There’s a very definite difference between a gig and an event. If you’d have placed Everything Everything a few hundred metres down the road at the Deaf Institute and got them to play a couple of songs, that would have been a gig. Put them in the RNCM’s auditorium, add a few backing band members behind them (The Man Alive Ensemble) and sell tickets for £15 a pop and you have, most certainly, got an event. And people love events.
Not that it makes much difference to opening act Porcelain Raft, who demonstrates to the handful of people who bother to show their faces for his spellbinding set just why he is so highly rated. Tender on recordings, he’s becoming more honed and powerful with each passing week, a one man orchestra of his own with live looping and effects a centre point of his varied, if slim catalogue of work. Bookended by slithers of applause, Mauro Remiddi looks genuinely overawed at the reception to his work.
A few short hours later, and Everything Everything are ending their set, the seats left empty in the house are single figures. An hour long performance is long for any band on their first album, and the ordeal understandably looks to have taken it out of the four piece. There’s a standing ovation, followed by a rush for the exits – the latter genuine, the former seemingly more out of politeness after a largely lukewarm set.
Throughout their career, Everything Everything have been a band that have simply demanded a response, their fervent fan base reacting to the smatterings of disparaging reviews with the kind of zeal only reserved for bands destined for big things. Perhaps the progression to playing with a backing band felt like a natural for them, a more bombastic take on their already bubbling pop music, but in practice the result is a little more stilted than that.
There is no denying that, in parts, the band are brilliant, syncing with their Man Alive Ensemble to create something breathtaking. More often than not, though, they settle for prancing around the post-Mark Ronson wasteland, putting in the odd toot of horn to add effect, a couple of atmospheric parps to prop up a sound. Even the triumphant moments are somewhat tempered by the presence of Elbow’s Guy Gurvey, hanging around the lobby like the ghost at the feast, a reminder to all involved that these are far from pastures new for indie music.
Perhaps worst of all, the band were upstaged before they’d even stepped in front of their audience. It’s a daring move for anyone to have James Blake lower down the bill at the moment, and the pre-show jokes about seeing the future of music seem more like fact than mockery as his sparse set goes on. Whilst the headliners seek to bombard and pile on the sounds, twitching with energy, overwhelming the listener as they play, Blake has the confidence in his own ability leave spaces and to be downbeat. People might be calling it post-dubstep, but that’s only due to lack of ideas – there’s little like this to have gone before.
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I’m sorry were you at the same gig?!? There was no “lukewarm set”!
I was stood outside as everyone filed past at the end of the gig and the general consensus was that they were excellent. I’m not sure where you get a standing ovation out of “politeness”?! I was sat in the middle of the theatre and people were genuinely thrilled and appreciative for EE’s performance!
Also, as a reviewer, mentioning the presence of Guy Garvey (a lovely chap by the way who we had a quick chat with) as some kind of death knell is hugely unfair!
I don’t usually get involved with responding to reviews as I tend to find that those who comment critically are usually those who were not talented enough be the subject matter in question, but out of a duty of relaying what the gig WAS actually like, Everything Everything performed admirably and are a breath of fresh air in this current turgid music scene!
i don’t usually respond to comment either, but I was genuinely underwhelmed by it all. It all felt a little forced and they seemed to settle for just jazzing up a few songs rather than doing anything interesting. I genuinely feel there were points when they’d have been better going it alone rather than with the ensemble – some song’s didn’t really work with the 16 piece bolt on. Overall, though, they were good, but I thought they were far from great.
Good lord Matthew! I went to the London show last night, and they definitely weren’t just jazzing up a few songs. The arrangements were sublime! Look at this bit of Suffragette Suffragette – twitvid.com/WUA6T – there’s no way they could have made it sound much more different. Each to their own and that, but I thought it was a stunning, stunning show. I was literally squealing with glee at some points.
Matthew it was a fantastic gig, best i have been to in months.
The band and the vocals were fantastic and it was really well put together.
I just knew you were going to write a bad review on it, probably because they are not a new enough band for you to be the first to know about, if you had seen the same gig a year or so earlier you would have been raving about.
As i was sat NEXT to you THROUGHOUT this gig and distinctly remember you saying “that was really good” after a few individual songs, i think you have given it a very unfair review.
Stop being too proud to admit it was a great show, it was.
see you tomorrow, your loving girlfriend.
ps. Told you i would write a complaint if you dared to slate this gig.