Brainlove alldayer at the Windmill

The Windmill, originally uploaded by jellybeanz.

There is no better way to spend a sunny weekend than sitting in a pub drinking beer, listening to music and visiting a Windmill. Like last year’s Brainlove all dayer, this year’s was on the sunniest weekend of the year so far, and through the mainly excellent music inside, there wasn’t much time to get sunburnt.

Mid-afternoon was probably the highlight of the day, watching Stairs to Korea for the first time, seeing A Scholar and A Physician play live for the first time in ages and listening to The Keyboard Choir’s dancy new direction. There wasn’t much time to enjoy the back garden and the barbecue, though the 5-10 minutes communal singing was quite amusing. There’s a video of that somewhere.

Oh and I finally went to see the Windmill!

Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy, originally uploaded by jellybeanz.

For all the moaning about gigs in terrible venues, there is the odd occasion when bands play at the perfect venue. Never has there been a more perfect match than Final Fantasy playing at the Union Chapel. The only more perfect situation would be the dream of Final Fantasy playing in my living room.

Back to reality, the way that his music drifted around the church sent the audience off to a magical world, and every single note was heard in a full silence. Playing a set half full of songs off the forthcoming album, Owen Pallett could have carried on forever.

Of the highlights of the new material, possibly my favourite new song is Lewis Takes Off His Shirt (although this video misses off the fantastic climax of the song). But old and new material alike, it is just astounding to watch him as he co-ordinates between sampling and looping his violin, plucking and bowing it, even using it as a percussion instrument and performing in the dark.

What added to the music was the projection show. It started off as a series of live performed shadow images to a projection screen, but halfway through the set the light of the projector was turned towards the ceiling of the church instead and the lights danced around the venue.

On the face of it, all the constituent parts of the show (the single violin and keyboard and old school projector) seemed to be so basic and simple. But through the genius of Owen’s magical performance and the accompany projections, it seemed like something extraordinary.

All Tomorrow’s Parties – Breeders weekend

Holy Fuck, originally uploaded by jellybeanz.

My first ATP at Minehead and my first weekend at Minehead. In some ways, I went to the ‘wrong’ ATP, the previous weekend, the ATP vs. the fans weekend, had more bands that I would like to see. However, this turned into an advantage, as I didn’t end up wanting to be in two places at the same time, and had plenty of time to take it easy.

The weekend can be very clearly divided into two halves, with Holy Fuck being the turning point. Before Holy Fuck, the weekend seemed a bit lacklustre. At times, we preferred to sit and watch TV in the chalet rather than go to watch some bands. in fact, the only two memorable musical things about Friday was Mr Lif’s shower song and Pit Er Pat. Saturday started in a similar way, Shellac were good,  Zach Hill was disappointing,  we danced to Cannonball by the Breeders and made a good discovery in the form of Styrofoam. But there was nothing worth a ‘Wow’.

Of all the bands playing this weekend, Holy Fuck were the ones I wanted to see the most, and their set lived up to the expectations. Blasting their way through the album, it seemed like the whole of ATP were in the room.

Maybe their set had me in a great mood for the rest of the weekend, and as a result I unexpectedly enjoyed Deerhunter, Times New Viking and The Soft Pack. The final highlights of the weekend were Melt Banana (especially the torch lead opening few minutes and a cute cover of the Specials) and dancing at the front for Foals.

Beirut

Beirut, originally uploaded by jellybeanz.

The following review will be presented in a style to re-create the experience of watching a Beirut gig

*Whoop-clap* It’s odd how a relationship with music changes over time. In 2007 […blackberry…], Flying Club Cup was my most listened to album […Myspace…] by miles, and […Yeah!…] at the time it seemed to sum up my favourite things in music. Maybe it was overplayed, but *loud claps* now almost two years on, the album doesn’t really feel as special as it did at the time. *Some people take pictures of themselves at a gig* The recent double EP […dinner…] was also a small disappointment, with a few moments of greatness in amongst other songs that aren’t really as memorable.

[…please can you stop talking so loudly…]

However in tonight’s set it was actually some of the ‘newer’ songs that came off better. In particular the material from the March of the Zapotac[…talks through the songs that aren’t on *the* album…]. The more familiar songs […oh I’m off, need to get somewhere else before 11…] meanwhile seemed more ploddy than usual.

The hour or so they played passed by quickly, but the problem was that I couldn’t enjoy it fully. The Forum is probably one of the worst medium sized venues for amplifying audience chatter, but when you have people clapping and whooping in the middle of songs, chatting loudly right next to you and crushed together, you really start to wonder what great music is worth all the trouble.