Dulli and Lanegan at the Royal Festival Hall

An Evening With Greg Dulli & Mark Lanegan
Jimmy Gnecco
Duke Garwood
Royal Festival Hall, 19 July 2009

"I've been found out," quips a particularly well-fed-looking Greg Dulli when amid the screams for Lanegan as they walk on stage, comes a lone "Duuuuuuulllliiiiii". Appropriate really given that this show, more than any others recently, saw The Twilight Singers frontman take back the spotlight from the domineering presence of Mark Lanegan, unafraid to overshadow his deep-voiced best pal.

Just a little piece of the sky

"It's like they found one of those van Gogh's at a garage sale. This woman bought it and she was using it to block out the sun in her kitchen. She was using it as a window shade, so it was getting all faded from the sun. And she cut it because it didn't fit the window. When they finally discovered she had a van Gogh as a window shade, they brought in all these experts from the museum and they were all filling in her living room and they said, "How can you cut off the top of this painting?" And she said, "It was just a little piece of the sky." Sometimes it's the value you attach to things."

Tom Waits interviewed by Beck

Alessi's Ark at Tamesis Dock

Picture by Bertrand taken from Alessi's MySpace page

Alessi's Ark
Left With Pictures
Tamesis Dock, 14 July 2009

Tamesis Dock has to be one of the most unique venues I've been to. It's essentially a little barge moored near Lambeth Bridge, with a bar upstairs, a small seating area downstairs and the bands set up in the middle, so it feels almost like watching music in your living room, albeit one that is bobbing gently up and down and has a cool view of the Thames and Big Ben out of the window.

The Mars Volta at Somerset House

The Mars Volta
Somerset House, 13 July 2009

A month after their incredible gig at the tiny ICA the Volta were back in town, this time taking part in Somerset House's annual series of open air summer concerts and once again they just about blew me away.

St. Vincent at the ICA

Photo from St. Vincent's MySpace

St. Vincent

Blue Roses
ICA, 8 July 2009
Recently just about every new British female singer-songwriter that comes along sounds like they grew up listening to Kate Bush. It's a weird phenomenon considering that most of these young women are in their early 20s and Ms Bush hasn't exactly had the largest output over the last 20 years. But maybe these things need time to gestate and it's certainly a worthy testament to Kate's unique talent that her influence is finally so easy to see and that the acts she has inspired all happen to be excellent - think Bat For Lashes, Florence + The Machine, Marina & The Diamonds. The latest you can add to that list is Laura Groves aka Blue Roses, a cute-as-a-button Shipley singer whose self-titled debut is full of haunting acoustic laments that equally recall the stark beauty of Joni Mitchell's early albums, the more ethereal side of Stevie Nicks and, of course, the eerie yearnings of Kate Bush.

Gig memories: Here's to The Losers

I went to see St Vincent again tonight (I'll post about that later) and while joking that Annie Clark might dedicate a song to me (perhaps Actor Out Of Work?) I was reminded that I did once have a song dedicated to me at a gig years ago, something I had completely and utterly forgotten.

Crosby, Stills & Nash at the Royal Albert Hall

 
Crosby, Stills & Nash
Royal Albert Hall, 1 July 2009

It would be a tough act to follow Mr Young after his jaw-dropping show on the weekend but if anyone was going to give it a try then I suppose his old bandmates Crosby, Stills & Nash were as good a bet as any.