reviews – crazybobbles

Dirty Projectors live at Barbican

crazybobbles — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 10:38:27 +0000

Dirty Projectors live at Barbican, good times! Finally able to see them play live and I was amazed, the first half was with Alarms will Sound playing The Getty Address in it’s entirety. The second half of the show was where it’s at, totally grooving out to songs from Bitte Orca. Good times

Wildbirds & Peacedrums at Bishopsgate Institute

crazybobbles — Sun, 16 May 2010 15:26:13 +0000

Ah Bishopsgate Institute, kinda reminded me of going to a prom (not that I went to one). The floor was slippery enough to slide around the place (and mess up your jeans). Anyway, strange venue for a Wildbirds & Peacedrums gig but throw in a choir and you’ve got yourself a stew going on!

These guys are constantly experimenting ways of making their shows special and this one is no exception. The choir worked well for their newest material but at the same time showed a new dimension to their old stuff. Check out more photos and videos of them in action.

Click here to see the video

My Heart was a special kind of monster

Florence & the Machine live at Hammersmith Apollo

crazybobbles — Sat, 15 May 2010 12:07:53 +0000

Florence & The Machine live at Hammersmith Apollo. Quite enjoyed the gig, hammersmith apollo is fun for allowing everyone to view the gig with it’s rack slanted floor type floor thing. Florence Welch(ums) is uuber photogenic and has a lovely voice, though sometimes I feel like she should focus on singing at times rather than relaying it to the audience. She does get shouty at some points too which bums me out.

The Sounds at Electric Ballroom

crazybobbles — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:09:12 +0000

The Sounds live at Electric Ballroom, lead singer Maja really knows how to get a crowd going. This was a pretty ace show with Matt and Kim supporting and the fact that photographers got to stay in the photopit to enjoy the show ^_^ This show was nice and pumped, was nicer hearing the set after their latest sophomore album, Crossing The Rubicon was out. The highlight was most likely when they brought up a dude on stage to play the cowbell but he was all kinds of horrific in terms of whacking the cowbell in beat, I think he was a bit too excited. Lots of posing, jumping and dancing on stage (lame review i know! but hey, i hate writing with so little time available)

So yeah, Matt and Kim were fun! Their show was ecstatic and they were super enthusiastic and happy. Kim told us how they had a hotel for the night and she’s totally going to get some haha. Highlight was when they played The Final Countdown!

Click here to see the video

And here’s the photos for The Sounds, BOOYA, so many photos!

Sarah Blasko at Borderline

crazybobbles — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 01:13:33 +0000

Sometimes it’s fun to post things in random orders. After recommendations from antzpantz about Sarah Blasko i decided to go check her out when she announced her tour in England. The sold out show was definitely one worth seeing, Sarah played a slew of new songs and a few golden oldies including Explain, Always on the Line, Amazing Things and Planet New Year.

The evening was very jazzy (double bass for the win) and Sarah seemed pretty intrigued by Londoners hehe. It was stuffy but intimate, Sarah came back for a few songs on acoustic and ended with Planet New Year. Ace show, ace.

Oh and she has an awesome triple bow tie thing! Here’s a video of her playing Planet New Year, note at her awesome dancing, she’s walking, BUT SHES NOT MOVING!

Click here to see the video

http://www.sarahblasko.com

Andrew Bird at Shepherds Bush Empire

crazybobbles — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 09:00:52 +0000

The entire morning before the show I was whistling to tunes from Noble Beast, Andrew Bird can produce some contagious whistling melodies that you can’t stop replicating. I won tickets to see Andrew Bird since the tickets were quite pricey (got to love free tickets). The show was quite remarkable mainly because he came fully equipped with the full band

I saw Andrew Bird play at the intimate and atmospheric St Giles church, that time he was playing solo but the performance still stuck to me, this show we were promised a backing back so it will be a treat listening to him play with bass, drums and the whole kaboodle thrown in.

I must say the band really did complete the sound, though Andrew was fully capable of emulating most of his songs through his trustly loop machines, the band just completes it, making it sound closer to the record.

I really enjoyed the whistling in several songs, at one point he introduces us to the monkey mascot sitting at the back, his name was Monkey, the Monkey. There was also a spinning thing in the shape of two gramaphone horns stuck together which he called spinny (ah the simple life).

No videos for this show I’m afraid. After the show I managed to wangle (can i use that word? hmm guess i can) the setlist which was ace.

Oh yeah, I smuggled my 5d into this gig thanks to Anika for carrying it in her bag. I was supposed to have a photopass for the show but things got messy and somehow it didn’t go through, nonetheless i actually enjoy shooting outside the pit

Bishop Allen at Bardens Boudoir

crazybobbles — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:44:04 +0000

Bishop Allen playing a nice cosy gig at Bardens Boudoir, the stage was nice and low and the band were in a grabable distance (not that you would mind).

Man these reviews aren’t really reviews, guess I just need to mention that they existed rather than never mentioning them. The band looked pretty cosy in that ickle stage. they played quite a lot of stuff from their sophomore album, but managed to throw in a couple of old tracks including Butterfly Nets, here’s the video in action:

Click here to see the video

The lights were quite quirky, we spent the entire evening trying to master the pattern, it felt random at times but there definitely was a pattern haha. Here’s a few more videos, i was uuber close to them so its very in yo face:

Click here to see the video

The sound was pretty amazing and the venue really brought the fans closer to them. Makes me want to see more shows at the venue if it wasn’t located out of nowhere. Here’s a video of Clk Clk Clk Clk Clk, note how the end i accidentally click on the camera :$

Click here to see the video

Au Revoir Simone at Bush Hall

crazybobbles — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:36:13 +0000

Keyboard smashing, disco making Au Revoir Simone played an awesome sold out show at the Bush Hall. Quite a tantalising set from the 3 beautiful and friendly ladies who just got back from touring Sweden.
Still slightly adjusting to speaking to English folk, Au Revoir Simone tell the crowd that it has been a while since they’ve played in front of an English speaking crowd. They were super friendly before and after the show making you feel like you’ve known them forever and it was a super surprise to see them play here.

The stage was set pretty high, and with all the gear surrounding them you kinda felt like they were in a castle casting out music to the townspeople, at times it became a bit of a disconnect due to the vertical difference. They played a mixture of new and old songs from their sophomore (YES) and freshman (haha freshman) album. Here’s a video of another likely story:

Click here to see the video

Mmm synths, it was funny when they were talking about how they fixed one of their synths with the magics of gaffa tape only to have it fall over later on the evening. Here’s another video of them playing take me as I am (I believe Anika jabbed me a few times to record this)

Click here to see the video

I really enjoyed the evening, they were just SO friendly, even before the show they were engaging with the crowd.

Josh Weller and Brooke Parrott

crazybobbles — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:26:02 +0000

This was quite a mini gig venture since my idea for the evening was to head down to Nando’s for some chicken, but having some free live music before that adds the cherry on top. Me and Anika went to Pure Groove to check out Josh Weller who was doing an instore there, I met up with some Patrick Wolf fans who were at the Selfridges gig, that was ace.

Josh Weller came on slightly later then planned despite hanging around the place for a bit, he played more than 3 songs which was good, here’s some videos of them in action:

Click here to see the video

Afterwards we dashed to the station and took thee central line to TCR to check out Brooke Parrott playing at the borderline. She was ace, here’s a video of her in action:

Click here to see the video

Sometimes it’s just easier to explain things with videos. But yeah… i’ll hopefully do a fest of these articles just to play catchup!

Emmy the Great at Queen Elizabeth Hall

crazybobbles — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:43:56 +0000

Emmy the Great live at Queen Elizabeth Hall, this was a nice end to my lovely week of gigs. Emmy was super friendly (accepting random crowd banter and my ever so slightly lame question about latitude festival) and played a super long set (probably had more time due to other support band not turning up due to an illness). Emmy played a slew of album tracks, a cover of “End of the World” and a fest of oldie tracks including Canopies and Drapes, Edward is Dedward and The Hypnotist’s son (though that’s not THAT old). My favourite was probably First Love and WAHA Baby, though Dylan was toe tappingly ace too.

Was definitely the best emmy gig so far, the addition of backing vocals and piano made the music more full and Emmy wasn’t particularly swamped with shows to play in a row like her UK tour. Check this video of them playing “We almost had a baby”

Click here to see the video

I’ve got a horde of videos to upload so check check my youtube or vimeo account for more emmy goodness. Emmy releases a new EP with some of her oldie songs so buy them at the lovely guys at rough trade. She managed to play 3 of the 4 songs on the EP (I have two videos of the three :))