"There's not enough beards in this room". Sarcastic observation is one of Ms L's many strong points. In a PACKED if not quite sold-out Deaf Institute, there was certainly plenty of facial hair on display. And when The Miserable Rich took to the stage, four of the five - of course - had beards too. This was a similar set to that at Dulcimer last month but they swapped their "noughties" cover for their "eighties" one so we got The Strangler's 'Golden Brown' instead of Hot Chip. Their brand of acoustic chamber-pop went down well with all in the room - again. On record and live they really are something quite special - seductive and stately and debonair all at the same time. Word from the band afterwards is that album number two - including tonight's final song 'Oliver' - will be out in August.The Set List:
Early Mourning
Pisshead
Boat Song
The Time That's Mine
Golden Brown
Monkey
Poodle
Merry Go Round
Muswell
Oliver
MUSWELL
The Miserable Rich
Twelve Ways To Count [BUY]
Mark Hamilton, the leader of Woodpigeon, has a beard too. He also is a good foot taller than the rest of his band. This, the beard and the generous-sized woolly jumper give the impression of a high school music teacher leading a troupe of students. Tonight's appearance was the five-person version of the collective - Mark on red Gibson acoustic plus keyboards/melodica, cello, violin and violin/ukelele - and they tended to the hushed, acoustic end of the Woodpigeon songbook.
The set list threw me though. I was expecting this to be drawn from the two albums (now released in the UK on End Of The Road Records) - and the set started with I Live A Lot Of Places, Songbook/The Sound of Us Playing, Emma et Hampus and then In the Battle of Sun vs. Curtains, Sun Loses and We Sleep Until Noon (they do have a penchant for long titles) but then it lost me. I recognised The Hamilton Academicals and Feedbags (and the cover of Abba's 'Lay All Your Love On Me') but the other five or so songs were unfamiliar. One ('Beth Dreams'? 'Beth's Jeans'?) was apparently "written only yesterday". The others I don't think were from Europe-only bonus CD 'Houndstooth Europa' either so I assume are from early EPs or new material?
The band were under a time pressure to complete the set by 11pm "when students will start grinding themselves against each other" for a club night but the performance never felt hurried and the songs were allowed to unfurl at a gentle pace. I could quibble about the short set, the lack of songs from Songbook and the lack of their more up-tempo and elaborate material, but the overall loveliness (no other word for it really) of the band, the music and the atmosphere won me over. So yes the evening had a beard but also a comforting hug and warm smile. It was brought to us by The Red Deer Club and Humble Soul who really should be rather proud of themselves. But yet again I missed The Winter Journey. Which again I hear was a shame.
I have felt a connection with 
I didn't think the sound at the Academy was that good during the support acts - came across as quite leaden and sludgey (and at the quiet bits you could hear the other gig taking place in the second space! Reel Big Fish by the way). But by the time BSP took to the stage the sound definitely worked with not against them. Took a bit of time for both band and crowd to warm up - and if there were no great surprises and the lack of a frenetic ending it was nonetheless highly enjoyable. So. When ARE we going to hear some new songs?
The Set List:
I only came across 
Arrived to catch the last couple of songs from 
Third on the unbelievably-good-value bill was 
Well after my concerns about tonight and a possible new direction, happy to report it's business as usual for Brakes. They may not have played together for four months (so we were told) but as usual the performance was high energy and tightly drilled. And when they did make a mistake, they didn't take it too seriously. You could really sense their enjoyment at playing and performing together.
Only four new songs in the set (new album "Touchdown" due in April) and 'Crystal Tunings' (called 'Oh! Forever' on the set-list) is a slight aberration but a good one and in the context of the rest of the set not too much of an aberration. 'Why Tell The Truth...' is about when Lloyds charged Eamon £75 for going overdrawn by £4 - not quite a credit crunch anthem then but a good dig at the banking system. Short songs like 'Comma Comma Comma Full Stop' and 'Cheney' (with new 'goodbye' ending) were all played twice. Here's the set list - kindly annotated by Alex the drummer to the correct running order (that's drummers for you): 'Spring Chicken' came before 'Cease and Desist' and 'Ring a Ding Ding' was not played (why not?!).
So my misgivings were misplaced - Brakes continue to delight live. Rest of this tour 