PrettyInScarlett

After Karkwa's excellent show on Thursday, we were eagerly awaiting the triple bill of Austra , Young Galaxy and Tasseomancy on Saturday 3rd... not to mention Feist! We first saw Tasseomancy in April supporting Timber Timbre ; I was impressed by them then. This time, the songs were still excellent (I've since listened to their new album Ulalume , which is superb) but their dreaminess seemed a tiny bit lost in Ritual.  They had a reasonable reception but I'm not sure how many concertgoers were familiar with their stuff. Young Galaxy In my mind Young Galaxy were equally as big a draw as Austra. Definitely an eagerly awaited set after muptiple spins of Shapeshifting ! Like Tasseomancy, Young Galaxy were limited to 30 minutes of performance; starting with 'Blowminded' and 'Long Live The Fallen World' certainly charged up the crowd! The rest of the set included songs like 'Peripheral Visionaries', 'We Have Everything' and 'Cover Y...

I have finally sorted out my site links to reflect some new/renewed interests and my current location. We have something of a National Arts Centre bonanza shortly: I had already booked to see Angela Hewitt on 16th Feb but found a good ticket offer on LivingSocial.com to see Radu Lupu this coming Wednesday, 26th. In addition to all that, New Yorker music critic Alex Ross (his recent book, Listen To This , is excellent, as well as his previous tome, The Rest Is Noise ) is giving a talk there on 13th February. This is all followed in March by a complete about turn to the Bronson Centre to see Finnish band Apocalyptica . They have been somewhere on my radar for a while but I was spurred on to book tickets after a bout of nostalgia. M and I were regular visitors to Wolverhampton UK to see various bands at Civic Hall/Wulfrun Hall; a few months ago a mutual friend posted on that there Facebook thing about seeing said Apocalyptica at Wulfrun Hall. Nostalgia for the venue and renewed intere...

Time again for the periodic trip to Wolverhampton. The last few visits (Nov 2008- Sigur Rós, Jan 2009- Seasick Steve) were to Civic Hall, but 28th April was to the smaller sister venue Wulfrun Hall. We hadn't been there for (I believe, don't really want to count!) 5 years, and in a lot of ways it is a better venue than the Civic -more intimate but still good acoustics. The reason for this trip was to see Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (BRMC). I somehow want to write 'underground', but as the show was a sellout and I believe many of the other dates were/are too, maybe 'ignored by the media' will suffice. Certainly I can't recall reading much about them recently, however over the years there's been a steady stream of albums with a few varying styles. M and I saw BRMC separately back in 2003 and enjoyed the band's live sets then. Amazingly, BRMC's website has their entire 'gigography' online, so according to them the respective dates were 4th...

Wolverhampton may not be the most exciting place to be, but it certainly gained some sparkle on 4th November as Sigur Rós came to town. M and I have been waiting for a while for this show, and it was more than worth the wait! A packed-out Civic Hall first showed their appreciation for fellow Icelandic band For a Minor Reflection , who from their chat are new to large shows. Initially I was a bit underwhelmed by this 4 piece, but they grew on me. Most of the crowd seemed to know them or had at least checked out myspace, as the short set was well received. No tardiness for Sigur Rós, they came on prompt at 9pm and played for 2hrs 45 minutes. No slouching on quality either, the sound set up was very good and there was some innovative use of two projectors and backdrops; at one point, there was a projection from various cameras set at or underneath the instruments! The lighting had been set up for maximum atmospheric effect, starting off with subdued yellow lights so the stage was very di...