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ventaHmm. This plan to get back to reviewing gigs again has failed pretty quickly. I'm already hideously out of date.
I've probably mentioned before. The Luminaire, on Kilburn High Road in London, is lovely. They're also prone to strange competitions - a few weeks ago they invited readers of their mailing list to report what they'd had for breakfast in return for the chance of some free tickets. I sent them a tale of banana-related woe, and they rewarded me with a pair of tickets to see Luke Doucet.
Who?
Well, I'd no idea, but I figured the Luminaire don't usually book shite bands, and hey, it was free. I did some very idle listening online (sounded like a fairly blameless acousticy singer/songwriter) and headed over to Kilburn.
Kilburn used to be ChrisC and my stamping ground, so we scampered eagerly back to the cheap and cheerful Small & Beautiful[*] for tea. Full of (in my case) smoked chicked, baked trout and pinot grigio we rolled down to the Luminaire in time to catch the end of the first support.
Tori Sparks does the girl-with-guitar thing very well, it's just not a thing I'm usually all that keen on. Pretty voice, but the songs we heard were the vaguely formless tales of love and attraction that tend to put me off girls-with-guitars. If you like that kind of thing, you might like her :) (Also, we only caught a couple of songs, so it may not be representative of her entire oeuvre.
Just before she came offstage, she did a cover (yay) of I Can See Clearly Now, in between verses she told a long and involved story of her race across an unfamiliar NYC trying not to be late for her first gig there. It was a fun story, and really well told. If she'd done more like that I'd have been happy.
Wafting onstage next came Deer Park, who have the world's most circular and uninformative online presence. One singer/guitarist, one backing singer and one bassist (no drums!), they were surprisingly arresting. Gentle, melancholy and melodic. They'd be the perfect music for a rainy afternoon.
On the way home, ChrisC and I discussed how they were a band that simply wouldn't be the same without the backing singer - she'd had a very distinctive voice, and was a very important part of the songs. Of course, it turns out that the album he bought has a line-up of six people, including drums, none of whom is her, and sounds quite different. Ah well. I'd recommend waggling your ears at them a little: http://www.myspace.com/deer-park (I recommend Waiting on a Change as a starting point.
So, on to Luke Doucet, he of the gentle singery-songwriteryness. All in all it was a bit of a surprise when he leapt on stage, nodded to his drummer and bassist, and launched into fifteen-fingered screaming guitar-wank. He also looked and moved rather like![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
davefish, which was a bit disturbing.
He did some of the same songs, so it was the right guy, but boy did he sound different. I'm not a fan of the ostentatious guitar solo, as a rule, but found myself rather surprisedly enjoying the exuberance of it all.
The Luminaire is a small venue, and it was far from full, but almost everyone there seemed to be a die-hard fan. And Canadian. At least, most of the people shouting for songs seemed to have Canadian accents. Confusingly, it seems a lot of Mr Doucet's songs share names with places, so for a while I seemed to be surrounded by people randomly shouting "New York!", "Ohio!" and so on.
As he finished his set, he started taking requests which ran him into problems as he claimed only to have met the bass player four days previously. The bass player didn't know New York, so had to be taught the basic riff before they started. "That sounds about right!" shouted someone from the audience. Doucet finished the song with his guitar twisted oddly to his right, presumably so the bass player could watch what was going on on the fretboard.
All in all, a fun evening out for no money. Find out if your local venue has competitions, and start entering them at random. Better still, start buying tickets at random. You never know what you might find!
[*] on Kilburn High Road, more or less under Brondesbury railway bridge. Online reviews suggest that the food and service are quite hit and miss, but I don't think I've ever had a bad meal there. I'd recommend it.
I've probably mentioned before. The Luminaire, on Kilburn High Road in London, is lovely. They're also prone to strange competitions - a few weeks ago they invited readers of their mailing list to report what they'd had for breakfast in return for the chance of some free tickets. I sent them a tale of banana-related woe, and they rewarded me with a pair of tickets to see Luke Doucet.
Who?
Well, I'd no idea, but I figured the Luminaire don't usually book shite bands, and hey, it was free. I did some very idle listening online (sounded like a fairly blameless acousticy singer/songwriter) and headed over to Kilburn.
Kilburn used to be ChrisC and my stamping ground, so we scampered eagerly back to the cheap and cheerful Small & Beautiful[*] for tea. Full of (in my case) smoked chicked, baked trout and pinot grigio we rolled down to the Luminaire in time to catch the end of the first support.
Tori Sparks does the girl-with-guitar thing very well, it's just not a thing I'm usually all that keen on. Pretty voice, but the songs we heard were the vaguely formless tales of love and attraction that tend to put me off girls-with-guitars. If you like that kind of thing, you might like her :) (Also, we only caught a couple of songs, so it may not be representative of her entire oeuvre.
Just before she came offstage, she did a cover (yay) of I Can See Clearly Now, in between verses she told a long and involved story of her race across an unfamiliar NYC trying not to be late for her first gig there. It was a fun story, and really well told. If she'd done more like that I'd have been happy.
Wafting onstage next came Deer Park, who have the world's most circular and uninformative online presence. One singer/guitarist, one backing singer and one bassist (no drums!), they were surprisingly arresting. Gentle, melancholy and melodic. They'd be the perfect music for a rainy afternoon.
On the way home, ChrisC and I discussed how they were a band that simply wouldn't be the same without the backing singer - she'd had a very distinctive voice, and was a very important part of the songs. Of course, it turns out that the album he bought has a line-up of six people, including drums, none of whom is her, and sounds quite different. Ah well. I'd recommend waggling your ears at them a little: http://www.myspace.com/deer-park (I recommend Waiting on a Change as a starting point.
So, on to Luke Doucet, he of the gentle singery-songwriteryness. All in all it was a bit of a surprise when he leapt on stage, nodded to his drummer and bassist, and launched into fifteen-fingered screaming guitar-wank. He also looked and moved rather like
davefish, which was a bit disturbing.He did some of the same songs, so it was the right guy, but boy did he sound different. I'm not a fan of the ostentatious guitar solo, as a rule, but found myself rather surprisedly enjoying the exuberance of it all.
The Luminaire is a small venue, and it was far from full, but almost everyone there seemed to be a die-hard fan. And Canadian. At least, most of the people shouting for songs seemed to have Canadian accents. Confusingly, it seems a lot of Mr Doucet's songs share names with places, so for a while I seemed to be surrounded by people randomly shouting "New York!", "Ohio!" and so on.
As he finished his set, he started taking requests which ran him into problems as he claimed only to have met the bass player four days previously. The bass player didn't know New York, so had to be taught the basic riff before they started. "That sounds about right!" shouted someone from the audience. Doucet finished the song with his guitar twisted oddly to his right, presumably so the bass player could watch what was going on on the fretboard.
All in all, a fun evening out for no money. Find out if your local venue has competitions, and start entering them at random. Better still, start buying tickets at random. You never know what you might find!
[*] on Kilburn High Road, more or less under Brondesbury railway bridge. Online reviews suggest that the food and service are quite hit and miss, but I don't think I've ever had a bad meal there. I'd recommend it.
