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VenuesReviews Archives - Birmingham101 Home


Previews by Mike Davies

Sunday June 28

Anastacia

 The past few years have been a bit of a rollercoaster, taking in breast cancer, marriage and an admission that she’s a little older than the publicity machine used to claim, but the diminutive songstress is nothing if not a survivor, embracing the good times while taking the bad ones on the chin.

She’s far bigger over here than back home in America, indeed her last, self-titled, album didn’t even get a US release despite shifting some 10 million copies, though, worryingly, her current album, Heavy Rotation (Mercury), a return to R&B after exploring a rockier sound, has been her least successful in the UK charts and neither I Can Feel You for the piano ballad Defeated have dented the singles Top 40. 

The voice, though, remains a force with which to be reckoned and the live shows still pack a hell of a punch in terms of both presentation and performance. With the crowds out in force, it’s a chance to persuade them that the likes of the catchy Chaka Khan styled Absolutely Positive, the driving disco groove title track, the Tina Turner tinges of The Way I See It and  All Fall Down and slinky Winehouse libation Same Song are as worth their attention as Sick And Tired And Left Outside Alone. 7.30pm. £36/£32. NIA


Tuesday June 30

Silversun Pickups

 Brian Aubert’s love affair with his Smashing Pumpkins collection continues with Swoon (Sire), an album of equal highs and lows that sticks to the band’s 90s alt rock guns, keeps some of their shoegazing sensibilities and applies an accessible pop coating to the catchier tunes.

Six minutes of a rather directionless distortion psychedelics of Panic Switch tests the patience somewhat  while even a sixteen piece orchestra can’t stop Draining sounding like a formless meandering doodle. However such blips are more than compensated for when it comes to the perky chugging Substitution, the flurry of burring guitar driving along The Royal We, There's No Secrets This Year’s urgent circling riffery and tumbling melody, the spacy atmospherics floating through Growing Old Is Getting Old or (evoking Nirvana rather than the Pumpkins) the moody stand out that is Catch and Release. Not the album to elevate them to arena level, perhaps, but certainly one to boost their following and reputation considerably.

 Support is London quartet Animal Kingdom, another outfit with a fondness for the Pumpkins but who filter that through such other influences as Mercury Rev, early Radiohead and the less bombastic aspects of the Flaming Lips. A debut album’s due in September with tasters of such numbers as Into the Sea and Good Morning Mr Magpie likely to feature in the set alongside dreamily melancholic single Tin Man (Warner) with its insistent buzzing reverb guitar chimes and Richard Sauberlich’s floating falsetto.  7.30pm. £9. O2 Academy 2


Wednesday July 1

Malcolm Middleton

 Last heard trying to persuade Christmas punters to celebrate the festivities with his single We’re All Going To Die, the Glaswegian singer-songwriter and former Arab Strap man returns to the fray with his fifth solo album, Waning Gibbous (Full Time Hobby). He says it’ll be his last for a while, so all the more reason to make the most of its ricketty charms, kicking off with the single, the acoustic rollicking along Red Travellin' Socks and, by way of a swift shift of mood, the ramshackle train rhythm nu folksy chugger Kiss At The Station.

Tinged with personal observations and recollections, it carries the familiar air of Middleton melancholy but, as the musically mournful Stop Doing Be Good and the wistfully slow Carry Me can testify,  not without upbeat threads.

The electro splashes of Don’t Want To Sleep Tonight, Box & Knife (which images King Creasote in bed with early Human League) and Zero (which even has a dash of rap) I might raise a few eyebrows among the faithful, but they remain nigglingly catchy and if the title of the album’s best track, the Cohenesque Ballad of F*** All rather scuppers its airplay potential, live singalongs should be positively encouraged. 7.30pm. £10. Glee Club


Wednesday July 1

Michael Weston King

Last time King and his musical and domestic partner Lou Dalgleish were here, they dropped in a couple of tasters from their new joint project, My Darling Clementine, an album of self-penned classic country duets in the cheating and heartbreak tradition of George Jones and Tammy Wynette or Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner. The good news is that for this visit there’ll be a lot more.

The show will be in two very different sets. The first half will be King’s regular solo  with Alan Cook on pedal steel and doubtless highlighting some of the material to be found on the new live album Crawling Through The USA, among them Decent Man,  new number The Dancing Around and a coal-dust throat cover of Townes Van Zandt's Marie. Then, Mike and Lou joined by Cook, pianist Gladstone Wilson and a percussionist, the second half will be a one off Birmingham-only acoustic showcase for My Darling Clementine that will include pretty much the entire album alongside a couple of covers.

Last time, Dalgleish held the place spellbound with jealous woman number The Other Half (a track that could have come straight from the Patsy Cline songbook), so look forward to a repeat of that alongside such nuggets as the honky tonking Nothing Left to Say, pedal steel and fiddle keening Departure Lounge, twangy delight 100,000 Words (a song that more than warrants a Mavericks reunion),  the fiery bluegrassed You’ve Found Your Man, Put Your Hair Back (another tremendous Dalgleish vocal showcase) and a bluesy organ backed  soulful rework of King’s She Is Still My Weakness that Penn and Oldham would have killed to have written.

As of yet the album still hasn’t a label, distributor or release date, but that doesn’t stop it already being one of the best country albums of this - or any other - year. 8pm. £8. Kitchen Garden Cafe, Kings Heath


Wednesday July 1

That Petrol Emotion

 Formed by John O’Neill, brother Damien and Raymond Gorman after the demise of The Undertones, swiftly recruiting Steve Mack on vocals, they made their album debut in 1983 with the critically acclaimed Manic Pop Thrill offering a harder edge to their guitar driven pop foundations. Following on with Babble and, after John’s departure, the more melodic indie of Chemicrazy and Fireproof with even incursions into dance territory with End Of the Millennium Psychosis Blues, , they never really matched commercial success with critical approval or their fierce live following, finally calling it a day in 1994.

However, now recognised as an influence on the Britpop movement, they reunited last year and have been consolidating their return ever since. There’s no indication as to whether new material’s in the offing, but if they’re still even half as potent live then a set list that includes old favourites such as the swaggery Last Of the True Believers, Big Decision, Cellophane, Catch A Fire, Genius Moves and Hey Venus has to be worth it for old fans and the newly curious alike. 7.30pm. £12.50. O2 Academy 2


Thursday July 2

Elliot Minor

Extensive live work and decent reviews saw the classically trained quintet’s eponymous debut album safely into the Top 10, so now comes the difficult job of building on the foundation built by the big drama of    Last Call To New York City’s Queen, Time After Time’s orchestral bombast and Still Figuring Out’s hybrid of Green Day and  ELO. They’ll be showcasing material for the upcoming sophomore album that’s due to include Discover, Blinding Light and live favourite Jacky Jules. It’s trailed by the first single, Solaris (Repossession), a slightly Celtic tinged fist of anthemic mid tempo balladeering that, wisely, pulls back from the overblown production that dogged some of the first album and could well prove their biggest chart success to date. 7.30pm. £11. O2 Academy 2


Saturday July 4

Godiva Festival

Coventry’s annual free fest keeps coming up with the goods. This year, they’ve scored Idlewild as the headliners on a Saturday bill that includes local punky heroes Pint Shot Riot, 80s Matchbox B-Line Disaster, rising stars Exit Calm and, offering an early outing for next month’s new album, Birmingham chart botherers The Twang. All that and the first sighting of the newly reformed Toploader who’ve been busy relearning the words to Dancing In The Moonlight and Achilles Heel.  Noon. Free. Godiva Park, Coventry


Sunday July 5

James Taylor

After his last tour recycling the hits and album favourites, those lured away from their bedtime beverages can doubtless look forward to a set that mixes in the inevitable chestnuts such as You’ve Got A Friend and Fire & Rain with cuts from his current Covers (Universal) album. Soul fans already horrified by his lifeless version of Knock On Wood won’t be encouraged by the fact that he’s also draining the life out of Road Runner while his anaemic take on Summertime Blues will have rock n roll fans gnawing at their blue suede shoes.

On the upside, the jazzy rework of Hound Dog isn’t bad  and he does a respectable job with Wichita Lineman, Cohen’s Suzanne (which sees him in Carolina On My Mind form), Tom Waits’ Shiver My Timbers and a Western Swing version of Why Baby Why. It’s fair to say, however, that the Rodgers & Hammerstein songbook isn’t exactly the richer the addition for Taylor’s reading of Oh, What A Beautiful Morning. Not exactly likely to be prancing around the stage, this is tasteful but tedious and likely to be swallowed wholesale amid the overpowering surroundings. 7.30pm. £45. NIA


Sunday July 5

Poppy and the Jezebels

 

 Having wowed them at the Isle of Wight festival last month, it must be getting frustrating that the album still isn’t  ready for release. However, the momentum keeps building in the wake of the recent spiky pop single  Rhubarb & Custard (Mute Irregulars) with its cocktail of glam and 60s girl group while sneak tasters keep surfacing on their MySpace site, the latest being Mr Magpie Recommends which keeps the glam with a Glitter Band beat and tops it with a jazzy-blues slow piano boogie line. Latest developments should make their presence felt tonight, and the anticipation continues to swell.

The actual headliner for the night is Gina Birch, erstwhile founder member of 80s all-female post punk outfit The Raincoats and currently to be found directing music vids for the likes of Beth Orton and The Veils. The Raincoats still gig intermittently while Birch also maintains a sporadic solo career, the music these days inclined to the experimental and angular noises of I’m Glad I’m Me Today, the bleepy psychedelia of We Had A Really Smashing Time or the bluesier tones of Sorry.

Also along, over from Brooklyn and equally prone to shards of discord, are Christy & Emily who’ll be further spreading word about debut album, Gueen’s Head (The Social Registry) with its meld of Velvets, avant garde and 60s folk influences. Switching fluidly from the guitar riff reverb of Thunder & Lightning to the dreamily folky Ocean, tropical hula swaying Island Song or the backwoods country folk of Birds, they’ll also likely be showcasing material from the two albums currently awaiting release, Superstition and, letting loose their prog rock and krautrock inclinations,  No Rest produced by Joachim Irlmler of Faust. Arrive early, you won’t want to miss them. 7.30pm. £7. Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath


Tuesday July 7/Wednesday July 8

Eagles

 Twenty eight years on from their last studio album and six years in the making, it’s taken another twelve months for the band to haul themselves over here to promote their own label double CD Long Road Out Of Eden. The wait should turn out to be worth it if they have the sense to punctuate the inevitable fan favourites and greatest hits that will doubtless dominate the set with at least a clutch of the best of the new material.

Given that adds up to 21 songs, the selection process isn’t going to be easy, but several cuts here demand a place in the final. Prime choices would have to include the lengthy title track which, echoing Hotel California in mood, addresses how oil guides US foreign policy, the close harmonies of the reflective near acapella No More Walks In The Woods, classic swaggery pop finger wagging put down Busy  Being Fabulous, the TexMex waltzing It’s Your World Now, How Long, a  JD Souther country rocker that’s been in and out of the live set since the 70s,  and  Hole In The World, a power ballad on which they sound bizarrely just like Take That.

Having worked out their differences ( or at least learned to live with them for the sake of the bank balances), even if they are still prone to some over indulgence and the album could have done with judicious pruning, it’s good to have them back. Mind you, it does seems a tad

hypocritical to be singing songs like Business As Usual and Frail Grasp Of The Big Picture, attacking corporate greed and consumerism while charging up to a ton for a ticket.  7.30pm. £100-£50. NIA


Thursday July 9

The Victorian English Gentlemens Club

Their self-titled debut album saw the art school trio parading their B52s, Talking Heads, Gang of Four and Devo influences on songs like  the marvellous Under The Yews,  My Son Spells Backwards and Ban The Gin. Two years on they’re back trailing the September release of the follow up, Love On An Oil Rig (This Is Fake DIY) with new single, Parrot. Judging by its angular funk shapes, throbbing basslines, spine jerking rhythms and twitchy vocals not a lot’s changed in the interim. 8pm. £5. Flapper & Firkin


Sunday July 12

Suzanne Vega

 

Make a note now, this is Vega’s only UK date announced for this year, a one-off 10th Anniversary benefit gig  for Casa Alianza, an organisation that works with Latin American street children, helping provide them with a better future. As such, expect the set list to lean heavily on the songs fans will be forking out to hear, among them the hits Tom’s Diner, Luka, Left of Centre, and Marlene on the Wall alongside a selection of album favourites, hopefully to include Zephyr & I,  Frank & Ava and Angel's Doorway from 2007’s  deeply personal ‘comeback’  Beauty & Crime.

She’ll be performing with guitarist, songwriter and producer Gerry Leonard while opening act will be criminally underrated Stourbridge troubadour Eddy Morton who, aside from having a warm burr of a voice, a bagful of brilliant Americana infused storytelling songs like King Of My Own Country and Queen Of Stourbridge Town, also happens to co-manage Katy  Fitzgerald’s, the Stourbridge music venue that’s actually responsible for arranging and presenting the show. 7.30pm. £27.50. B’ham Town Hall


 

 

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