L-R: Kapil Trivedi, Blaine Harrison, Jack Flanagan, Will Rees
Anyone
who’s been a music fan in the last decade will have had a brush or two with
Mystery Jets, the mop-haired pretty-boys from London who soundtracked most of
the noughties with their delightful indie jangles. But after a few years off
and with a new line-up partnering a more mature sonic presence, the foursome
are making their way back up the pecking order. Complete with cake and party
hats, they came to Norwich Waterfront for a celebratory blowout, featuring new
cuts and golden oldies.
London
outfit The Big Moon support. It’s
their first visit to our humble city and they’re on early, but after a year on
the road with everyone from Ezra Furman to The Maccabees, the quartet’s act is more
than ship-shape for supporting purposes. Cupid
is their latest single, a bouncy, spunky affair that translates fantastically
from record to a live setting. Nothing
Without You is upbeat and playful, as is a cover of Madonna’s Beautiful Stranger, complete with
screeching riffs and deal-with-it tempo changes. Better than the original? Duh.
Noise rock elements meet angelic harmonies on The Road, before Sucker
brings a grungey close to a phenomenal debut Norwich performance. The Big Moon
play The Lake Stage at Latitude this July – go see them, or regret when they
make it big time.
Telomere opens both Mystery Jets’ new record ‘Curve of the Earth’, and their set
tonight under the cover of darkness. Will Rees’ spine-tingling guitar scratches
fit gloriously into the grandeur of Blaine Harrisons’s keys and vocals, which glide
the space-age rock number to triumphant heights. Serotonin and Flash a Hungry
Smile light up the room in a synth-heavy extravaganza that shows how well
these songs have stood the test of time. Bassist-stroke-indie-dreamboat Jack
Flanagan is the youngest member (having joined full time in 2014) and is easily
the most delightful to watch. Adorned in an ankle length fur coat, he
introduces Midnight’s Mirror, “a
prog-rock exploration”, and an unexpected highlight of the show. It’s darker
and more off-piste than the sunshine pop numbers MJ fans are used to. But it
fits perfectly, Rees’ punchy riffs intertwining yet again with Harrison’s keys
and Flanagan’s murky bass. Kapil Trivedi completes the group, guiding “an old
one”, Half in Love With Elizabeth to
a powerful peak of nostalgia and energy from his position on the drums.
More cuts
from ‘Curve of the Earth’ fill the second half of the set; Bombay Blue starts downbeat before erupting into a storm of rock
fusion, Bubblegum (a strong contender
for song of the year) escalating the ambience tenfold. Musically, an almost
orchestral tone is adopted as ambitious levels of reverb fuse dazzling
synthesizers with modest yet powerful acoustic guitars, a scatty drum machine
pitter-pattering comfortably away in the background.
It’s Rees’
birthday, and he doesn’t escape without a sing-along and party hats being
passed into the audience. Young Love
adds to the celebratory vibe before Alice
Springs brings a spellbinding end to the main set. But everyone knows
there’s more to come. Someone Purer
heads up our encore, made all the more special as it’s the only cut from 2012’s
‘Radlands’ we hear. Harrison asks that his audience sing the first verse to Two Doors Down and we oblige of course,
before the band join in to finish, and Flakes
concludes our night of fun with a joyous sing-along and arm waves.
Five
records in, it may surprise some to see Mystery Jets playing a venue as small
as The Waterfront. But make no mistake, ten plus years of gigging has only seen
these dream boys grow into experienced and slick performers. And with the
incredible new album pushing them towards legendary status, I for one would not
be surprised if the best is yet to come.
Curve of the Earth by Mystery Jets is out now. Read my review here.
L-R: Sean Huber, Ian Farmer, Jake Ewald, Brendan Lukens
Emo slacker bands don’t come more
notorious than Philadelphia, USA’s Modern Baseball, who tonight bring a storm
of sweat and booze to The Owl Sanctuary with a little help from their pals.
Three Man Cannon are first on. They’re more chilled than they may
appear, although one of the group dons what looks like a black nylon kimono, so
you make the deduction. The vocals are reminiscent of Thomas Mars from Phoenix,
but instrumentally it’s more lo-fi indie rock with an edge. Think pulled up
socks and slipped down worries.
Scrawny Toronto punks PUP are up next. If the stoners of the
world united to form a country, PUP would sing the national anthem. The four-piece
previously gave Norwich something to talk about when they supported The Front
Bottoms in 2014, and tonight their return is nothing short of majestic. “We’ve
never really come to the UK before and had people give a shit”, frontman Stefan
Babcock notes, but you couldn’t tell. He controls the hordes of teen slackers
with ease, powering through new material – If
This Tour Doesn’t Kill You, I Will being the most appropriate – and old,
especially Reservoir, a scuzzy
monstrosity that ends their rumbling set in suitably disgusting style.
By the time Modern Baseball
clamber on stage, The Owl Sanctuary is a cesspit of grease and endorphins, the
floor slippery and the walls wet with anticipation. “Hey buds, we’re PUP from
Canada”, guitarist Brendan Lukens teases, leading into Fine, Great to open. It’s both impressive and shocking how much
chaos kicks off within seconds of the first riff. Jumped-up kids climb over one
another to get on stage, only to dive off it again moments later (leading to a
request from Lukens for people to not “jump off our shit”).
Cuts from the group’s first
two records and upcoming third release Holy
Ghost are interspersed, but most of the songs merge into one long rock-out
session. Going To Bed gets a cheer as
guitar/vocalist Jake Ewald takes a swing at “assholes with iPhones”, and The Old Gospel Choir starts deceptively
slow, offering a breather before pumping things up a notch with spiralling
guitars and more of the sorry-for-yourself lyrical catharsis that make Modern
Baseball so loveable.
The
performance seems to trail off towards the end, perhaps because the band have
to stop every few minutes to clear fans from their performance space, but it’s testament
to just how electric the atmosphere is that they have to clean sweat from their
instruments just as regularly. But a great band in a great venue on a Saturday
night could never be anything but perfect, right? By all accounts, tonight
marks an incredible evening of music from a band who it was a privilege to experience
live. Modern Baseball, keep doing what you’re doing cuz we bloody love it.
Modern Baseball's new album Holy Ghost is out May 13th
L-R: Lawrence Pumfrey, Ollie Pash, Hercules Iraklis, Josh Hodgson
Tonight’s
show marks the best of three for Beach Baby, who previously hit up Norwich
alongside Sundara Karma, as well as at Sound & Vision Festival last
October. Though they’re far better known now than they were six months ago, the
Arts Centre is hardly packed. But with a mostly teenage audience, there’s a
buzz of freshness in the air.
Slacker/surf
rockers Teen Brains are an act I’ve
caught numerous times supporting the likes of Peace and Blossoms, and it’s
clear tonight how much their performance has matured with time. They’re slick
and groovy, with debut single Annabel
standing out as a highlight but also as a clear indicator of just how much the foursome
has grown with time.
Main
support comes from Babeheaven, a
five piece from West London. Their music is quiet but dreamy, a tropical twist
running through what could easily drift into depressing territory but
delightfully doesn’t. Nancy Anderson fronts, her vocals delicate and innocent
over her all male band mates’ instruments. She notes how the audience, “don’t
talk between songs… it’s quite nice”, perhaps indicating that people don’t
normally listen at their shows. But Norwich is tentative tonight, and why
wouldn’t we be, when this act brings such caramel-golden swirls of downbeat
electro pop? With festival season coming up, this band is one to catch – Babeheaven
play the Lake Stage at Latitude this July.
Sleeperhead gets Beach Baby’s set underway with a long and furious drum intro before
its dizzying guitar melodies engulf the Arts Centre like a summer breeze. Lawrence
Pumfrey and Ollie Pash are the fronting half of the quartet, both strutting
about the stage casually but focussed intently on their instruments. Pumfrey
sports a baseball cap, which he quickly loses for the equally jangly No Mind, No Money. Ad-libs come few and
far between, perhaps an indirect response to tonight’s audience who are
slightly phased out to begin with. But Lost
Soul, “for anyone who’s a little lost in life”, ups the tempo and with it
the atmosphere.
Beach Baby
are a difficult bunch to pin down, musically. The foursome hardly sit at the
dinner table marked ‘punk’, although grungey, DIY undertones do surface occasionally
within their performance. Rather, they lean more towards the happy-go-lucky
summertime vibes of Britpop, no more so than on Limousine, a Supergrass-esque jam that tonight comes with an extended
outro for good measure. Ladybird has
a similar vibe, albeit with more solemn lyrics – see the ever bewitching hook,
“I don’t want to live for nothing, I don’t want to live”.
Powder
Baby is
tonight’s (as of yet unreleased) closer, a short but sweet punch of everything
Beach Baby provide: there’s fiery drums courtesy of Josh Hodgson as well as a hazy
guitar/keyboard combination that suggests big things are to come for this band.
Whether they’re set to make it remains to be seen, but tonight certainly looks
like the beginning of a bright future.
L-R: Lawrence Pumfrey, Ollie Pash, Iraklis Theocharopoulos, Josh "Shep" Hodgson
Few indie bands come as sugary
sweet as newcomers Beach Baby. The quartet’s delicious retro sound has already
seen them play shows for DIY, BBC Introducing and more, as well as get
attention from a string of equally ear catching singles. On their support tour
with Sundara Karma, they stopped off at Norwich Waterfront where we grabbed guitarist
Ollie and drummer Josh for a natter about the future.
How do you all know each other, and whose idea was the name Beach
Baby?
OP: I met Lawrence, our other
singer and guitar player, in Bristol about six years ago. We started playing
together, then we moved to London after we’d finished our degrees where we met
Iraklis [bassist] at Goldsmith’s College where I was studying. A bit later on
we were introduced to Josh from a mutual friend. So it was the old fashioned
way of meeting people along the way until you’ve got the right formula.
JH: The name comes from Lawrence.
He was listening to Bon Iver and they have a song called Beach Baby, which he
thought that would make quite a cool band name. We also wanted something that
was just quite easy to remember and would stick in your head. It seems to have had
that effect which is good.
How’s the tour with Sundara Karma been?
OP: It’s been good, very energetic.
Lots of sold out shows so we’ve played to more people consecutively than we
ever have done before. The reception has been generally pretty good, I think the
crowds have been really up for it. They’re quite a young audience, which is a
new thing for us, but it’s worked, it’s been a good opportunity for us to play
to teenagers whereas before we’ve only toured with bands with a slightly older
audience.
Do you remember your last show in Norwich, in October? What have you
been up to since then?
OP: Was that October? Wow, I
thought it was June or something. That must have been when we’d finished
recording. Or started recording. When in October was it? I remember the gig;
there was that guy there who kept shouting “mega”.
JH: Will Smith! Will Smith where
are you tonight? He was supposed to come to the one in Cambridge but I didn’t
see him. We’ve got a little Twitter conversation going on with Will Smith, and
he’s a flake. Will, if you’re listening, come on. Turn up. We thought you were
our boy.
OP: What have we done since
then? We went to America; we went to New York for CMJ festival. I’d never been
to America and as a band it’s quite exciting. We sort of had time to do touristy
things, we had days off. I saw the John Lennon memorial, Strawberry Fields,
which is quite a sight.
JH: I went to central park and
went on the swings. It was very nice. And just generally walked around.
Have you noticed yourselves improving as a band since then?
JH: For sure. The more you play,
the more at ease you become with doing the whole thing. From where I’m sat on
the drums, it feels like once you know the set, that’s when you can start to
have more fun with the crowd and have a good time.
OP: The more you play live, the
more comfortable you become with playing live, so it’s the only practice really
for getting good. In that aspect I think, even just on this tour, we’ve
improved. You get into a good rhythm.
‘Limousine’ is one of your best-known songs, but lyrically it’s
quite ambiguous. What is it about?
OP: It’s about losing control
and being immoral. It’s about someone who’s lost all perception of morality.
Just doing anything for a buddy up. It’s a… fictional person. Personally I like
listening to lyrics that are ambiguous. I like a narrative, like listening to
old folk songs and you get a sense of a story, but I also quite like more
abstracted, oblique messages in lyrics as well.
Who contributes when writing your lyrics?
JH: Ollie or Lawrence will come
along with an idea – either a verse or a guitar part or a chorus bit – and we
tend to explore it until it becomes slightly more formed. But sometimes we
might just be messing around musically and an idea might pop up. In that
respect, having two singers is good because they’ve both got different styles, lyrically
and all that, so it keeps it a bit fresh having two ideas which often will
merge and become part of the same song. Hence the synergy.
Who influences you? And what are your all-time favourite albums?
JH: I’ve been listening to that
band on your t-shirt, Sunflower Bean. I really like them a lot. I’ve been
listening to King Krule as well, fully back into that. On our headline tour
we’ve got wicked support. There’s Willie J. Healey, his music isn’t too
dissimilar from ours. He sounds a bit like The Maccabees but it’s more lo-fi
I’d say. He’s just a singer songwriter, but he’s got a band. Babeheaven are
really great too. My favourite album is Television – Marquee Moon.
OP: Revolver by The Beatles is
probably my favourite. It’s just the perfect record. It’s got everything. And
also, it’s probably one of the best Beatles records and they’re probably one of
the best bands and so, by that logic, it’s got to be one of the best albums
ever made.
What’s the inspiration behind the vintage/retro theme of your videos
and artwork?
OP: It came through working with
my girlfriend Lily [Rose Thomas]. She’s a photographer and video maker so she
just leant her style to us.
JH: With the last four songs we
just gave her the tracks and she interpreted them in her own way. The ideas for
the videos were a little bit our influence but for the most part we just let
her do what she felt was right for the song. It’s nice now when you see all the
artwork because they go together really nicely.
Georgia Groome and Perry Benson are in the ‘Sleeperhead’ video. How
did that come about?
OP: Georgia is a friend of
Lily’s and Perry is a friend of her mother’s. We needed some actors so we just
pulled as many favours as we could and they were the two people that we found.
JH: I’ve got a picture of Perry
in a car boot somewhere that I’m trying to find. He’d seen the other videos and
really liked them so getting him involved was really quite chilled and easy. He
was up for it. Ollie had to do a few scenes with him and obviously Perry is a
professional actor so Ollie was getting cracked up a lot.
The characters in the video kidnap someone. If you had to kidnap
anyone who would you choose and how would you do it?
OP: I think the obvious thing
would be to say a really beautiful woman. But I don’t think they’d appreciate
it so it probably wouldn’t be worth it. I’d like to kidnap someone entertaining
like that. Bill Murray, Jonathan Ross…
JH: I’d nick Jonathan Ross’
credit card and book a private jet pretending I’m paying for it. Fly across
America, go to Vegas, have a few days out, fly back to New York, have a nice
dinner and that’s it.
OP: I’d kidnap Paul McCartney. I
don’t know how I’d do it but I’d kidnap him then just get him to talk to me. Lots
of stories, not let him leave me until I was satisfied that I’d learnt
everything there is to know about the experience of being Paul McCartney. I’d
probably lure him in with some vegetarian food. He likes that.
JH: Meat free Mondays. I’m with
you.
Festival season is almost upon us. What have you guys got lined up
for the summer?
OP: We’re doing Live at Leeds,
we’re doing The Great Escape and Lodestar Festival in Cambridge. And there’ll
be more.
JH: Truck Festival, in Oxford.
Everyone seems really pumped for it when we tell them but I’ve never been.
Having seen the line-up and previous line-ups it looks quite good. If your
timing’s quite good at festivals you can get there early and check out some
bands, but if you’re a little bit late you tend to just get there, set up, go.
OP: When we played at Field Day
we saw Mac DeMarco, Savages, Patti Smith… ten minutes of Ride. That was quite
boring. But louder than all the rest for some reason.
Your headline tour comes straight after this one. Is it a big
commitment to be on the road for so long?
OP: It is quite tricky when
you’re trying to juggle different jobs and stuff, because we don’t have enough
money yet to do this full time. That’s where the main stress is.
JH: You’ve got to be quite
boringly organised when you’re away, like ‘I need a shift then, have you got
any work?’ all that stuff. But it’s worth it.
What comes next in terms of releases?
OP: We’re releasing more singles
but we have recorded enough material to make an album. When it comes out will
depend on a number of things, but it’s coming in the semi-distant future. Most
likely within a year.
JH: It’s not got a name so far.
The singles will be on it – Ladybird,
No Mind No Money – which we’ve
rerecorded. And Limousine and Sleeperhead. So those four songs will
definitely be on it.
