lovers is as close as another Richey album may have been, all ‘Judge Yr’Self’ atmospherics and deliciously paranoid peeling guitars.  She Bathed Herself in a Bath of Bleach carries the spirit of Kurt (an Albini trait washing over perhaps), and feels like a sister song to ‘The Girl Who Wanted to be God’ from Everything Must Go.  Timeless rhythms and one of those solos you can envision James spinning endlessly to.

Facing Page: Top Left ventures into (or from) James Dean Bradfield’s solo territory, more beautiful than ‘Still a Long Way to Go’, ravaged by the subsequent Marlon JD and its heavier than disco grunge culled from the (subtler) ‘There by the Grace of God’ period, or the clinical Gold Against the Soul days garnered with a razor’s edge.

The haunting Doors Closing Slowly has a desirous soul spun from Lifeblood, a deluxe graciousness of vulnerability, playing entirely away from the plucked energy and breaking stuttering beats of All is Vanity, mirrored through a pyramidial reflection of ‘Yourself’ and Know Your Enemy’s punk attitudes.  This fury flows into Pretension/Repulsion and its engrossing lyrical style.  Virginia State Epileptic Colony is viscerally polished, like a b-side never used from Everything Must Go (not inferior, but something they may have been too afraid to unleash directly at the time).

William’s Last Words is undoubtedly part of Nicky’s Zeitgeist.  Telling, touching, torn from history, lodged in the memory.  Poetry, prose, daunting and magical and teary.  The obvious and necessary beguiling sentimentality bleeding through for real, seeping from respect, admiration, love and memories for and of Mr Richard James Edwards.

The Gaslight Anthem – Great Expectations

Playing like an old scuffed 45, full of NJ working class rush and a guitar throughline of melodious alarm, that culminates in the closing classic chiming dream shimmers with heartbeat beats of Gordy records.  The literary inspirations of the title are lyrically matched smartly, inventively and poignantly amidst motown expectations, as reminders of first loves are poetically replayed like inmind fireworks. “Her heart was like a tomb / my heart’s like a wound“sings Brian Fallon, before wrenching out the devastatingly true “everybody leaves so why, why wouldn’t you?” It appropriately mentions a character from Dickens, spikes references in references (the song from 1962 is a line from a Seger track, which in turn referred to ‘Be My Baby’ by The Ronettes, and is that what’s being harmonised here??), with petroleum fuelled beats from Benny Horowitz and that turn tail zig zag guitar badge zap from Alex Rosamilia.  Expectations fulfilled.

Two Door Cinema Club – Something Good Can Work

Banjos bring the new electro beats, a strict dietary requirement given the lack of real life drumming amongst the 3 Welsh/Irish contingents.  A jerky pure airy pop song that shines brighter than the noon day sun on the Med, with enough quirky contamination to keep it indie (see the random cut and paste Kasabian crowd overflowing midway).  The Death Cab for Cutie comparisons lie in vocalist Alex Trimble’s falsetto Gibbardisms, thrown amidst crammed words of loveliness, Vampire Weekend afrobeat rhythms and that kind of summer catchiness you last associated with the whistling tune from Peter Bjorn and John.

La Roux – In for the Kill

“Abra–abra-cadabra, I’m gonna reach out and grab ya..” it wrestles so heavily, a spiced up cousin of… must stop… must crush away any mutated variations as 1982 is revisited again.  Mind you, this starts a night out in a way that Franz Ferdinand failed to, or alternatively soundtracks a glam gamestation shoot ‘em up.  Either way, if you can steer clear of any Steve Miller Band nightmare aural visions, you on for a good time.  The future can sound at once exciting and derivative if it’s done right, especially when hairstyles a la Elly Jackson appear to have broken every rule of physics (and this is a strong focus, La Roux translating to ‘red haired one’).  It relishes what Neon Neon were reinvigorating last year, and revolts against the classicism of Duffdele magnificently, with strong instincts from producer and ‘other’ member of this duo Ben Langmaid whispering back through the years to other famous duos Yazoo and erm… Blancmange.  Lively and stimulating and playfully familiar.  Altogether now.. “abra abra”…. Aaaaaaahhhhhh…..  

Hockey – Too Fake

A ruler bouncing along a desk edge, streaming in a funk veined, stretched to tightened creased vocal, Easyworld if they had survived and moved to ....Portland.....  It holds you like a fever, but has sprinkles of magic that will only last until midnight, not the next single.  So indie discos will be fine for another month, it beats to the lights (LCD Strokesystem?) and vibrates floors with drumbling (that’s deep and rumbling) bass.  But is it an ironic take on a fraudulent soulfulness paraded by the fake and lonely, or simply and literally fake?  Whatever, shake it out your system and look forward to the next one…

The Foxes – Bill Hicks

Kick start drums (vaguely reminiscent of Mystery Jets aping some 80s wonder) and Arctic Monkey riffing, hurled out with the energy of a Bill Hicks tirade (“play fro m your fucking heart” as he once ranted in E minor).  But the apparent one take-first take blastaroo lacks content - it’s all over after139 seconds with 45 of them at the build em up kick em down intro – and it won’t lead to a nicotine style addiction or political rage or porn addled drug spiralling visions or worldwide shakedown solutionary theorems.  Try SFA ‘The Man Don’t Give a Fuck’, or indeed one of our titular hero black hearted poets CDs. 

Keane – Better Than This

At the risk of becoming the biggest plagiarist reviewer, and saying what must obviously have been aired before, Keane prove you don’t have to be a music fan (fortunately) by dropping Bowie sounds so large it’s like they have painted their faces clown colour and sewn together a 20 foot Thin White Duke mascot to jerk on steel wires stage side, scarily mimicking a Spider from Mars.  Not a cutting and bitter protest attempt by Tom to moleculise non celebrity wannabes hinged to a copy of Heat, rather a pointless and patronizing ramshackle debasing conversation with himself.  Falsetto me this… a 4^th release from current disappointment “Perfect Shitmetry” which will neither raise enough funds for a course in rehab nor feed any relapsed habit.  Is this what you dreamed of?

Things we learned along the way 1: James Walsh considers ‘Lullaby’ to be the first decent song he wrote.  At 17.

There is a core support of two throughout the tour, the sublimely euphoric bowl-dust blues folk of Pete Greenwood (number 339 in the Guardian’s online ‘New Band of the Day’ series) and South Africa’s The Parlotones, huge straight razor edged cinemascope indie.  A handful of shows present a third for luck, and Cambridge sees Ryan Lauder bless the mike.

Despite hailing from the South West of Scotland, he comes on like a Ryan Adams of the Highlands, segues into Donovan, and back again.  There’s a dizzying effect, somewhat like the pressure changes on climbing Nevis, with paused chords instilling unlikely silences; a breath, a pause, a beat, that build distances so close.  With a neat device of walking away from the mike and continuing to sing simply in the spaces between us, he’s forever falling near; hanging far.  This slyly soulful acoustic bombardier, stinging with harmonica, says some lovely words towards Starsailor at the expense of those “stupidly successful indie bands wearing funny hats” (I paraphrase) and warrants your time.  He has an EP available, “Silence and Solitude”; hear it well.

Things we learned along the way 2: James Stelfox is the most likely member to evacuate the stage midset.  To use the facilities.

“This is the title track from my album.  Not sure if there’s any merch back there; the label were supposed to send some”.  That’s a sermon from the laconic Pete Greenwood in Oxford, and only half the sorry tale (his CDs had been stolen, the grapevine whispered, a double blow losing product and sales), who mostly lets the songs – no rhymes, no first person, no love – capitulate to talking. 

With scarecrow hair, charity shop clothes and dry Yorkshire (he’s from Leeds) drawl, he draws a convergence of Gram Parsons and Nick Drake, pureheart Americana strained through classic English homeliness.  Like an age old bourbon his voice is warm and fuzzy, his acoustic guitar genuflecting such a rich and tender tone, with playing that flows like… you know when you see a leaf in freefall, lifted and buoyed by a silent breeze, floating and shimmied and eddied by air currents, a whimsical delight, nature’s divine entertainment.  That’s Pete’s songs.  His illustrious finger picking, while often pacey, is the comfort of being rocked gently to sleep. 

See no further than the opening ‘Molly and Me’.  Or the mournfully alive ‘The ‘88’.  Or the beautiful Townes Van Zandt cover ‘I’ll be There in the Morning’.  Or the title track of his album ‘Sirens’.  Or the delta bluesy ‘Bats over Barstow’.  All told, it’s like spotting shots outside cemetery gates with Dylan; not morbid, but ageless, forever.  Unequivocally peaceful.

Things we learned along the way 3: James Walsh earned himself 6 GCSEs.  And no ‘A’ Levels.

The Parlotones are pretty awesome.  Uniformed (like the Hives, but without the hardcore garage splurges) in red ties and socks, black shirts and waistcoats, tight black skinny jeans, and an adoration of eyeliner.  Singer and rhythm guitarist Kahn Morbee in particular has lines like spilled mascara falling in a splash of decaying tears, a monument to A Clockwork Orange.  The calm at the centre of this whirlwind, there’s a flash of theatricality to his modus operandi, a bundle of signature moves that become part of the songs as much as the words and the music.  Part Jonathan Donohue (arms), part Elvis Presley (hips), part Keith Prodigy (eyes).

There’s a down the line progressiveness to the songs, but as they seep through you feel the intensity of Mercury Rev, the epic widescreen vibes of U2, the immensity of Queen, the tenderness of Coldpay, the complexities of Radiohead.  They engage you in a way that could have you believe that stars could be plucked from the sky to embroider the most vibrant patterns.

The trilogy opening their set reveals their sides are spherical, constantly revolving and flowing through styles.  Starting with the pure hearted rock ‘n’ roll of yet to be recorded ‘Push Me to the Floor’ and its warm up to Rock Paper Scissors hand wave (which surely must be an inference to the title as opposed to a masturbatory gesture?) , we steer a course through the first of several moments of absorbing, aching, overbearing emotive expressionistic sunbeams.

Bass thrums and guitars vibrate to life with occasional nonsense word rhyme scatterings, the emotive lunacy wrapped up in ‘I’m Only Human’ joined by Kahn’s running on the spot scissor kick bounce, and more hand mimes follow the lyrics (devil horns, don’t you know).  Even without the brass of the recorded version, it swings and jives, and oohs and aahs, and charges through Eden with a lustful zeal.

‘I’ll be There’ is an inspiring daydream moment, the quaver in Kahn’s voice like breaking waves against the lapping shore of keys proving bassist Glenn Johnson started life out at piano, the whole paradigm of infinite land explored and expanded beyond its basic conceits.

Arguably their most defining moment is deployed with the U2 baiting vocal wail, impossible to capture or control, introducing ‘Giant Mistake’.  It’s like a liquid rainbow curving amidst the clouds, an arching molten meteorite falling to earth, ultimately looped and used as another instrument in the mix.  Kahn’s theatricality plays throughout, along to the juggernaut motion, capeless but with arms outstretched, hands falling, fingertips of each touching, to cover his eyes against moments unbearable, lights unseen.

Statistics show The Parlotones to be the largest home-grown band in South Africa, their 2007 album ‘A World Next to Yours’ (released this June in the UK) apparently the biggest selling album there in the last decade.  Merchandise they had for sale here sold out night after night, and the Starsailor fan base undoubtedly became Parlotones junkies along the way.  Cambridge saw a preordained fan stage front, official t-shirt displayed proudly, evidently South African of origin, shouting atonally to every word of every song, mildly annoying, criminally interactive but excitedly involved.  In Portsmouth, two girls were unabashedly thrilled and vocally enjoined during their set, not realising The Parlotones were supporting until arrival, but pre-existing fans from their own numerous UK club jaunts.  Point being, such a high profile and well attended tour (Oxford – limited tickets left, Portsmouth – sold out, Bristol – nearly full, Cambridge – 20 tickets left, London – sold out) is rarely awarded such deserved supporters, and the appreciation shined.  While the songs continued to develop, to create, to bowl over.

‘Bird in Flight’ comes rolling over like a barrel of Snow Patroleum, only better than the real thing, and brings from Kahn sharp cut rock ‘n’ roll shapes, an Elvis whirling axel revolving across the stage, before ‘Solar System’ brings around that divine, atmospheric mojo to the fore.  Slow and controlled, Paul Johnson’s guitar track swirls around like nebulas across the Milky Way.  As well as being entrenched in hope, steeped in desire, it captures unwelcomed devotion, unreturned affections, unvalued concerns, generating a deep run heartache that somehow extends belief in the possibility of happiness with The One.  It is shockingly honest, electrically charging the air, and fits its iconic references chorus by chorus (Shakespeare, Presley, Monroe, Sinatra).  The anti is upped with the hand clap fuelled, punk experimenting mutation ‘Overexposed’ (on the verge of teasing Bon Jovi into the mix – ‘It’s My Life’), before ‘The Sun Comes Out’ tunes into classic pop territory, a tender rejuvenating sense of wonder eclipsing cynicism and betrayals.

The closing ‘Beautiful’ is a sanctioning of the audiences, a blissful connection between those onstage and off, as Kahn swoops into a chorus of “you are all magical”.  There’s an irony to such adoration ridden refrains, in that the opening sequence plays out like a steroid pumped amped up cross over of Ziggy’s ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide’ and Radiohead’s ‘Creep’.

They say flattery will get you anywhere, but The Parlotones don’t need to give it.  They’ll get there on the back of their passion, their commitment, their talent, their awesomeness.

Things we learnt along the way 4: Starsailor’s guitar tech Les has a fan club in America.  Allegedly.

So the generic might of identity is suddenly a dead end of creativity?  The genetic musical marker a crisis of devolution?  Surely there need not be a splicing of genres to avoid a stifling repetition; nobody told Oasis, the elder statesmen of pub rock who, despite never hitting the glory of ‘Live Forever’ (a song they don’t even play live anymore), who churn out albums with more inspiring titles than the choons on them (Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, Don’t Believe the Truth, Dig Out Your Soul), can still charge through what for any other band would be lumpen and leaden and insipid rock with a verve and electricity to bring a smile or a tear or a let’s-have-it-right-here-right-now-d’you-know-what-I-mean-I’m-mad-for-it-me moment.  So no, a retention of musical values, an integrity held tight to core beliefs, won’t inhibit growth or stunt worth, but it won’t open you to the top of the zeitgeist either, nor explain the vast array of embarrassing UK musical heritage building like a sickening pile of sludge and decaying bodies across the airwaves (Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs, Kaiser Chiefs plus Mark Ronson, The Feeling, The Ting Tings…)

And in truth, Starsailor have matured and evolved, James Walsh (vocals and guitar) effectively grown from confidence seeking teen to distinctive and adored 20-something at their root.  The tight musicianship between the band – bassist James Stelfox, drumming Ben Byrne and keyboardist Barry Westhead rounding them out – is startling, bonded and honed, and critically more accomplished with every tour.  Their journey has spawned four albums, and despite initial success at ½ million selling levels with their debut release, they ultimately have (undeservedly) fallen from the chart’s radar and drawn an almost cult following, falling inside a bizarre camp of commercially enabled and accessible tunage, and independent critical values and support.

These four albums have in themselves told a story, held up a concept of progression, of lives moving on.  ‘Love is Here’ (2001) explores the paranoia and disillusionment of love, of looking for the girl, the need for the comfort and security and the acceptance of another, ideals achieved on sophomore Phil Spector tainted plateaux ‘Silence is Easy’ (2003).  A contentment and settlement touching the songs, an energy and enjoyment from former platinum success and lifestyle cohesiveness steadying emotions, the only sting perhaps from the title track which already was sounding like a riposte to critics and the inevitable backlash.  ‘On the Outside’ (2005) was largely an externalisation of thoughts political and social, which took them to America to record, to isolate and add harder edges, expanding their anthemic muscle.  Although arguably their strongest collection to that date it perhaps distanced them too far, and ‘All the Plans’ (2009) has rounded out their genesis.  It sees the return of producer Steve Osbourne (New Order, Placebo, Suede, Elbow, Doves, K T Tunstall); a renaissance of the soulful romantic grooves reminiscent of their debut, interspersed with the rough paradigm edges of melodic heaving spilling over from the interim period; it also wraps up the ongoing themes – the girl lost, the impact and grasping to turn this story around.

And so we arrive in Oxford, with the band formerly known as Waterface, on active duty since 2000, mounting the stage with an introductory instrumental from Nick Drake.  It’s a charming piece, fleeting glimpses of countryside and golden days evoked, before the bewildering unexpected bass rumbling of first album classic ‘Tie Up My Hands’.  It’s a rolling boulder of a live track, a natural closer given its summit reaching momentum, but contextually stunning at the start.  Subdued and passive in opening, Stel’s sterling bassline picking through torn remnants of different lives, the layering leading to a destructive frenzy of feedback and commotive vengeance (hear it as James belts ‘killed this bitter doubt’ out across the night).  Ben’s timing is like a heartbeat, a gentle resting which picks up to a restless panic in line with our protagonists’ fears, and Barry’s integral keys impact this hopeful desert space leading to an oasis where all things survive.  Already, the band is a band, showing their vitality as a whole and their dependence on each other.  Even Pete Greenwood, back on stage with electric guitar held high like Hooky’s bass, not officially a band member but an effective and large contributor in building the sound, filling things out, taking lead for James to interact with his audience, makes himself known and necessary.

Barely a break before James strikes out ‘In the Crossfire’, a rare representative on this tour from ‘On the Outside’, fuelled by a spiteful thankfulness, a vicious relief spilling over, a wanton escape which musically and lyrically straddles a border between terror aggression and romantic disassociated optimism.

‘All the Plans’ introduces their latest material to the circuit, which comes on in Oxford akin to Dylan’s ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ (and goes out like it with a whirling Wurlitzer spinning outro), but come Portsmouth the key changes to Oasis’ ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ – which ok, owed everything to Lennon’s ‘Imagine’.  It’s a thick melodic freshly squeezed and dense play, in the spirit of The Faces, and leaves only one question – where was the harmonica James?

One day I’ll get to hear ‘Some of Us’ live, but until then I’ll take ‘Fidelity’, a song revealing the duplicity of double standards, which this time round spills instrumentally into country, a nod to Gram.  A hard nosed cousin of ‘Alcoholic’ with its keys intro and ultimate track making drum roll staple that brings it together, as much as it could take it apart.

An obvious future single in the light of live is ‘Hurts Too Much’, a painful and anguished release immense in isolation, yet warming the rain to a mist is Barry’s organ effects.  As James prophetically quipped in London, if this was released by Nutini or Morrison it would hit the chart peaks.  Neither of those would match the choir in the man stage front here, facing the only mike on stage and yet weighing in with more than just words.  Indeed, when he was a child he performed the solo of ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ at the local church and the accuracy and distillation of purity remains today.

In the lead up to ‘All the Plans’ being released, commentary from the inside hinted  that it would be a companion piece to their debut, and the band set out to prove it from here on in, alternating between the new and the old, classic rejuvenation by classic rebirth.  So ‘Poor Misguided Fool’ is fired up with a desirous sensitivity and waterfall keys; acoustic verve that Empire of the Sun have pulled rhythmically into their ‘We Are the People’ single, do you notice?  ‘Boy in Waiting’ introduces James as Johnny Cash, delivering a vocal line that holds the heartache of the world, leaving a thread of hope glimmering like moonlight on a torn scrap of your soul, with Ben’s percussion adding chimes that wouldn’t be out of place on a Christmas release.

‘Love is Here’ has been newly revived for this tour, the most prominent look back and connector to the past, and truly astounding.  Tingles and shivers are born from the wholesome honesty derived from every single element.  The nurturing tone pouring from James, Stel’s lullaby bassline, Barry’s organ pipes shaking through wondrously, and perhaps most effective Ben’s drum echoes, beats revolving 360º like shotgun rounds.  It takes a couple of nights to settle into your bones, but come Bristol you are fully absorbed by the (even then) unexpected break into a swirling psychedelic peach, where Pete’s guitar turns to brass, and not for the last time.

If James Walsh is Butch, then James Stelfox (with his P Bass) is Sundance.  A hypnotising plier of his trade and heavily influenced no doubt by Jaco Pastorins, your eyes drawn time and time again to his fret, 4 strings and impossibly stretching digits, dramatic and stylistic.  He owns the opening moody riffage of ‘Stars and Stripes’ and his playing on ‘Alcoholic’ lifts you from addiction.  The former is an incendiary self aggrandisation of our over the pond cousins, international politics making a move like The Bluetones returning to the Last Chance Saloon, an ever-real moment when James (amidst muddled lines and stuttered words) calls out “tell me that you love me”.

Arguably the stand out track from ‘All the Plans’ comes in the shape of lucid dream state ‘Neon Sky’.  James sings with eyes shut, in this instance reminiscent of Jeff Buckley’s notes peeking perfectly, as the atmosphere sways heavy and haunting and settles like a blanket of rainbow crystals over a shimmering mountain high melody.  The lyrics are changed from the studio take towards the end (“You lie and you cheat and you steal from a thief”), perhaps too difficult to lay down for more than a live moment, and the emotions delivered feel touched by the velvet hand of Richard Ashcroft.  This is emphasised when in traditional Starsailor fashion, the familiarity of chords and sentiment flow into a segment of ‘Sonnet’, the band falling away to leave James spotlighted and acoustic, and the audience exhausted from sheer belief and enticement into the foregone distance and fears.  This cover finale alternates across the tour with ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love with You’, perhaps an even more defining moment and highlight of James’ faultless vocal, and more significantly a sign that the preceding ‘Neon Sky’ could have been performed justifiably by a jumpsuited gemstoned Elvis.

There are a couple of oddities amidst their run across the tour.  Oxford sees some technical fuss leaving James to regale us with a solo rendition of The Beatles ‘Don’t Let Me Down’, the Walsh tipping the primal howl scales with verite, and in Portsmouth the ‘Stel takes a piss’ moment is filled with a note (and whistle) perfect rendition of Lennon’s ‘Jealous Guy’, after ‘Neon Sky’.

‘Keep Us Together’ remains an anthem in waiting, joining hands and minds and voices, and previous set closer ‘Silence is Easy’ creeps up while slaying a mammoth retort that could crumble empires.  It exhales valediction, epiphany and acceptance all in one line, a toast to pretenders and sharp tongued critics.  Reprieved of its knob twiddling effects heavy introduction of earlier tours, it becomes a straight edged rock monument, conveying the massive wall of sound beloved of its producer.

But where to turn after such a behemoth?  Probably their best live track of the moment, certainly their most fierce, comeback single ‘Tell Me it’s Not Over’.  It evolves from majestic, virtuoso keys, Barry’s hammering hands instigated by puppeteer Munster arms, like a classical maestro sending shivers and thrills to the spine; the drums devastating, pounding, destroying, thundering; guitars deep and glistening with the sweat of paranoia and heartbreak.  It’s a towering instance of tender flamboyance, wary of falling at the lightest breeze.

There’s a staple slot to be filled as the encore opens, labelled on setlists as “Jim AC”.  Alone and acoustic, the former choirboy grins and delivers ‘Lullaby’ with optimism and fulfilment and an inventive chord hacking solo build and accelerating rhythm.  Along the way, a few things are added or taken.  A specially orchestrated Radiohead medley is introduced in Oxford for obvious reasons (Street Spirit/Fake Plastic Trees); forgotten words but a fun hometown tribute.  I was hoping for Manfred Mann covers in Portsmouth, but they never materialised.  Bristol delivered a spurt of ‘Some Might Say’ and that  Beatles fixation continued if you were lucky enough to catch ‘You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away’ in Wolverhampton.  London drew a wild card as ‘Dancing Queen’ spun out, as voice concerns vanished given final date of the tour syndrome favouring the city, his bandmates kept from the stage longer with a bonus ‘Jealous Guy’.

‘Four to the Floor’ recovers the beat, the funk and groove, an all out indie stomp that could light up Las Vegas with its molten disco hips, shaking hands with Travolta on a 70’s dancefloor with a Philharmonic orchestra conducted by Neil Young turned to rock.

The earthquake inducing, spiral to infinity monster that eats you alive signals the end.  ‘Good Souls’ is still probably their grandest, most heartfelt statement, an honest to goodness message of intent and an invite to the pure of heart.  It’s a beast on stage, Pete’s guitar again fancying itself as the horn section of the greatest jazz mash elite.  It bleeds into ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, and segues back to their own instrumental loose psychedelic jam, Stel a jivemeister counting the final notes down (after James has dropped his guitar, swung the mike free into the lured and captivated spellbound chantalong crowds, and left the stage) to bring a precisely timed end to the last drum roll.  The show isn’t really done mind, until he flicks James’ pedal and feedback off on his own way stage left.

With songs scattered around your mind from their entire tenure, you reflect on what those albums could alternatively mean.  At the start, where was acceptance vaunted?  A girl…or an audience?  They certainly found it, but with the comfort/pressure of success came the backlash, the undeserved fall from grace; the running away, the search for distance, the self fulfilling propheticism of feeling on the outside of their peers.  And now ‘All the Plans’.  A couple of shows see ‘Tell Me its Not Over’ end with James standing centre stage, repeating the title over and over, electric and solo, sending out a plea to continue.  Sales of that single disappointed the fans, the band, the record label (next release seems destined to be a download only single), and the lyrics suddenly look to be a call from the band to each other, to the public. 

“If you love something (sic) don’t throw it all away”. 

“I’m still waiting”.

“We are much too young for anything to break… and all the plans we made”.

“Don’t look to the past, our time is now”. 

“Maybe we’ve lost our little way”. 

“We’re gonna make it happen somehow…change the world”.

They certainly don’t want this ride to end, and after this countrywide trek, I’m certainly on board with that.

Glasvegas – Flowers and Football Tops

Thoughts inspired by the tragedy of Kriss Donald, a fifteen year old Glaswegian subjected to senseless kidnap, torture and murder in 2004.  The album version ticks out some 7 minutes, manicured and poignant amidst its horrendous human consumption, shimmering guitars vibrating through hospital corridors, orchestral and bleak and luxuriously blanketed in monstrous decay.  Drums crash around like a family’s world, bass growling like psychosis from Psychocandy, as James Allen distils an emotionally magnanimously minded Proclaimer accented propulsion, a recluse breaking down walls.  This respectful glance in the direction of destruction manages to instil a huge contemporary reflection off the 1957 Mickey & Sylvia title ‘Love is Strange’ (yes, from Dirty Dancing), and sublimely focuses its epic finale blend to ‘You are My Sunshine’, a football anthem that ties an effective tribute to such victims, and their families, tangentially and physically distraughtly.

Howling Bells – Cities Burning Down

How well can a former debut album single b-side position itself as a sophomore release promo?  Reworked, blackened, marvellously translated as a connector to the past and a bridge to the future.  Beautifully atmospheric; you can smell the smoke, feel the flames.  Prisms of sound reflecting like rainbow stars, as crawling beats track like moonlight, and synth swirls that float like mists over lakes of fire.  With a Sonic Youth chivalry, a moody eerie darkness is vamped by Juanita Steins climbing vocals.  She brings a post sexual liaison comedown, the post coital cigarette while languishing on a forest floor, distant stream bubbling from mountain high spring.  Lover gone, vanished or imagined, a smouldering ember of regret, a clung too dream escaped and vanquished.

Emmy the Great – First Love

It’s bursting with memories, your own nostalgia you didn’t even realise you had lived.  References to Cohen and cassettes, first times and last times, regret and reliefs.  Her stressed syllabic phrasing recalls the breathed tones of Stephen Fretwell, Emmy his female counterpart – duplicitly sensual, darkly romantic, deeply sorrowful, devastatingly emotive.  Here we have meeting, seduction, departure; loosely inspired by Beckett , steeped in desire and paranoia, sombre  and restful.

Empire of the Sun – Walking on a Dream

The sweet title track from the debut album of the same name, charting the very soul of duo  Luke Steele (formerly of alternative outfit The Sleepy Jackson) and Nick Littlemore  (producer and dance act Pnau founder).  They’ve found a purer psychedelic voice, crowning themselves worthy descendants of MGMT, with meditative and soaring magnificence, an electronic heartsigh that relights your groove with atmospherics soaked in sunbeams.   It chases indulgent youth movements (“running for the thrill of it”) with edgy dance floor beats, yet sounds out the future with a soothsayer pop shine.

Eugene McGuinness - Fonz

There’s an appropriate super cool splash across this two minute inspired psychedelic washed release, you can smell the leather and feel the breeze from an upturned collar.  Still young (22) and overflowing with ideas (see also last single Moscow State Circus for a full menu of variety), EM creates hooked memorable melodies around lush comic couplets (“we said farewell, and synchronised our watches/arranged for the meeting of our crotches”) and nursery rhyme refrains, to attract an infectious Buzzcock power pop surge of Morrissey falsetto drive.  Eyyy! (and click fingers).

The Ting Tings – We Walk

An unexpected piano flourishes, ye gawds; perhaps Mylene Klass was in the studio next door.  A 6^th single off 10 track 1^st album distress signal which ultimately, though, is still a shoddy monstrous mess, like unstyled graffiti sprayed unwittingly upside down over the side of a motorway bridge.

Side projects of The Strokes are coming 2 a penny: in between the slow burning realisation of Albert Hammond Jr, and the recent album from bassist Nikolai Fraiture, kit playing Fabrizio Moretti held on to a rambling all night pipedream conversation with Ridrigo Amarante (singer with relaxed Brazilians Los Hermanos and player with the King of Present Day Hippiedom Devendra Banhart) and ran with it, once musical seeds were sown deeper with the support and inclusion of then friend / now girlfriend Binki Shapiro (daughter of 60s pop songstress Helen).  This realisation of a notion, this birth from drunken perusals of what if, this genesis of a laid back coastline cocktail on a beach vintage vibed charm fuelled collective, deserves recognition beyond the inclusion of a Stroke.  Any thought held to fruition, any belief taken to life, any positivity brought to the fore, raise a toast, kudos, hats of....

How can four guys from Portland (The City of Roses!) turn 60s breeze surf pop to the whitest Velvet Underground noise, while sweating out a country twang sheen?  That’s a question only support band The Dead Trees can answer, over on these shores looking for their first UK clap on this night.  They find it, with their influences (Pavement, Wilco) culminating in a furious mash up instrumental.

Reodrigo Amarante walks on alone, standing centre stage with a low light and plucks acoustically to hushed lullaby “Evaporar”, a Portuguese sung romanticism shining.  Fabrizio and Binki wander on subsequently, the former swapping sticks for strings, handclaps and soothing backing vocals; the latter dreaming and cooing with percussive and keyboard duties.  She takes lead on occasion, very sweet and subtly soulful.  As a live outfit, they are supplemented on a bunch of songs by members of The Dead Trees (who incidentally are almost honorary Strokes Associates given their support dues paid to Albert Hammond Jr previously), to bolster that otherwise empty drum stool, and thicken with bass.

Personal history plays a part, a definite affinity with The Strokes emerging on a few songs (see the driving repetitive chord progressions of “No One’s Better Sake, although with vocals even more relaxed than Mr Casablancas, a sharp world percussive groove, calypso bangs and organ splashing against a Jamaican shore, there’s a tendency towards California sunshine than New York grey; or the closing “Brand New Start”, a swinging collective doo-wop crooner that belies the beach rather than the subway, but nevertheless evokes a NY insouciance.)

Binki shines on “Unattainable”, a fragile take in Mama Cass / Mo Tucker territories, and as she purrs about “this deep secret that hasn’t come out yet”, there are duelling harmonies from the boys, as they face each other to stepping stone guitars.  As notes seemingly alternate from each, its like a mouse bouncing between elastic band trampolines.

“With Strangers” is almost a gypsy lament.  Reodrigo taking a gentle melody to a prescient impact, and moving to “Keep Me in Mind” to croak out a rasping hawking that still brings with it sunshine through lo-fi slink, another Strokes cousin.  He is naturally the frontman, taking lead duties for most of this current collection of tracks, although it’s Fabrizio who steps up to the mike between songs occasionally, smoothly attired and bearded, thanking the gathering for venturing out for them on such a cold miserable night.

A cover of her mother’s 1961 single “Walking Back to Happiness” demonstrates Binki’s Persson / Feist tones to perfection that takes you to the terrace of the cocktail lounge bar on Sunset Boulevard from whence they take their name.  It bounces; it surfs; it plays like a slight breeze through your hair; it sounds perfectly suited to a Quentin Tarantino soundtrack.  Talking of such, there’s a new song in the set already, sounding like it was recorded by The Doors for a Desperado style flick.  Backed by demolishing kit beats and strips of psychedelic keys.

Fab lights up, an obliterated freedom of choice fighting glowing ember stick flirting with a futile piss in the ocean penalty, and welcomes The Dead Trees back for “Don’t Watch Me Dancing”.  As Binki fulfils a lovelorn epistle, a finger picked tribute to campfire peculiarities ambiently builds to instrumental echoes and spirited chanting, continued into the blissful verve and swoon of hippyish closer “Brand New Start”.

Muita alegria!