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Tuesday proved to be a very wet evening but that didn’t stop me from heading out to Camden’s Electric Ballroom to watch American Indie band, Spoon. They’ve got plenty of albums and although they never really hit the mainstream, they certainly had enough fans to fill out the Electric Ballroom. When listening to some of their albums, I recognised a few of their songs, although by far probably the most popular is, The Way We Get By off their Kill The Moonlight album.

They were supported by New York band, White Rabbits who also put on a really amazing set. I noticed that they had their own gig at the ICA next week, so I’d definitely recommend checking them out if you happen to be free.

Spoon were here promoting their new album, Transference, which definitely takes a much more experimental take on their style of music, full of songs lacking choruses. Still pretty decent performance. A great night out and a perfect way to beat the poor weather.

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It’s that time of year to look back and see what’s been going on for 2009. It seems like it’s been a quieter year than most before and despite not wanting to do a lot of travel, it still seems like I ended up doing a fair amount.

Travel
The year started off in the US where I spent the day getting back from Boston before celebrating the New Year in New York. Since I was travelling to Marlow for work during the week, I didn’t end up going anywhere until March where I met the rest of the family in Japan.

Rather than hitting Tokyo, we met them in Osaka where we headed out to places like Kobe, Nara, Himeji and then spent the rest of the time visiting the temples and shrines of nearby Kyoto. April saw me head up north to visit my old flatmate, now living in York. The start of May then saw me head to Chicago for the first time, for a wedding and catching up with lots of people I knew living there.

I also took advantage of the great weather to head to Brighton for the first time. The end of may, I headed out to Sardinia for a conference where we ended up pretty much isolated from anyone else for the entire week. Great times yet I still remember the water being particularly cold.

It was around this time that I also started doing the weekly commute to Copenhagen for several months. I think I ended up staying over on the weekend twice – once to see what life in Denmark was really like, and then another to head over to Malmo (Sweden) on a very convenient and modern train.

August then saw me returning to Chicago for another conference before finishing off the year with a trip to Edinburgh in November and then Finland for a pre-Christmas holiday. I’d also mention travelling to Cambridge daily since returning from Copenhagen but other than eating out and resting, I don’t really get to see much of Cambridge.

Music
I don’t think I got to see as many bands this year seeing Aussie bands Eskimo Joe and The Living End in April, followed by amazing musician and talented whistler, Andrew Bird in May. I then saw John Butler outshine the Union Chapel in July. October then saw a flurry of activity including The Cribs, Franz Ferdinand and then Scottish musician, Calvin Harris play a sweat inducing performance at The Forum. The year finished off with a performance by Japanese musician, Ryuichi Sakomoto.

Food
I think this was definitely the year of the Michelin-starred restaurants for me. I was very thankful managing to find the only booking open in a three month window for the world’s 3rd best restaurant, Noma. What an unbelievable experience the tasting menu here was.

Amazingly local food accompanied by great service. I still remember the evening sun setting at just before midnight casting an amazing warmth into the converted warehouse when we sat down to eat.

We had just as an amazing meal at Restaurant Paustian v. Bo Bech before leaving Copenhagen. When visiting Chicago for the second time, I made sure to head out to Moto to enjoy the delights of clever cooking techniques and dining dazzlery. I can still picture the sparkling bombs that explode in the mouth for dessert. I also took my sister out to Rhodes 24 for her birthday (admittedly quite late in the year) and also ended up having a lunch at (overrated) Gordon Ramsey’s Maze restaurant. There was plenty of other amazing food places eaten ate but I woulnd’t be able to list them all.

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Sunday evening say a long trek into Sloane Square to arrive at Cadogan Hall to see Japanese composer and musician, Ryuichi Sakomoto. It was pretty tough getting there with the heavy rain and the tube network down. I’d been invited to see this musician perform, with him being pretty famous for creating enchanting soundtracks for many movies and events. It’s not normally my thing for live music, and thought I’d still give it a go.

Cadogan Hall is quite small, probably the same size as the Union Chapel and it’s acoustics were definitely great with rich sounds coming from all angles. It seems pretty modernly built with comfy cushion backed seats.

The show had been sold out when I looked it up earlier that day, so I was still surprised to see handfuls of seats empty on the night. The inclement weather explains some of it no doubt.

Watching a pianist perform was quite an experience. Being fairly tired and warm from the outside cold, I honestly couldn’t help myself feeling drowsy at the start of the performance. It didn’t help that Sakomoto started off with long, fairly abstract pieces that whilst enchanting, also didn’t help me feel less drowsy.

Towards the end the pieces definitely became more lively, and the accompanying visualisation projected on the screen matching it’s vibrancy. I think I even recognised a number of the songs, perhaps backing tracks to some anime movie or something.

The performance was very impressive and whilst I wasn’t compelled to give a standing ovation like some members of the audience, I still found it a nice contrast to the week.

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October ended up as a busy month for seeing some live music. A couple of Fridays ago I ended up at Brixton Academy to see Franz Ferdinand. I’d last seen them at the massive Alexandra Palace and was stoked to see them in a much smaller venue. Although they hadn’t actually produced any new material for a while, they certainly put on a very impressive audience that kept the entire Academy packed throughout. They had amazing video and lights accompanying them and just put on an awesome show.

Wednesday this week, I returned to The Forum, this time to see the Scottish based DJ performance, Calvin Harris. I’d seen him live a few years back at a festival and although he was simply DJing then, he definitely got the audience up and jumping.

That night was the same and I can’t imagine that The Forum has ever been so hot with so many people jumping around. We arrived to see the support act, Mr Hudson who seemed to have a bit of a following of his own and did well to warm up the audience. I’m glad that I didn’t bother to bring my coat as I saw a number of people with sweaters and coats suffering from their layers in such an energised audience. Great night, great music and what a way to enjoy a good night out in London.

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A couple of weeks ago, I ended up at Islington’s wonderful Union Chapel, to see John Butler perform. It’s a wicked venue and with most of the pews filled on all sides, I have no reason to doubt it was a sold out show.

It was a great way to unwind after getting back from the weekly overseas commute and he played an awesome show for all. There’s some great photos of the gig on Flickr including the one above. He played a lot of songs from old albums, a few new songs and even dedicated a Michael Jackson cover song the king of pop.

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Despite being slightly jet lagged from my trip to Chicago, I still ending up going to see the amazingly talented Andrew Bird at Shepherd’s Bush Empire. It was a ticket I had booked way back when. Strangely enough, I found out recently he’s based out of Chicago and here I was seeing him away from his country having just returned from his home city. Strange? Definitely.

The ground floor of Shepherd’s Bush was completely packed by the time he came on and from what I could tell there were plenty of Americans, English and a handful of antipodes around. Andrew Bird’s style of music is definitely unique. It’s laid back, almost music-box like and absolutely enchanting. Just perfect when you want some easy listening tunes. I realise that it doesn’t really do him that much justice however I don’t think words can really describe the performance he puts on for a live show.

For his first song, he made recorded snippets of him playing different instruments, playing them back almost immediately, effectively turning him into his own backing track while he carried on with the main melody. It was completely mesmerising both visually and audibly. It seems like he plays a bazillion instruments and I never realised that the whistling you hear in his songs is also him and not some sort of synthesiser, able to replicate the strength, pitch and tones perfectly in a live show just as much as on the albums.

As a musician, Andrew Bird produces some stunning sounds. As a performer, he’s even more captivating by the way that he produces these intricate sounds with what looks like such minimal fuss on stage that I always thought were produced using some sort of synthesiser.

thekua.com rating: 9 out of 10

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Wednesday night saw a huge number of antipodeans (and others) descend upon Koko to watch Aussie rock band, The Living End. Good doesn’t really begin to describe how the night went. It helped that they had some really decent support acts, including Tellison and I think the other people were called To The Bones. Both served to warm up a full house audience on all floors.

We stood fairly close to front of stage, close enough to be pushed around and jump around in some of the audience, but far enough not to be involved in the crazy antics that probably happens at most of The Living End’s gigs. They did an awesome job cycling through plenty of their classic tracks across their five albums, as well as a number from their newest, White Noise which I can highly recommend.

It was definitely a high energy audience, fuelled by an equally high as energy band churning out some amazing tracks. Everyone was friendly, made happy with the great tunes and the only people that ended up dragged out of there were those that were crowd surfing their way to the security at the front of stage. An awesome night that probably left most people pretty sweaty and satisfied.

(Picture above is linked to the original source and that you can tell that I didn’t take with my camera phone).

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Wednesday night saw Australian band, Eskimo Joe take to the stage at Camden’s Koko. I love the venue having been here multiple times but I didn’t even know about the other floors that tower high above. We ended up in the JD lounge on the top most floor where you need to pass through a menacing leather bound door that make it looks like some sort of private members club. On the way back from the toilets, I passed a couple who looked cautious about entering and was about to turn around when I told them that it was fine and open to everyone. Unlike other venues with multiple floors, you still got a great view of all the action down on stage.

I can barely remember the name of the support act. It was a bloke from Leicester who had a decent voice but played some fairly average tunes. He played about five or so songs before handing the stage over to Eskimo Joe who came on at quarter past nine. Having seen them several times back home, what always impressed me about them is that they made some decent effort to connect with the audience and chat such as giving a bit of a brief background to some songs without turning it into some sort of soppy lecture. They always joke between themselves and seem pretty down to earth. As an example, their lead singer, Kavyen apologised to the entire audience when he realised his fly wasn’t done up somewhere through the set. None of this dashing off stage or anything like that.

Eskimo Joe played a great selection of plenty of songs mainly from their last two albums, and a handful of newer ones that will be coming out for their new album in a couple of months. What struck me about their newer songs is that they sounded very retro, very 80s-like and you can see that they’ve been experimenting with their sounds. Even their third album compared to the previous two was a lot moodier and sombre than the upbeat tunes you’d find on the first two.

It was a nice mid-week break to go and watch some live music. Particularly listening to some live music from a band that I enjoyed listening to when I was back home. It seemed like the very heavily anti-podean crowd enjoyed them just as much.

TheKua.com Rating: 8 out of 10

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