Micachu

1 March 2009

Following on from my last post about what I’m listening to at the moment yesterday I trundled down to the Notting Hill Arts Club to catch Micachu (with The Shapes firmly in tow).

They were headlining this weeks ROTA, which is a regular club night at the Notting Hill Arts Club except it can’t really be called a night considering it’s on from 4pm until 8pm. I am all about the matinée gigs so this is right up my street – see the headline act and still get home by 20:30, what more could you want?

Before Micachu I caught both Favours for Sailors and The Old Romantic Killer Band. Favours for Sailors were good fun (if hardly groundbreaking) and obviously have an exceptional name. Sadly neither of the these things can be said of TORKB (not going to type that in full twice), except the bit about being hardly groundbreaking – they were bluesy-rock by the numbers; they had obviously seen The Black Keys and gone “let’s do that” and added very little in the process. Also, the singer threw up on stage at the end of the last song – it’s not big, clever or shocking, it just means I never want to see them again.

Luckily – after the mess had been cleaned up – Micachu and the Shapes were great. I was intrigued to see how they would translate such a unique sounding album live and they managed it with aplomb; both bringing the layered sounds from the album and adding something different at the same time. Someone I know recently described them as sounding like “a band falling down some stairs, in a good way” and live you still get the brilliant dichotomy between song and noise.

More photos on Flickr.

From: Articles

1 March 2009