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!

The Prodigy – Omen

Retaining (returning to?) their early acid synth rave sensational energy, there’s a conscious inclination, a nod towards the circumstances of today’s dance culture – think Justice – and an embrace of the bond of band civilization, perhaps a distinct manifestation after the last essentially solo endeavour of Liam Howlett using the P brand.  And between the punk rave roots come Keith and Maxim’s most melodic word abuse, vibing up the old school flashing chimes that ravage your ear canals, and a minute in lift things further with bagpipe electronics.  As the song contests it was always meant to be this way, and any turgid argument that this is predictable and repetitive should fuse Hadouken! to your glowstick fingered speakers and regret they’ve ever been away.

U2 – Get On Your Boots

The return of the big riff indeed, as The Edge intended.  Certainly an impressive feat to be engineering new sounds after some 30 odd years, albeit by crowning themselves Plunder Kings, although anything else and they would become a parody of themselves.  So here we get a frighteningly good impression of Costello’s ‘Pump it Up’, but given Bono’s gobshite nature he never seems to say much in verse these days, not even a valedictory frustration fuelled ode to masturbation.  Quite explicitly the opposite, “I don’t want to talk about wars between nations” he opines, strategically removing the politics from the music (with the question that this may be the place for it?), although he spreads fun fair imagery across love affair commentary amidst Japanese horror croaks rather well.  There’s a rhythmic layering and playful harmony construction that plays off the Eno / Lanois production, a prototype hip hop functionality seeping in later to rattle the cages of the grungecore trajectory.  But 5 years and the biggest band in the world?

Morrissey – I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris

There’s a royalty to The MozKing, an illegality of joy that still lays flawless the continuing precipice of morbidity and paranoia that sums up the truest heart and lets you in to a place you fawn to step.  Steeped in a familiar cruelty of mortality (“in the absence of human touch… your smiling face… your love”) and trapped in cynicism and the cold of clarity, the musicianship collects more cohesively than before, a short sweetly acidic ode to dying affections.  It may roll to the beat of a lament, a taciturn surfeit of an anxious lapse of love, but it creates a warmth in purity and understanding and exacting greatness.

James Yuill – No Surprise

Despite the creditability of Get Cape.Wear Cape.Fly, such crossover antics appear to receive as warm a welcome as suggestions of Sutcliffe’s cured and low risk security requirement hilarity.  But lets kick out the chills… a miasma of electrofolk and blipcoustics; pensive and remote, extroverted shamanic troubadour dance chic etiquette.  Without the bips there’s little depth, an emergence of a tuneless anthem in waiting that meets its lush maker from a chip and pin society.  A lovely piece of effervescent sad pop.

The Killers – Spaceman

Reviving the Klassic Killers noize, this is the only track off their new album that closes the boundaries on their genesis, and deploys characteristics that there was no other collaborator for their recent Christmas single than Elton John.  Glam synths and disco stomps pay tribute to the current rage of 80s resuscitation, the oh-oh-oh-ohhh refrain a catechism of boundless energy to the point of bringing listeners on board a religious trek should they find it.  With a nod to ....Bowie.... (of course), and a common thread to ‘Human’ (what are we doing to/for ourselves?), this weaves a devastating imagining of loose tongued lashings of ignorance and a recognisable sci fi departing.

The Contenders

Gunshot Straight
Ripped straight from the pages of vintage hard boiled 70s rock ‘n’ roll, a whole lotta Zep is going on.  Mixing easy rhythms and licks of Free with classic rock poses from the Jimi Hendrix Photographic Alamanac, the focus falls on guitarist / singer Chris Carnell, whose widdly fret wanking is a little derivative (but retrospective is a wide expectation in this musical mould and therefore entices the epitome of cool and Squire), and Americanised legend of rock of ages vocal cruises along Roger Daltrey Avenue.

Bleed Again
A self indulgent 5 minute bass solo opening leads to one of the tightest sets, ‘Vintage’ looking like a throwback from Santana’s latest tour.  An all round oddity… Simon Williams, a math geek in Slayer T; Jamie Dawson, ‘John’ the local portly barman; Russell Plowman a podgy, bearded, bespectacled science teacher; and the metal stereoptype, David Hayler - long hair, funny shaped beard, and a vocal ripping a new hole to hell and laying scorched tarmac for Satan after gargling with gravel stripped up from the old with his tongue.  Linkin Park mashed with Sepultura.

Karmas Revenge
An experimental metal teen project, trying to be Nine Inch Nails with an industrialised mélange of feedback and screeching.  More experimenting required.

Jack New
Post punk, disjointed XTC style Weezer nerd rock.  Singer / guitarist Mike is an afroed Buddy Holly who takes an occasional manic turn about the stage like a Chuckle Brother.  A conglomerate telling of mythical stories through concept coded serial song writing, teased away by clunky shouting and grungecore lite.

Essay For the Ordinary

The most distinct (and yet retrospective) of sounds on the bill, these ska punk elder teens distinguish themselves with a mini brass section – always a requisite round this musical landscape – of trombone, sax and trumpet, and have you reaching for that pork pie hat.  Jon Hampson’s vocals verge on rap at times, a spiky range of guttershot slang and teen riot dialect.

3TL
Aiming for the punk power pop of Blink 182, the alternative waves of Alkaline Trio, and finding the wayside kept for Scouting for Busted strays on speed.  Every song sounds the same, one blurred passionless train crash after another; a bitter shame given a) their 7 years existence and b) they managed a placing.

The Winners – with my choices bracketed...

3rd: 3TL (Bleed Again)

2nd: Gunshot Straight (Essay for the Ordinary)

1st: Essay for the Ordinary (Gunshot Straight)

The Airborne Toxic Event – Sometime Around Midnight

Striking with the most organic strings, and from the swell shakes of Mike Jollet’s literary and poetic treatment, a mesmeric gasp that strains your ears to the heartache of remembrance and loss in a single moment.  There’s an overture of base Arcade Fire meddling in the legitimacy of Bright Eyes passions, as a glance evokes bliss and sex and intense emotions and drunkenness and hurt and anger and prophecies and ghosts; a song that cloaks you in the same invisibility that the alcohol and memories do to our protagonist, where the sky dizzies and drops away and leaves you like a star in space, high and dazed.

Fleet Foxes – Mykonos

A Greek island, the mythological setting of the battle between Zeus and Titon, named to honour Apollo’s grandson.  Now?  A cosmopolitan treacherous tourist trap of drunken stilettos and damaged masculinity.  The divine Fleet Foxes have taken it back to the fable, where you can smell the pine tree scented mountain air, carrying on it the breathtaking spine tingling harmonies reminiscent of CrosbyStillsNash, revolving around the innate acute model of unconditional friendship.  Sticks to the might of legend, told with the fragility of existence.  

A Camp – Stronger than Jesus

Returning to her solo side project after 8 years (in which she went back to the day job of singing with The Cardigans, executing another 2 albums and compiling a Best of, and working with Manic Street Preachers to boot), she manages to turn the clock back 40 plus years to effect this magical pop gem, which as a download only with no promotion on its back will reach very few.  Shameful.  Her sultry take on Gainsbourg’s jazz pop experiments plays like it’s sung by his daughter Charlotte, had she performed in her mother’s era, with the dysfunctional reverence of Mercury Rev at their most subtle.  There is an unhealthy mischievousness amidst the horns, a line of experience being displayed and crossed, and a template of doom laden hard to believeness.  It’s the answers to the never-ending Love is… comic strip collections - … a curse; the hammer that will break you; a poison hidden in a bon bon; capable of killing anyone; like a shotgun; a rabbit on a rifle range; a fire, a hot hot blaster.  Love is… stronger than Jesus.   

Cage the Elephant – Back Against the Wall

The funk slows to soulful.  Still the Peppers grime stained funk alleyways, with a modest dash of Modest Mouse space rock thrown into the Kentucky drive ins, all ending in a wall of Kings of Leon guitars.  It’s straight up old school rock at the core, diligently executed and explicitly constructed on a pivot of elongated vocals (an Americanised Turner?) and QOTSA relaxed beats.

Coldplay – Life in Technicolor ii

They’ve dressed up!  They’ve rapped up!  And now they’ve graded up!  Taking an instrumental in places considered a masterpiece from latest album, tacking a Roman 2 on the title and, most contentious of all, some words.  All facing potential woe faced shame and pity taking archivist lament, given Chris Martin’s watery lyrical ambivalence of late.  Say what?  It’s a violent world?  Time’s a loaded gun?  There’s a serenade of sound?  It speaks volumes (and gives hope) that the band is back in the studio without him at the moment, bringing daydreams of a stratospheric instrumental album.  To the music then…  It rises and falls like the empires of multiple universes, floaty and big and pure.  Go back to the album, but stop after track one.

Their intro tape spills out The Stones’ ‘Gimme Shelter’, or maybe the lights were lowered a little too early as we are plunged to darkness for five minutes to watch various lava glow lamps come alive, giving an air of creepy prettiness, like a surreal 60s hippies drug den (I imagine).  Then a masterful, doteful voice booms an old fashioned introduction, the kind usually reserved for Dylan.  “Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome to the stage Island Recording Artists, The Fratellis”.  Whereupon, three Scottish oiks who once dressed almost Dickensian for a video and spout in verse Irvine Welsh homilies, pour onto the stage.

A galvanising fun is to be had by and large, any dark Scottish brogue guile translated to feel good charm from the jolly jaunty musical demeanour.  See the opening “Cuntry Boys and Girls”, a mass of rolling bass solos and rattling drums, converging at a conclusionary climax on speed with Abba key changes.  Or “My Friend John”, where bongo rhythms match cheese grating guitars, in support of Arctic Monkeys vocal tripping.  Throw in a solo from Benny Hill chase footage for change in mirth.  Former single “Look Out Sunshine!” has never shone so bright, the sound a field of buttercups held under a giant’s chin, such a big boisterous smiling tune proving he does like butter.  Requisite sun ray lights are splashed onto backdrops at either side of the stage, with a yellow shining over the audience at the chorus.  And who can argue with the rambling, infectious rambunctiousness of “Henrietta”, where The Fratellis do The View better than The View have been doing themselves lately, for a coarse experiment in ego boosting aptitude.

Jon, Mince and Barry are expanded in the live with Will Foster (formerly of The Tears) on keys and second guitar, and with the former create huge piano backbones, providing a much heavier tinkling prescience.  See latest single “A Heady Tale”, which takes piano movements against early Primal Scream punk ‘n’ roll phrasing to a Van Morrison covers album.  And despite the wave of claps washing through the crowd, it’s when this turns into a slight rock jazz wig out that they run adrift.  “Doginabag” is a lowlight, all prog rock histrionics, fret masturbating and turgid drumfills.  Irrespective of a Dylanish middle 8, it mutates into poor man’s Doors / Pink Floyd atmospherics come the end.  More follows with “Tell Me a Lie”, the swaying tempo still trudging with anticipated predictability.

There’s a somewhat ironic turnabout given their bombastic catchy nature, when proceedings are slowed down for “Whistle for the Choir”.  It’s a communion maker, as you feel drawn to joining a choir, and magically a solo pings out like bagpipes.  Starting out like a spoof Bond theme, “Stragglers Moon” spins around hypnotic lights and disco balls, a Bassey ballroom edged vibe.  Jon’s voice is diamond cut, reminiscent of The Cooper Temple Clause growling.

Preceded by a dizzying Mince drum solo comes the bravely mid-set placed “Chelsea Dagger”, the loose fitting bassline giving way to that chant, venue wide, and military making machine gun beats.  The Fraggle Rock rock of “Flathead” maintains the energy, the brashness, and has a chorus that could take its place as a TV sports quiz show theme.

Elton John is revived through the power chord guitars of “Lupe Brown", evocative of the 70s and befitting a decade later sequel to Dirty Dancing’s setting.  Chelsea returns amidst the jangly nursery rhymes of “Ole Black and Blue Eyes”, and not that I would ever to match any band to Madness, “Shameless” lulls people to participate in that legendary porkpie hat lifting and parted knees up mime so representative of that band, it’s difficult not to.  And after such a hateful comparison, how about this: “Got My Nuts From a Hippie” is quite Razorlight.  If they were to turn out a disco slap bass style jam, with jazz intro percussion and Gary Moore guitar solo.

The piano almost ballad “For the Girl” closes the set, really highlighting the soul palpable in Jon’s voice; but they’re not quite done.  And their encore evidences how they can get away with leaving their (still undoubtedly) best song from this hang-a-round for more section.

They crash back with their older woman ode “Mistress Mabel”, a riot that Stereophonics should be turning out nowadays (it even lays a Dakota style synth behind it) and my notes say, I kid you not, “the kind of thing that has kept Status Quo going for so long”.  Blood shed at the Moulin Rouge comes with “Baby Fratelli”, the Scottish mafia doing the can can, a rock ‘n’ ring a ring a roses.

My referencing here seems to be a tad unkind… The View (who have lost their sight)… Status Quo (who have only ever had three chords)… Stereophonics (who have lost their band to Kelly’s ego)… Madness (who just never have)… but The Fratellis are surely top of the pile of the dumb and the fun.  Happy music making indeed.