Tag: Roundhouse

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Live Reviews Music

Eels make up for lost time

“We finally made it. Sorry for the delay,” deadpans Eels frontman Mark “E” Everett early during the band’s highly energetic, hugely entertaining Roundhouse gig.

It has been a minute — and not just since the band visited the UK. In fact, their London show is (almost) a night of firsts. It’s the first full gig they’ve played in four years (apart from Nottingham last night). It’s the first time they’ve ever played songs like Steam Engine, Amateur Hour, The Gentle Souls, and Good Night on Earth to an audience (apart from Nottingham last night). It’s the first time they’ve played the sublime title track of 2018’s The Deconstruction (apart from — well, you know the drill by now).

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Live Reviews Music

Pixies pack everything into Roundhouse gig

Blame Kurt Cobain. By nicking and mainstreaming the loud-quiet-loud dynamic of, say, Gigantic, then crediting Pixies, he effectively reduced them to one-trick ponies in popular culture. 

But the band have always been so much more, so much weirder, than simple sudden changes in volume and intensity. Their debut EP begins with a stuttering twangy surf guitar lick. It features what sounds like a folk song on meth about the “son of incestuous union”, and a pumped-up polka partly sung in Spanish.

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Live Reviews Music

The Hu rumble like thunder

It all started with the videos. Striking, cinematic, breathtaking, they’re stuffed with sweeping helicopter shots of deserts, mountains, and men playing instruments high up on rocky outcrops — not unlike those Bon Jovi and Guns N’ Roses videos from 30 years ago. But there’s no sign of Richie Sambora, Slash, or a Gibson Les Paul.

Instead, the scenery features a Mongol warrior on horseback and four musicians in traditional Mongolian costumes playing traditional Mongolian instruments, singing in Mongolian about their heritage, their history, their culture, their respect for nature, their message of unity.

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Live Reviews

Interpol turn up the urgency at Roundhouse

“Fuck yeah!” grins Paul Banks. Interpol have just played a blistering rendition of PDA — greeted with riotous bouncing, moshing, and a persistent crowd surfer upfront — to end the main set of a thrilling Roundhouse gig. It’s a show that almost never happened. Yesterday, only 45 minutes before the venue doors were set to open, the band tweeted: “Due to illness, we sadly have to cancel tonight’s show—it is our intention that tomorrow’s show will go ahead—we greatly apologize for the late nature of this announcement.”

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Live Reviews Music

The Sisters of Mercy still want more

When Andrew Eldritch roars “I want more” during the second encore of The Sisters Of Mercy’s third show in as many days, he obviously means it. Throughout his band’s final 40th anniversary London show, he’s performed with the untiring purpose of a man still looking ahead.

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Heaven 17 go back to the beginning

Album anniversary shows are meant to follow a formula. Play your biggest-selling album from start to finish, a multiple-of-five years after its release. Let fans around the world relive the big songs of their youth. Give them the chance to go to the bar or bathroom during the filler tracks. And send them home happy with a few other hits from your catalogue.

But there’s nothing formulaic about Heaven 17’s celebration of 1979’s Reproduction and the following year’s Travelogue.

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Live Reviews Music

Nick Mason serves up a Saucerful Of Secrets

Nick Mason doesn’t have to be here. Instead of hitting the road for the first time in over 20 years, the 74-year-old Pink Floyd drummer could be racing his classic cars, flying his helicopter, crafting a follow up to his meticulous autobiography Inside Out, or, frankly, doing absolutely nothing at all. With a personal fortune of some £90-million, he obviously doesn’t need the money.

Then again, neither does Spandau Ballet’s Gary Kemp, the man behind such perennials as Gold. And yet here he is too, having interrupted his own down time to sing and play on songs that soundtracked his own youth. He first saw The Floyd live in the early ‘70s and at one point confesses that, even as an aspiring guitarist, he couldn’t take his eyes off Mason “mostly because he was the only thing moving on stage”.

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Live Reviews Music

Imagine Dragons go for gold at Roundhouse

The Imagine Dragons sound is big on beats, both on record and on stage. So it’s almost expected that their encore of ‘Radioactive’ climaxes with all four band members pounding on some type of drum. Less expected is the might of lead guitarist Wayne Sermon. Relatively low-key on their albums, in concert he’s as integral to the Las Vegas quartet’s sound as Dan Reynolds’ voice and, yes, even those pounding rhythms.

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