Slow Club / Viking Moses / Pete Ingo
Date: 22 June 2009
"The communal singsong couldn't have better summed up the feel-good vibe of the night."
Thea Everett
The ICA theatre was slowly filling up with Slow Club fans, sitting cross-legged clutching their newly-bought posters and EPs, when Pete Ingo, the first act of the night came on stage. A one-man band who used only an MP3 player and a guitar to produce his loud, mechanical, noises, was unlike anyone I'd seen before. His overall sound was not one I would call easy listening and having listened to him since online, I still don't quite "get" it. He was irrefutably original and made an impressive racket, but the problem was that it was precisely that - a racket. His voice was often offkey, or out of sync with his MP3 and I couldn't help thinking that he would have benefited from a backing band. However, standing there on the stage, a plump man in his late twenties, there was something oddly appealing about his whole vibe, and despite the unappealing sound he was making, I couldn't dislike him. When one did manage to catch a lyric, they were notably quirky, "eat seafood in the rain, it's not that strange," he sang on his second track, called (unsurprisingly) Seafood, and when his short set was over I came away thinking - what's not to quite like?
Viking Moses are an altogether different story. A two-piece band whose front man was dressed eccentrically all-in white, with working man's boots and a personality to match. From Missouri, the band's sound was unusual and inspired, their guitars wound in and out of each other to glorious effect. The lead vocals were reminiscent of Swedish artist Jens Lekman, as well as Jonathan Richman. His wailing, although familiar, was definitely enjoyable as he bantered with the audience. The last two songs were huge crowd pleasers when Rebecca and Charles of Slow Club joined in providing drums, guitar and vocals, sparking the crowd into a dancing throng.
Slow Club, however, were inevitably the highlight of the evening. Having seen the Sheffield pair twice before, this time was possibly my favourite; there was an excitement in the air - perhaps because it was their single-launch in London, (or maybe their headline gigs are always this stimulating?) and the audience responded to their set with vigour. The boy-girl duo started amidst the crowd; performing an all-acoustic rendition of their lesser-known Wild Blue Milk. I'd never seen a band interacting with the fans in such a low-key and responsive manner like this before, and it gave their set a brilliant air of inclusivity. Charles then clambered onto the stage, whilst Rebecca went the "lady-like way" (around the back of the stage) and they were off. Their second song, Because We're Dead, had the audience clapping and dancing along, but it was their new single, It Doesn't Have To Be Beautiful, that really got the crowd going. During the chorus I looked around to see nothing but smiling faces, smitten by the pair's jangly, fast-paced tunes. But Slow Club are no one-trick-pony. They can do melancholy love songs just as well as they do shouty folk-rock, which they showed brilliantly with There Is No Good Way To Say I'm Leaving You, and When I Go. The latter includes a charming interlude where Rebecca and Charles argue over who had whistled so well that they had to stop mid-song to praise themselves, which only received laughter and applause from the adoring audience. The gig ended on a high, when the duo delivered their encore among the crowd. They meandered through the fans who formed an admiring circle around them in the middle of the room, and watched them play an acoustic Christmas TV. They had the audience singing along to the end refrain - deep baritone voices mingling with alto-high tones - and the communal singsong couldn't have better summed up the feel-good vibe of the night.
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Comment(s)
radha radha
its really amazing.
Posted: 06:00 am | 23 July 2009