The Wallbirds
Bush Hall
24.09.07
Gigs at Bush Hall always remind me of slightly ramshackle wedding receptions, with the sparkling chandeliers, the grand piano casually covered in the corner, the ornate architecture – there’s a laid back civility to the proceedings at shows in the old music hall, and it proves the perfect backdrop for Buck 65‘s return to London.
The Wallbirds kick off the evening with their upbeat brand of alt country pop. It’s quite a spectacle to behold, as the three piece wake the venue up with loud, brash but catchy country rock, with their drummer even dancing and stamping on the stage instead of using his minimal drum kit. Their set is short but sweet, an enjoyable introduction to this quirky but promising act.
Richard Terfry, better known as Buck 65, takes to the stage after a short movie about all the historical happenings from 1957. Sliding onto stage in a cap, dark glasses and chequered balaclava you can’t help but wonder if it’s really Buck, but as he leans into his turntables, flicking his hip out with a wiggle, it’s clear it’s the man himself. He throws himself into a track from the new album, and it’s only after this that he pulls off his disguises and smiles wryly to the crowd. The reason for the glasses, he admits, is that he doesn’t know the lyrics yet, but he feels self conscious reading them….so for every new track he dons glasses, to hide the fact he’s glancing sideways at his lyric sheet.
Second track of the night is the much loved ‘Wicked and Weird’, and it’s reassuring it’s not all going to be about his new album ” I don’t want to play all my new stuff…cos you don’t really know it….and neither do I” he grins. ‘The Centaur‘ and heavy ‘2-6-3‘ kick the night up a gear, but his banter in between tracks is almost as good as the tracks themselves. “I looked up what exciting things happening in this day in history…and it’s kinda…boring” he deadpans. “But tomorrow! Tomorrow in history is BIG, so I’m going to prepare you.” It’s half gig, half history lesson, with a smattering of a dance lesson pushed in. (we learn how to dance Buck style tonight, with the open the curtains, waggle your fingers, close the curtains moves…)
Buck 65 shines with smaller audiences, feeding off the energy and the cat calls. The new material is accessible and catchy, harking back to the ‘Talkin’ Honky Blues‘ era, there’s a comical element to lyrics, which are emphasised by Buck’s dancing enactments. He mocks himself relentlessly and banters incessantly with the audience, telling of how that now infamous Kerrang interview lead to the rapper El-P proclaiming he was going to kill him. As fate would have it, they’re on the same bill in Paris in a few days, so as Buck shrugs “I’m dead!”
Despite the threat of impending death, there’s a undeniable glow from the stage, and he coyly reports that despite having his heartbroken a year ago, he’s found love again. If this is what love’s done to Buck65, long may it last. A welcome return to form from the innovative and exciting Mr Terfry.
Dee Massey
It’s said that you can tell a lot about a band by their fans, and if this is true, then Scouting For Girls have cornered a very well bred niche market. In Kings College on a Friday evening, the bar is rammed with boys in rugby shirts and girls in pearls, not quite what we’d envisioned as fans of the cheeky, MOR 3 piece, Scouting For Girls, but never judge a book by it’s cover, right?
Standing on the first floor balcony, overlooking the main part of the venue, it was clear to see just how popular French duo Gaspard Augé and Xavier De Rosnay have become. Koko was more packed that Pavarotti’s coffin and as such, having a place up on the balcony was probably the best place to be, not only in terms of having dance space but also because the smell was probably a whole lot better on our level.
“Listen all o’y’all this is Sabotage” screamed the crowd as the Beastie Boys closed their set to a baying Brixton Academy. There is no doubt about it, that line summed up the evening and left everyone happy as the New Yorkers were able to roll back the years and show the world that nobody can rock a set like they can.
Mixing up instrumentals from their new album, which worked surprisingly well, with rowdy punk numbers like Egg Raid On Mojo and Heart Attack Man was genius, never once slipping out of place and of course hearing tunes like Ch-Check It Out, Triple Trouble, Whatcha Want, Remote Control and my favourite Beasties track 3 MCs And 1 DJ made the night more special than I could ever have imagined.
Getting to an already packed out queue to go into an enormous car park at the baseball stadium of the Twins in the blazine heat wasn’t my idea of fun. However, a quick phonecall later and my guestlist wristband was letting me jump infront of huge numbers of emo-by-numbers kids and straight into the shade.
After a little break to go and make the most of a nearby air conditioned Thai restaurant [thanks in no short measure to our guest bands allowing us re-entry to the event!], we went to watch the always explosive Gallows. Standing on the stage and looking at the crowd who began quite tentative but then grew into a rushing circle pit was a great site.
Tonight’s lively shindig is not full of your average rock fans, the majority of the largely under 18’s crowd are miserable, willowy types dressed head to toe in Topshop clobber desperately trying to look cool.
Another day in Minneapolis, another show for me to attend and this one was the one I’d really been waiting for – a 7 hour independent hip hop festival, with some amazing names thrown into the mix and which proved to be just as good as I expected it to be.
All the members of Living Legends rushed the stage, complete with one Transformers mask and water pistol. Even if you didn’t know any of their tracks, it was hard to not have fun as they bounded around the stage with smiles on their faces and crowd-friendly sing-a-long choruses.
Given that the current thrash revival has been featured in the NME, of all publications, one contemplates whether just about every local scenester will now be donning Nuclear Assault shirts and hi-top trainers and proclaiming that they’ve always “dug Reign In Blood, dude”.
Picture the scene – I had stumbled off a plane [which I shared with Lady Sovereign, she’d clearly heard Abjekt was on the scene], ate some big portioned American food and then headed out to a show, with no sleep whatsoever in the previous 25 hours. However, whilst kicking it outside, Kristoff Krane from Abzorbr came up to me and we had a quick catch up, which was as perfect a wake up call as I could have ever wished for.
“C’mon people, get down the front – it’s bad enough that there’s this barrier here!” growls Animosity vocalist Leo Miller to the largely static throng – and he has a point. A great hardcore show demands the kind of intimacy and audience participation that, tonight, is hindered both physically and atmospherically by the unnecessary presence of a crowd barrier at the front. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the Electric Ballroom’s hit-and-miss acoustics aren’t doing Animosity’s furiously technical death metal assault any favours, either.