Off on a Tangent. Part 15 – Broken Social Scene, Shepherd’s Bush Empire, 23rd May 2008.

Some cracked genius has decreed that Shepherd’s Bush tube station is closed for renovation, so getting off at White City, my brother and I had to figure out which way the Empire was (they used to film Crackerjack there, don’cha know). Just then, a bloke in a sari walked past – hmmm: I bet he’s going to the Empire – assumption correct!

The last time I was at Shepherd’s Bush Empire was for Helmet (featuring a stage diving Paul King – how bizarre was that?), and one of the last times my brother was there was to see Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, during whose set he dried his socks on a handy light in the balcony (as well as marvelling at the walking distillery that is Shane MacGowan, who was busy providing back up drunken roars, or ‘vocals’ as he probably calls them).

So, Broken Social Scene: I’m happy to report that BSS have regained a great deal of their ramshackle charm. Last time out, the touring band had been whittled down to an essential core, which meant that they came across more like a seasoned session band rather than a loose multi-headed pop thing, which is what they’re good at. This time round with Amy Millan and various members of the support band The Brunettes in attendance, BSS were back to their shuffling, tumbledown best.

At a guess, I’d say this tour was ostensibly to promote Brendan Canning’s album, Something for All of Us – not that you’d know it, as Kevin Drew leads from the front as he tends to. As Canning’s record isn’t out until July, you can only assume that these guys like touring to the detriment of everything else in their lives, the crazy eejits. That said, the couple of songs they play from Canning’s new record sound fantastic: instead of the usual BSS wall of bleeding sound, we get bass driven melodies with some much needed fuzzy space round the edges.

And then we get Charles Spearin’s Jazz Odyssey: the Do Make Say Think helmer unveiled a mini-collection of instrumentals that attempted to replicate speech patterns using just a gently strummed guitar and a wildly honking saxophone playing every conceivable scale known to man. I guess it gave the other members of the band some time off for a well deserved cup of tea.

Off on a Tangent, part 14: Leslie Feist, Albert Hall, 21st May 2008.

Leslie Feist wanders out onto the stage at the Royal Albert Hall and, faced with 5000 pairs of eyes staring back at her, says: “Oh my god.” And she’s right as well: this isn’t 93 Feet East or the Scala, and no doubt you could cram about a thousand Komedias into this cavernous bit of Victorian silliness. Last time I saw Feist, I was surrounded by about a hundred and fifty fellow hipsters and Alexis Petridis: you could reach out and shake Feist’s hand if you wanted to. Tonight, it’s totally different: 1234 has seen to that. Funny what can happen in a little over twelve months, that iPod advert notwithstanding.

The music veers from infectious indie joy to plaintive solo folk, although having to extend the set to a good 100 minutes does provide for the odd bit of banter that doesn’t really work: an audience hum-a-long falls flat, and some of Feist’s asides are just plain cryptic. In a smaller venue where everything is up close and personal, you can get away with this sort of unforced, eccentric charm. In a venue like the Albert Hall, it just sounds demented.

That said, Feist has obviously had to make some concessions in playing for a large audience, and the most noticeable is the completely berserk shadow show (I kid you not). Two ‘shadow assistants’ create an ever-changing panorama of volcanoes, ships at sea, birds and foliage that are projected behind the band as they do their thing. At one stage, someone climbs a stepladder behind Feist and throws torn up paper everywhere (it’s snowing, see?). Not exactly stadium rattling stuff, but we’re not talking Iron Maiden here: the visuals are great, and are done with a huge amount of lo-fi charm.

Only two things bring a slight downer on proceedings: 1) whoever they were, the support band were utterly dreadful. All I know about them is that they come from New Zealand, and that’s really all I want to know, and 2) a surprising lack of hipsters in the audience. I mean, good god, people were even dancing in the aisles! Whatever next? ;-)

Off on a Tangent, Part 13 - Vast Swathes of Generalisation

Apropos of absolutely nothing at all, here’s Alexis Petridis in a recent Guardian article talking about a Feist gig:

The audience was heavy on hipsters, presumably lured by Feist's long-standing associations with a succession of achingly trendy cult artists... There was an almost tangible air of come-on-impress-us about the audience, their cynicism perhaps compounded by the ads.

Er, are you quite sure about that, Alexis? I was at the very same gig and, whilst it’s nice to be described as a ‘hipster’ (I think), the audience was the usual Brighton melting pot mix of indie kids, scruffy students, people with silly haircuts/stupid hats and old geezers who had dragged their bored looking other halves along. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that the average audience age that night was well over 30.

At that point, The Reminder had not been released in the UK, so presumably everyone present had no doubt been drawn by the previous album Let It Die and Feist’s powerhouse performances with Broken Social Scene. The gig was also completely sold out. That curious breed ‘the hipster’ (how do you spot a hipster anyway? Do they stand under spotlights dressed in polonecks wearing berets?) was noticeable by its absence.

All of which says to me: if you can’t think of what to write, either a) make it up, or b) blandly generalise.

That said, if you want experience vast open plains of generalisation, pick up Made in Brighton, a series of essays on modern Brighton by Julie Burchill and Daniel Raven (who Julie just happens to be married to). Polemicists seem to thrive on generalisations, as the reality of any situation is just too knotty and complex to really get your knickers in a twist over I reckon.