With a strange set-up for the last two shows of the series, with the Friday show delayed (for some reason) until a week on Friday, I thought I would put up two posts starting with the live Tuesday preview.Two bands I was really looking forward to: Kasabian showing off new material, and a turn from The Pretenders. Only Regina Spektor caught the rest of my interest which is no bad thing as I like being introduced to new bands I have never heard before. Unfortunately this brought mixed results from Golden Silvers and Baaba Maal.
Tuesday (live)
Kasabian - Fire
The Pretenders - Don’t Cut Your Hair
Golden Silvers - True No. 9 Blues (True Romance)
Paul Jones (Chat with JH)
Baaba Maal - Dakar Moon
Regina Spektor - Blue Lips
The Pretenders - Don’t Lose Faith In Me
Kasabian - Underdog
First up this week, band I was really looking forward to: Kasabian. I really don’t like the new single Fire and was hoping the band would inject some live energy into the song for the show. It is a horrible mess of laboured uninteresting vocals, static guitars, truly awful backing singers and disjointed arrangement. What the hell has happened to this great band. Such early promise has now disintegrated. Even the last vocal segment fails to give things a lift. At least the show closer Underdog has the usual confident swagger, even though musically the song really needs some sharper edges and big keyboards. It is all going-through-the-motions even with some great guitar work at the end.
Last year something happened to The Pretenders. Never one of my favourite bands, they have one incredible asset: Chrissie Hynde. She is a revelation but who knows what she was thinking when she wrote Don’t Cut Your Hair. Last year’s country influenced Break Up The Concrete album was well received but this single is horrible. Given the classics that the band has produced over the years, this isn’t even in the same league. And Hynde is a fantastic song writer. But not this time. Don’t Lose Faith In Me is much better - a slower bluesy number with a trademark soaring chorus and Hynde much more comfortable. No big ending though.
Regina Spektor is a bit of Martha Wainwright and a bit of Laura Veirs. Blue Lips is engaging with Spektor singing at the piano, followed by a string quartet. Simple yet powerful, this is easily the highlight of the week. The song is a typical singer-songwriter ramble with loose structure and lots of starts and stops. But it is wonderfully performed and arranged. Very reminiscent of Annie Lennox last week.
New band Golden Silvers sound and look like an 80s tribute act performing at a bad wedding. Singer Gwilym Gold has such an apathetic vocal, it constantly distracts from the great music - a combination of guitars, keyboards, drums and bass. The three piece all share vocal duty and True No. 9 Blues (True Romance) has a wonderful charm but it’s all a bit flat and listless.
Jools chatted with Paul Jones - first time this series that a guest is on to plug a new album but doesn’t have a performance slot on the live show. We can forgive Jones this digression as he performs a brief preview of what to expect from the Friday show, and is always good value
Baaba Maal - Senegal’s answer to James Brown - only seems to be able to sing in one pitch: high and whiny. Dakar Moon is decent enough and full of pleasant chord changes and great moments. But again the vocals are a distraction.
So no big performance from Kasabian, no classic from The Pretenders, only one song from Regina Spektor and something new from Golden Silvers. Not a great live show but I’ve seen worse. This series has not been the best…
The Friday show post will be up in a week.
No comments:
Post a Comment