I went to see
Idlewild last Thursday night at
ULU in London. Despite having been together for more than 10 years the band still look remarkably young, not least lead singer Roddy
Woomble who was
looking rather dashing in a shirt/jeans/pointy shoes combo. Lead guitarist Bob was sporting his 'summer wardrobe' which
seemed to consist of light blue garments only. Anyway clearly the band had spent all their many on their new clothes, because they decided they couldn't afford a support band. Instead they took to the stage roundabout 8:30pm with acoustic guitars and bass and proceeded to play a short but sweet acoustic set and effectively support themselves. Highlights included a beautiful performance of El
Capitan and American English. I think about a third of the audience wouldn't have minded if they played unplugged for the whole evening, a third were itching for electric guitars and drums, and a third didn't realise until about 3 songs in that the band on stage were actually
Idlewild. But that's a London crowd for you. After 'sitting in a room for a wee while' the band returned fully plugged in and with a ridiculous hike in volume. Launching into a
frenzied set that included old favourites, B-sides, rarities and the odd actual hit, it seems
Idlewild have almost come full circle on themselves. Their first 2 albums were rather post-punk, heavy sounding affairs, with Roddy plumping for a more Americanised accent than his native Scottish. More recent albums, Warnings/Promises and The Remote Part have seen the band embrace their Scottish roots and mellow somewhat, making more lilting, folk music, but still with that unique
Idlewild soaring sound. Roddy released his solo album, full of traditional Scottish folk music, and mainly all acoustic. Naturally when touring the last two albums, the band played heavily from both, with fairly little old material aside from the ones they couldn't get away with omitting, like
Roseability. However, having caught them live a couple of years ago, and last week, the band are now playing more material from their earlier albums, giving a completely different dynamic to their shows. It's almost like they feel they need to prove they're still young and rock n roll. None the less, it makes for an engaging and certainly energetic performance, resulting in much crowd-surfing and over-familiarity at the front, mainly participated in by men who are old enough to know better, and were clearly there first time round. Playing for close to 2 hours
altold,
Idlewild prove they certainly haven't lost their touch later in life, and are just as passionate and rock n roll as when they first began with 'Chandelier', which
received one of the biggest cheers of the night.
Also, from my rather enjoyable vantage point in the front row of the balcony upstairs (who knew there was a balcony at ULU?! Not me until Thursday) I was able to get some half decent pictures, and a more than half decent view of the entire stage.
In other news...started my new job last Thursday in a rather disorganised, shambolic fashion. My boss was 45 minutes late and then she literally chucked me in the room with the kids, luckily there were other play workers present! However, I don't have a staff t-shirt, ID card, time sheet... I don't even know what my hourly rate is. I really should've gone looking for her when I finished at 6 but I had to get to London for the Idlewild show... and I would've been kicking myself if I hadn't made it in time for their 'support'. So she e-mailed my mum to ask if I could work tomorrow and Tuesday... clearly she didn't even have a contact number for me. Hopefully things will get sorted tomorrow... although I can't even remember how to get to the room the kids are in.
I saw my lovely cousin in a production of Oliver! on Saturday night. She's only 11, so naturally the part of Nancy would've been a bit ambitious for her, but she was a brilliant workhouse girl/flower girl/general chorus girl. And kudos to all of them for performing it all week and then two shows on Saturday without collapsing. My aunt, who had been acting as matron (not in the show, backstage...the kids have to have one 'matron' to a certain number, generally just a looker-after!) and seemed to be absolutely exhausted! The guy who played Fagin was cracking, he had the weird eyes and did a brilliant Russian/Jewish accent. And was probably quite young as it was a youth theatre production. What fun musical theatre is, dahlings...
Toodles
No comments:
Post a Comment