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Music LIVE REVIEWS
CHRISTMAS ALL-DAYER KID CANAVERAL’S CHRISTMAS BAUBLES II Summerhall, Edinburgh, Sat 17 Dec ●●●●●
The combination of cheap tins and 12 hours of live entertainment could be an endurance test in the wrong hands, but the second Fence Records/Kid Canaveral Chirstmas Baubles all-dayer doesn’t exactly feel like a chore. A joyous turn by Fence mainman Johnny Lynch, aka The Pictish Trail sets the bar for appearances by Aidan John Moffat, Sweet Baboo and eagleowl, while ex De Rosa frontman Martin John Henry puts in a fine performance on the back of his well-received – and rightly so – debut album. Comedienne Josie Long does her best to warm
up the crowd with a routine centred on the prospect of her sharing a flat with a ghost before Standard Fare ply us all with swift chunks of sugary pop. Offering the obligatory Christmas nod with Shakin’ Stevens’ ‘Merry Christmas Everyone’, our hosts, Kid Canaveral (pictured) fire home a short but sweet set that sees them joined by King Creosote for split single, ‘Home Run and a Vow’, before an impromptu in-crowd singalong to Pulp’s ‘Disco 2000’ sees Sheffield’s Slow Club round things out in suitably upbeat fashion. (Ryan Drever)
POP THE SATURDAYS SECC, Glasgow, Tue 13 Dec ●●●●●
With Little Mix winning this year’s X-Factor, you’d think the positively elderly Saturdays (average age: 24) would be showing signs of abject desperation to lose their crown as the current biggest UK girl group not in semi-retirement. But no . . . this was an all-singing, all-dancing piece of staged pop ephemera that put in plenty of effort for their youthful fans, but made no effort to connect with an older audience – bar putting Frankie Sandford in a procession of ever-shorter outfits. All the usual arena tropes were here, including a
neon-streaked cheerleader dance routine, a revolving podium in the crowd, a guest appearance (Travie McCoy on the big screen) and a couple of god-awful ballads like ‘Issues’. ‘Up’ and a cover of ‘Depeche Mode’s ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’ were camp club affairs, and a version of ‘Winter Wonderland’ radiated just the right amount of seasonal good cheer. Yet barring Una Healy’s obvious happiness at performing while heavily pregnant, their between-song chatter was soulless and rehearsed, a fitting reflection of a show all about the spectacle and not at all about making an emotional connection. (David Pollock)
SINGER-SONGWRITER MALCOLM MIDDLETON Electric Circus, Edinburgh, Wed 14 Dec ●●●●● INDIE-ROCK THE VIEW O2 ABC, Glasgow, Mon 19 Dec ●●●●●
What better way to celebrate Christmas than with Mr Season of Goodwill himself, Malcolm Middleton, the man whose campaign to get ‘We’re All Going to Die’ to the 2007 Christmas number one spot will live long in the hearts of those who believed in it. That song was played here, of course, appearing alongside heart-warming favourite ‘Four Cigarettes’ and its striking ‘I don’t remember luck / I remember failure’ sentiment, and the cavernously sad line ‘you’re the only person that can make me feel alone’ in ‘Devastation’.
Yet painting the ex-Arab Strap guitarist as a font of wintery miserablism is unfair and untrue, even when he does it himself (he apologises for ‘the miserable bastard supporting me’ – his own Human Don’t Be Angry side project). Playing solo with an acoustic guitar and his eyes shrouded beneath a baseball cap, Middleton is more at home with realist optimism than abject sadness: the loser’s rallying cry of ‘A Brighter Beat’ or the heartfelt romance of ‘Love Comes in Waves’. There was equivocal good cheer in ‘Burst Noel’ and we were urged to ‘keep smiling’ on the way home. It was really no trouble at all. (David Pollock)
Being partial to the occasional shandy, it pained The List to witness the mass lager sacrifice that occurred here – nary a punter was spared a shower as high-spirited young souls sent pint after pint looping through the air. Luckily Dundonian indie-rock scallywags The View were on hand to offer distraction, looking thoroughly unfazed by the hail of plastic pots aimed their way; even more so for their best songs, which seemed confusing. One of three Glasgow shows (a hopefully drier afternoon matinee show preceded this one) in a mini-tour of Scotland, this was a chance for the band to try out new material while treating young fans to a spot of pre-Christmas bedlam. Say what you like about The View – and they’re no sophisticates – they didn’t half put on a red-lining, raucous and rousing show. ‘Superstar Tradesman’ and ‘Grace’ all boasted noisy, pulse-quickening choruses that suckered you right in the pit of the stomach. As shirtless lads communed in a blokey way down the front, there was a potent mixture of rowdy celebration and mild menace – surely the essence of any good rock’n’roll show – in the air throughout. Somewhere up there among all the lager anyway. (Malcolm Jack)
5 Jan–2 Feb 2012 THE LIST 77
INDIE-RAVE FRIENDLY FIRES Barrowland, Glasgow, Tue 20 Dec ●●●●●
2011 didn’t quite belong to Friendly Fires, as some had predicted it might, but they owned significant parts of it off the back of their euphoric second album Pala – not least the flying feet and skyward waving arms of a few summer festival crowds. The St Albans’ indie-rave trio’s big year concluded at the Barrowland, with this final tour date. ‘I’m glad it’s here,’ said frontman Ed Macfarlane, ‘I’ve heard a lot about this place,’ before launching into the taut punk-funk groove of ‘Lovesick’ with the kind of full-bodied dance-like-everybody’s-watching moves which if he tried them in a club would probably see him ‘get punched in the face,’ as he joked with The List earlier this year.
From the post-disco stylings of Mercury-nominated self-titled 2008 debut album, Pala has seen Friendly Fires traverse their sights towards the mainstream – it’s full of sun-kissed choruses for the radio, the production’s super-slick and this was a slick pop show to match, with their live band filled-out by horn players silhouetted against a big screen projecting imagery of the exotic-looking colourful bird from the new album’s cover art. But dance music in its many forms equally informs the sound of a band who – whether it was Edd Gibson shaking-it manfully despite the inconvenience of having to play guitar, or Macfarlane bobbing his head while prodding at synths – never stop leading by example. ‘Don’t be shy,’ Macfarlane coaxed the front rows – earnest words from a guy who moments later was lost in something between a Jagger strut and a camp funky chicken below pastelly purple lights.
This was the band’s biggest Scottish headline date yet, and the roar that met the sugar-rush opening of Pala’s lead single ‘Live Those Days Tonight’ underscored the key to their swelling popularity. But that older songs still seemed to go down the better suggested Friendly Fires’ drive at becoming the ‘next big headline dance act’, as they put it, is only half-way complete. It was first-album high-point ‘Paris’, with its dreamy drops, that had the endorphin flowing fastest.
‘Hawaiian Air’ struck a blissed-out tone come the encore. As the turbo-speed samba beats of closer ‘Kiss of Life’ crashed-in, Macfarlane seemed to frantically try and exhaust every move in his repertoire – contorting his body madly, throwing air drum rolls and altogether conjuring the uncanny image of a man locked in a desperate fight to the death with an imaginary giant octopus. If that’s not what they call leaving it all on the stage, we’re not sure what is. (Malcolm Jack)