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Music LIVE REVIEWS
ROCK/METAL ANDREW WK The Garage, Glasgow, Sat 14 Apr ●●●●● ACOUSTIC SET THE FUTUREHEADS Oran Mor, Glasgow, Mon 9 Apr ●●●●●
Andrew WK is what he is: partier, lover of dirty jeans, motivational speaker. Whatever you thought of him when he arrived on the scene with tongue firmly in cheek on the back of debut album I Get Wet is irrelevant. As a live prospect, Californian TV presenter, piss-taker and goof-metaller Andrew WK and band are a crash course in how to have fun and the sold-out crowd at the Garage know this all too well. Playing his trademark album in full, it’s about four minutes in before he’s floor-to-ceiling head-banging and showing us how to ‘Party Hard’. Dropping the biggest song of your career inside the first ten minutes is either a sign of the strength of your catalogue or a demonstration of the size of your balls. Tonight it’s almost certainly the latter, but that is unquestionably why everyone in here loves him.
Every second is dedicated to whipping the crowd into shape and punching a smile onto every single face. From a rampant salute to the ladies (‘She is Beautiful’) to his preaching-to-the-choir odes to partying till you puke, the skin-tight set goes down a storm. (Ryan Drever)
For a band who made one of their earliest trips around the UK a tour of working men’s clubs, there was a sense of having come full circle here. Billed as an acoustic and a cappella tour, it was more than just a stripped-down version of their usual set. In the instrument-bare versions of their own ‘The Keeper’, Kelis’ ‘Acapella’ (gorgeous, and so much more than an excuse to get that title in) and Sparks’ ‘The No 1 Song in Heaven’, they offered a postmodern flashback to the days of barbershop quartets and music-hall turns. Accompanied, however, they also strayed far from the generic tedium of the usual unplugged format. ‘Decent Days and Nights’ thumped along like a piece of social-club skiffle half a century too late and ‘Carnival Kids’ evoked folk-rock’s pomp (‘Mixed with ‘Battle of Evermore, a wee bit’ is how Barry Hyde accurately described it). Their way with a winning lyric and melody was laid bare on tracks like ‘News & Tributes’ and ‘The Beginning of the Twist’, their high-quality banter exposed during, for example, dissections of R Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet amid tuning mishaps. Somebody ought to put them on stage, honestly. (Paul Little)
SOUL POP EMELI SANDE Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow, Tue 10 Apr ●●●●● TUAREG BLUES GUITAR TINARIWEN Oran Mor, Glasgow, Thu 5 Apr ●●●●●
The fact that an artist has been given the stamp of approval by Simon Cowell would be a sign to many that we should run quickly in the other direction. Leave your valuables. Forget your loved ones. Put on your own oxygen mask first and get the heck out of dodge. Despite being proclaimed by Cowell as his
favourite songwriter du jour, the crowd who have turned out to see Aberdonian soul-popper Emeli Sandé’s Glasgow show is much more diverse than your standard X Factor endorsed artist could wish for. And this is probably down to the fact that Sandé is really quite talented. The power and nuance in Sandé’s voice in a live
setting is startling. Her self-penned songs span soul, pop, a bit of R&B and the odd reggae beat, with ballads like ‘Suitcase’ and ‘Breaking The Law’ showing the subtler side of her vocal.
It is her more ballsy tracks which really hit the mark though, with upcoming single ‘My Kind of Love’, ‘Heaven’ and the encore of ‘Next to Me’ obvious highlights, making what could otherwise be fairly middle-of-the-road mum-music edgier and more enticing to a wider audience. (Lauren Mayberry)
A beguiling mix of blues guitar, gently insistent but sometimes complex rhythms and desert sensibilities is what’s always made Tinariwen unique. Live, the blend is all the more compelling, which must be due, at least in part, to the sheer strangeness of seeing these Tuareg men, who come from a place where civil strife is more urgently real than most of the assembled could begin to imagine, resplendent in their colourful robes, crammed onto a stage in the dark, low- roofed Glasgow basement. Bendy guitar hooks and hand-claps build into
propulsive, almost trance-inducing rhythms, peppered with good-humoured exchanges of ‘ça va? – oui, ça va!’ with the crowd and the infectious smiles and dancing of one band member in particular. The three-song encore eclipses the rest of the – at times slightly samey – set with a true display of the diversity this band is capable of: from a breathtaking acoustic solo of ‘Tenhert’ with strikingly nimble guitar work and fast-spoken, almost rap-like vocals, via a haunting vocal harmony chant, to a finale in full-on, animated desert rock mode, it’s a satisfying end to an evocative but occasionally flat show. (Laura Ennor)
26 Apr–24 May 2012 THE LIST 81
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ELECTRONIC/ NEW FOLK FESTIVAL EYE O’ THE DUG Various venues, St Andrews, Sat 14 & Sun 15 Apr ●●●●●
They may have quadrupled the size of their show, and conscripted beefcakes to man the doors, but the spirit of Fence prevailed at the first Eye O’ The Dug – a musical hoopla which (kind of) filled a Homegame- shaped hole in the calendar (and our hearts). With Fence’s beloved East Neuk festival Homegame
on indefinite hiatus, it was gratifying to see its hallmarks at a larger event: the merch haven; the pastries; the fruit- based alcohol – and above all, Fence’s knack for ensuring that big surprises happen in small corners. Saturday was party night, with a euphoric opener from
electro-alchemists (and SAY Award nominees) Conquering Animal Sound. They played an outstanding set of new material heavy on vocals, beats and vivid lyrics. The club vibe was upheld by tropical-indie troupe François and the Atlas Mountains (pictured) and exotic- pop archaeologists Django Django, before electro-rock leviathans Errors raised the roof. ‘Pleasure Palaces’ inspired people to dance, cry, flail and clamber onto shoulders.
Sunday was the day for surprises. The greatest came from RM Hubbert, a man who has solely communicated via nylon strings for several years and two albums but who, on a hungover Sunday lunchtime, found his voice. Despite his bygone crooning in El Hombre Trajeado and Glue, it was oddly moving to hear Hubbert sing songs like ‘The False Bride’ (usually sung by Alasdair Roberts). Malcolm Middleton too, had a trick up his sleeve. On the eve of the release of the debut album from his epic- pop alter-ego, Human Don’t Be Angry, he bundled HDBA into a box, and treated us to a classic Middleton set – ‘A Brighter Beat’ and all.
Congenial host The Pictish Trail played one of the
weekend’s standout (and most popular) sets, all trouser talk and promises of great things from his new album. His ace new single, ‘Of Course You Exist’, available on the popular sweatshirt format, is ravishing. And so it continued. Withered Hand was wondrous; Monoganon slayed with unsung genius; Barbarossa is the closest thing that Fence has to Prince; Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor turned piano bard; Seamus Fogarty beguiled with Geese and a laptop. King Creosote and Jon Hopkins’ crowning Diamond Mine recital eased us into a celestial night, and reminded us that Fife’s what you make it. (Nicola Meighan) ■ See list.co.uk for a photo gallery of the weekend.