Month: February 2018

Franz Ferdinand @ O2 Academy, Newcastle

A quality evening with Franz Ferdinand & Albert Hammond Jr.

I saw Franz Ferdinand 3 times within 13 months back in 2004/05 (& Ste caught 2 of those).  I hadn’t seen them since.  No particular reason.  Perhaps my interest waned after album no. 2, perhaps I was just going to less gigs or trying not to see the same bands on repeat?  Whatever the reason, it was a 13 year gap.  It was worth the wait.

Just Ste and I at this one, so we ate pizzas at home with a couple of beers.  A quick taxi ride into Toon and we headed straight to the venue.  The beers inside the O2 are inevitably poor and expensive.  I think we consumed a couple of pints of San Miguel (or something similar) and a massive oversized 2 pint pot full of Carlsberg Export.  It was cold, wet and alcoholic. £20+ lighter (each) for the privilege we initially shivered on a cold night in the venue, but it soon warmed up as the support act took the stage.

Albert Hammond Jr. of The Strokes fame was the support act.  I’d never bothered with his solo stuff prior to learning he was the support.  The new stuff sounded decent and it was an enjoyable set which lasted a surprisingly long time.  At the time of writing, no-one has put up a set list, but it must have been 10 songs or so.  Decent stuff.  Could be the closest I’ll ever come to seeing The Strokes?  I hope not.

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Franz Ferdinand

The main act took the stage an proceeded to deliver an awesome set.  A great mix of new and old tunes, drawing heavily from the new album (8 played from Always Ascending) and the debut album (5 played from Franz Ferdinand) with a handful from the rest (3 from Tonight: Franz Ferdinand, 2 from You Could Have Been So Much Better and just 1 from Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action).  Alex Kapranos was an excellent frontman throughout the gig, holding the attention of the crowd and getting them involved at will.  I realised early in the gig that there had been a line up change that I wasn’t previously aware of.  Guitarist, Nick McCarthy apparently left in 2016 and Dino Bardot and Julian Corrie joining.  The guitar sound on the early songs didn’t quite sound as angular as previous (if I’m being picky), but that was a tiny issue in a great set.

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Highlights for me were; Do You Want To, Michael, Take Me Out, Ulysses, Alway Ascending, Jacquline, This Fire and Lucid Dreams.  Amazingly the whole gig was wrapped up by 10.05pm…presumably for a club night at the O2.

Franz Ferdinand Setlist O2 Academy Newcastle, Newcastle, England 2018, Always Ascending

Albert Hammond, Jr. Setlist O2 Academy Newcastle, Newcastle, England 2018

Post Script: we headed to Tilleys Bar straight after the gig.  We had a few too many real ales, played a pub quiz machine (pop music) which we failed to win and talked endlessly about music, vinyls, CDs and other forensically analysed issues.  I fell asleep in the taxi on the way home and Ste was partied out for most of the next morning, prior to heading to a record fair.  It was a top night!!

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The Sherlocks @ The Empire, Middlesbrough

The Sherlocks just keep getting better

This will be a relatively short review as there’s little more I can say about The Sherlocks.  This was my 5th time seeing them in the last 18 months and they’ve got better each time (Ku Bar, O2 Academy 2, Glastonbury, Newcastle University).  I’m pretty certain this was the largest crowd yet and everyone seemed to love every second of this gig.

I went with my brother, Mike, to see this one as the venue was on his home turf.  When we arrived at the venue at about 7.15pm, it was cold and wet and there was a large queue outside.  We decided to go for a beer.  Unfortunately, as it turned out later, this meant we missed the first support act, Neon Waltz.  Never mind, we caught Oddity Road who were good.  They had a similar sound to The Sherlocks and hail from Sheffield.

The Sherlocks came on stage at about 9.15pm and played through the entirety of their debut album, Live For The Moment.  Lead singer, Kiaran Crook, seems to be finding new ways to get the audience involved and it resulted in a great atmosphere throughout, including a music-less sing along after the closing number, Chasing Shadows.  After reaching no. 6 in the UK charts with the album, I hope they go on to have a strong career with an even better follow-up.  Good luck to them.  They genuinely seem to love every moment of playing and that’s evident to see.

The Sherlocks Setlist The Empire, Middlesbrough, England 2018

 

Field Music with The Open Here Orchestra @ Northern Stage, Newcastle

Orchestral manoeuvres near St. James Park

To launch their new album Open Here and kick off their UK tour, Field Music played three specially-staged performances at Northern Stage. We caught the third and final show at this venue on the Saturday night. The Northern Stage performances also featured an expanded orchestral line-up – The Open Here Orchestra.

Our show was filmed and streamed live on YouTube and is still available to watch at the time of writing. The band had sourced a vintage Tyne Tees television camera for the task, with impressive musical pedigree having previously been used to film The Tube. Another camera was filming from the audience a couple of seats away from us.

This being a theatre, the performance was split into two halves separated with an interval. There was no support act, but maybe it wouldn’t have worked well, with the main performance being split in two.

The set opened with Time In Joy which immediately showcased the sound of the expanded line up. Peter and David swapped over on drum and vocal duties for Count It Up – the first of numerous switches during the night. The string quartet and flute backing on title track Open Here was captivating and, as with several songs from the new album, it’s hard to imagine how this could be performed as well without the orchestra.

The set featured all ten songs from Open Here, interspersed with a highlights from their back catalogue. Other than the Open Here album, there were four songs from Plumb and three from Commontime, with one apiece from the earlier albums.

The second half contained the excellent Checking On A Message and Share A Pillow from the new album. The highlight of the set for me was the closing track to the second half , Find A Way To Keep Me, helped in no small part by a film backdrop of the landscape of the North East. A great example of visuals and music combining powers to create something special.

It’s always a pleasure to see Field Music but it felt especially fortunate to catch them in this unique setting, with The Open Here Orchestra, bringing to the sound of the new album to life.

Field Music Setlist Northern Stage, Newcastle, England 2018

Other points of note:

1. Pre-gig food and beer was from McKenna’s cafe inside Northern Stage, including a steak sandwich so rare it had bled on the bread.
2. I bought myself the blue vinyl version of Open Here, after much agonising between the relative merits of clear versus blue versus black vinyl.
3. Unexpectedly, it had snowed whilst we watched.