Friendly Fires / Mountain Goat Frenzy

@ Hull Adelphi

I missed the support, local act Mountain Goat Frenzy, but my mate whose opinion I trust told me they were alright, so I'll stand by that for my review. I made the effort to visit their myspace afterwards and found their music to be an interesting rehash of trashy new wave punk and proto-electro. Worth checking out at one of their upcoming gigs in Hull, Beverley or Chesterfield.

I'd heard three or four Friendly Fires tunes before and really liked them, but I was prepared to be disappointed, as all too often this type of band fails to deliver the goods in a live performance. How joyously wrong I was. The sound was a little more raw and guitar-orientated than the highly polished recordings but retained all the energy and spaciousness that gives them their appeal. Imagine a British LCD Soundsystem and you're not far off.

Glow sticks and confetti wands aside, they generated a festival atmosphere from the very first chord. Maybe it was the booze but I felt really at ease with and connected to the strangers packed in around me. Repeated frontman forays into the midst of the sweaty crowd blurred the border between band and audience - we were all there to leap and laugh and love and live, it's just that some of us had instruments. This was one of a very few times I've seen crowd surfing at the Adelphi and it seems apt that it happened during Jump In The Pool. In fact the whole set was a tsunami of party vibes and optimism; like an army of King Canutes, we were powerless to resist the tide.

Rufus

Johnny Foreigner / Dananananaykroyd / Minnaars / Love Ends Disaster

@ Leicester Charlotte

The nights proceeding were opened by the UK's post-punk answer to The Arcade Fire, Love Ends Disaster! Any mention of the band seems peppered with comparisons to some of the best bands around today and rightly so. From the anthemic ‘Suzanne' to the set ending ‘Ladder' it's clear this is a band that are on their way to something big, if there is any justice it won't be long.

Following were the Leicester math-rock band Minnaars. Sounding like a musical marriage of Foals and Forward Russia the bands set was almost cut short when the guitar lead took a beating from their singers' feet but they managed to carry on. They would definitely win the prize for the most talkative band of the night, constantly cracking jokes with the not particularly responsive crowd.

As the third band of the night Dananananaykroyd came onstage, carnage broke out. By far the heaviest band tonight they straddle the divide between Punk Rock and Hardcore with ease. Considering the speed and energy being put into their songs they are an incredibly tight and cohesive unit and considering how much publicity the band are currently receiving it won't be long before they move out of support slots and onto their own tours.

By the time the main event arrive onstage, it's clear the crowd are ready, and after some technical issues were sorted, Johnny foreigner exploded onto the few hundred people assembled to digest the Birmingham three piece. The band has a constant tour schedule that shows in their live performance. Sounding somewhere between Sonic Youth, Pavement and The Pixies with some excellent vocal overlapping and synth additions they take the greatest elements of the aforementioned and while sounding at once familiar manage to be a genuinely interesting and original band where so many others seem to settle for being ok.

Ollie Millington

Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes

@ Sheffield Academy

It was my late brother who introduced me to both Southside Johnny and Tom Waits (Mr Johnny's latest album is made up of Tom Waits covers), so I was really looking forward to an evening of (old style) r'n'b and broken, Brechtian ballads.

The venue was packed full of 40 / 50 / 60 year old men in SJ t-shirts from previous tours. There was no support and SJ and his 8-piece band sauntered on stage at 8.15. They opened with Waits' 'Down, Down, Down' and Johnny was in good voice. They continued with a series of uptempo tunes with the brass section blowing some impressive solos. The original SJ material was mixed with some great covers ('Walk Away Renee', 'Across 110th Street' and 'Can I Get A Witness'). SJ's husky voice soared on these covers, much more than on some of his own material, when he occasionally threw away the lyric (see YouTube for examples). I don't know if he's just a bit tired of singing some of his 30+ year old material?

There were only 3 Waits songs played out of 27 in total, a disappointingly low number considering the album was only released a month or so ago. Still, the crowd lapped it up. SJ finished his 2 1/4 hour show with 'Hearts Of Stone', a beautiful ballad which gave his voice one last chance to confirm the belief (to this crowd, at least) that he could have been a contender in his own right, rather than someone who has lived in the shadow of that other fella from New Jersey.

Pete Martin

Tindersticks / Sara Lowes

@ Manchester Bridgewater Hall

They both played as big bands, but that was where the similarities between Tindersticks and support Sara Lowes ended. Lowes, a Manchester singer-songwriter, conjured retro, slightly sixties songs that were closer to smooth LA pop than the dark musical heritage of her home town. Her pleasant vocals were tinged with the humour of Fiery Furnaces' Eleanor Friedberger.

Tindersticks, however, are autumn personified, a distillation of that bittersweet end of summer feeling - the realisation that it's really over and won't come back. Like all rich things, their music is best enjoyed in moderation, often as a concoction administered at the end of a relationship. They're the aural equivalent of getting your coat, scarf and gloves back out, tucking into shepherd's pie and settling down inside as the nights get longer.

Fittingly for a band who create film soundtracks, Tindersticks took to the stage one by one like a roll call of characters listed in order of appearance. A sedate tableau emerged from the darkness, with only one vital ingredient missing: Stuart Staples' extraordinary voice. Staples was stuck to the microphone as if by magnetism, eyes closed, for most of the set as if he was straining to hear the dramas that were carried out in the whispers of his own voice. He was spotlighted at times, but the extra attention was unnecessary; his voice is its own spotlight that dazzles everything around it. When Staples, hitherto grey haired and grave, came back beaming after the encore, it was akin to Gordon Brown getting up and doing a dance in the middle of parliament.

Like the best movies, Tindersticks were engrossing yet offered moments of excitement. An instrumental with a bass line straight out of the Shadows was accompanied by spotlights sweeping across the stage like the start credits to a James Bond film.

Natalie Bradbury

Bossk / Manatees / Miramar Disaster / Dragged Into The Sunlight

@ Leeds Brudenell Social Club

Dragged Into The Sunlight open proceedings with the blackest of black metal, that is, they fill the place with dry ice, turn their backs on the audience and play by the light of a single candelabrum (three candles set in a goat's skull) and a couple of strobes. The bass riffs are as impenetrable as the smoke, obliterating all but the drums. Occasional glimpses of vocals and guitar are heard, but most is lost. Shame, as I do like a bit of black metal but like to hear the lyrics. Ha.

Sheffield's Miramar Disaster are a bit more melodic and pull quite a crowd. Drummer Iain Scott screams for everything to be louder as lead singer Frank Forman makes himself comfortable behind his Rich Bitch. With a flurry of synchronised head jerks they're off, drums nimbly decorating the sludgiest of riffs. One guitar (Frank's) appears to be down tuned, giving Dean Rowbotham's picking a lighter touch, and Iain and Frank's call / response shouting is almost harmonic; it's a pretty-sounding crush. Heavy, dynamic and occasionally delicate, Miramar Disaster are the Cardi that Auntie Bismark knitted for you out of steel wool last Christmas.

Manatees are slow and loud. Three men slowly punishing their instruments in the way that Black Sabbath would have if they took more downers than uppers. The guitar sighs and weeps, the bass is pressed forcibly against its amp and feedback stutters in key throughout the venue. This is all about the riff and I can imagine these guys could string one out until it snapped and had to be stitched back together again. But they are on late, so their set is curtailed and those riffs just have to be wound in for another day.

Bossk, coming on after a huge dollop of the Star Wars sound track has been played, are the epitome of prog metal; masses of reverb, riffs to die for, slow throbbing beats and a dimly lit stage. Joss sticks burn as the reverberating bass and guitar pummels the crowd with what sounds like one immense guitar solo; a member of Humanfly looks on approvingly. Then, a fifth man climbs on stage and takes his place amidst the guitars. Taking a deep breath, he unleashes a chord-scraping scream at the audience, jarring them out of their muso appreciation. When he is done, he climbs back down again. It's strange behaviour, erratic and disruptive to the chromatic elegance of the sound of stars collapsing and the sight of men wrenching gut-rumbling riffs from their six and four strings. Metal sustenance and a dish that will be missed. But, there is another. Thank the maker Humanfly are keeping the dream alive.

Rob Wright

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