JAMES YORKSTON @ DEAF INSTITUTE 24 May 2012

Despite the tropical weather earlier the Deaf Institute is quite cool tonight. It’s also a little sparse of audience members as Seamus Fogarty takes to the stage. It’s a shame more weren’t tempted indoors sooner because they missed a treat. I was intrigued to hear how the songs from “God Damn You Mountain” would sound live stripped of the field recordings and unusual, unidentifiable accompaniments on record. Performing seated with just unvarnished acoustic guitar and harmonica, some of songs were uncomplicated folk airs, some were toe-tapping bar-room pleasers like the non-album song from his days playing Chicago bars (“mainly Johnny Cash and Rory Gallagher covers”) and then others like final song ‘The Wind’ captured that haunting, meditative simplicity of his debut album.





He cut an amiable and garrulous figure on the bare stage, cursing himself for overlong tune-ups but also providing some sublime and seductive moments. By the end of his set the Music Hall felt much busier and it was good to see that afterwards large swathes of people were coughing up cash for a copy of that highly recommended album.

I always waiver between whether I prefer seeing James Yorkston solo or with band. I say waiver but probably come down on the side of solo. But playing "Moving Up Country" on its tenth anniversary re-release – surely this dictated a full band? (as in the upcoming shows in Edinburgh and London)? The first ten songs of tonight’s set were a chronological rendition of that 2002 album but that doesn’t do justice to the unfolding journey therein. Just with guitar and harmonica, these slowed down versions of the songs captured their raw emotions but with an added graceful immediacy. I’ve never seen or heard a more engaged audience than the early part of this set. And this was before the emotional journey spread out into the between-song chat. This included farcical tales of stained sheets in B&Bs and punching people on trains, condemnation of David Cameron (“he’s a cunt”) and then joyfully celebrating the imminent conclusion of his three year old daughter’s chemotherapy treatment. These tour tales and deeply personal moments mingled in with the witty asides of ‘Cheating The Game’ or the tense, quivering seven minutes of final album song ‘I Know My Love’.







Seamlessly the set continued – ‘Temptation’ as requested from the crowd, three new songs from this August’s new album "I Was A Cat In A Book" and two more older songs. The emotional swings of the first half of the set continued: the heart-breakingly raw ‘The Fire And The Flame’ about his daughter’s illness drew tears from the singer and left the crowd devastated (no over-statement) but was then followed by a surreal and improvised musical tirade against Bob Dylan, Status Quo and other ropey parts of his older brother’s record collection. This led into an unlikely, unplanned and none-too-serious cover of Motorhead’s ‘The Ace Of Spades’ which then fed into a beautiful rendition of ‘Someplace Simple’.

The emotional depth and range of the evening was beyond compare – from bonhomie and comic asides to raw vulnerability between just two songs was astonishing. I’ve seen James Yorkston many times before but tonight’s gig was one of the best. He’s clearly been through hell but thank God he can still laugh and joke and bawl and cry about it and share these moments. Truly entrancing.





The Set List

In Your Hands
St Patrick
Sweet Jesus
Tender To The Blues
Moving Up Country, Roaring The Gospel
Cheating The Game
I Spy Dogs
6.30 Is Just Way Too Early
Patience Song
I Know My Love
Temptation
Catch
‘Lately I’ve Found I’ve Struggled’
‘The Fire And The Flame’
‘Bob Dylan and Status Quo diss’
Ace Of Spades
Someplace Simple
Steady As She Goes

SHARON VAN ETTEN @ DEAF INSTITUTE 17 May 2012

This was only Sharon van Etten’s second visit to Manchester, the first being “four years ago when I played solo”. Heather Woods Broderick from three-piece backing band had been to the Deaf Institute before however with Efterklang: “it was Fancy Dress Halloween AND we had a robot war”. Well tonight may not have contained kick-ass battling androids but it was special and memorable in its own way.


I’m normally uninterested in a musician’s appearance but I was surprised to see Sharon van Etten was in 3.5 inch stiletto heels, black lacy top, red lipstick and generously applied eyeliner - my expectation was she would be as plain-dressed and monochrome as most of her press photos depict her, and that she would let her confessional songs doing the talking. Well I was half-right. ‘All I Can’ was an excellent choice of opener – a start-small, soul-bearing honesty that builds and builds into an heavy-duty, anthemic thump. Most of the set tonight, ten out of eleven songs, was from this year’s album "Tramp" which has a fuller, more atmospherically orchestrated sound. And the band – Doug Keith on guitars and Zeke Hutchins on drums completed the line-up - felt hand-picked to replicate that sound live with intricate and precise playing, multiple instrument swaps, a wedge of effects pedals and even some looped vocals and percussion.



Their studious playing contrasted well with the relaxed bonhomie between the players and with Van Etten sweetly chatty between songs – talking about quitting smoking, thanking the supports, apologising for tuning up. She was not as shy or reticent as I had heard or expected but there was a slightly gauche girlishness to her banter. Again I foolishly expected the stern and battle-hardened warrior of relationships fought, won and lost. And there was plenty of this on show – and vulnerability, raw pain and forgiveness – but it was all channelled into her songs.





The main set ended with ‘I’m Waiting’ segueing into ‘ Joke Or A Lie’. For the first part, Doug Keith used a violin bow across his guitar strings before pressing up against his amp for some epic Sonic Youth noise before this ebbed away into the sparse and direct second song. It was cleverly theatrical but still allowed both songs to speak directly to the audience. I missed not having more quieter, acoustic numbers (and no ‘Peace Signs’!) but despite a focused brevity to the set this still felt like a substantial banquet. It was also good to find that Sharon Van Etten is neither a robot nor a tortured wreck in real life, and in fact a pleasantly well-adjusted normal person who’s not adverse to a bit of slap and glam. And of course it is her heart-wrenching songs that tower high, with no heels needed for extra lift.



The Set List:

All I Can
Warsaw
Kevin’s
Don’t Do It
Give Out
Ask
Leonard
Serpents
I’m Waiting
Joke Or A Lie
---
Magic Chords

THE MISERABLE RICH @ THE DEAF INSTITUTE 20 April 2012

Writing about the debut EP from Arthur Rigby and the Baskervylles earlier this month I made a passing reference to how foppish and Edwardian their name sounded. Throwaway comment maybe but I genuinely expected to see the band playing their ornate baroque pop tonight wearing frock coats. So it was a surprise to see the five-piece version of the ensemble wearing casual checked shirts (all except the bass player who clearly missed the memo). Dress code aside, the band made a fabulous fully rounded sound together, making excellent use of electric piano and trombone (two solos in one song!) to give that sumptuous orchestral-pop roundness despite no string section tonight. Three songs from the “Tales From Pegasus Woods” EP here plus lots of others new to me but equally impressive and dramatic. Bring on the frock coats I say but more importantly bring on the debut album please.





If tonight was a first date with Arthur Rigby this was return match with Brighton’s The Miserable Rich. It was only when singer James de Malplaquet made reference to their third visit to the Deaf Institute that I realised I had seen those previous two plus the same again at other venues. “Let’s make tonight the best” he said. And the six-piece certainly tried their utmost in their own effortlessly elegant fashion: bringing their own smoke machine to accompany ghost songs, encouraging the crowd to drink toasts during new song ‘The Lighthouse’, getting someone to buy singer James a large malt whisky when he was taken by an “artistic cough” and playing songs from last year’s album “Miss You In The Days” with confidence, style and aplomb.





It was the delicate, poised chamber-pop of The Miserable Rich’s first album “Twelve Ways To Count” that first and instantly endeared me the band. It has been a long process to wean myself on to their newer, heftier - with DRUMS?! - sound but tonight was when it made sense. And I didn’t even notice the absence of first album songs in the main set. Instead ghosts, sex, death, red wine, whisky, story-telling plus a new cheery song with whistling.



The band were up against a curfew to make way for a following club night but were fairly blasé about this. At the time of said curfew, they announced they would play four more songs - two played from the stage and then the full band decamped to the venue floor for the final two encircled by the crowd. Familiarity makes me forget what genial hosts and good value The Miserable Rich are live.A swell, engrossing evening all round.

The Set List

Imperial Lines
Laid Up In Lavender
Honesty
On A Certain Night
The Lighthouse
Let Me Fade
Telephone
Chestnut Sunday
“Cheery song with whistling”
Ghost Of A Dog/Tramps
Under Glass
Pillion
Ringing The Changes

[New song?]
True Love
Monkey
Hungover