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Phosphorescent, Friendly Fires and me reviewed
My first gig for top Birmingham music promoters Capsule was a great pleasure yesterday.
For my set, I was a little taken aback at first by how quiet the audience were – very attentive and polite. Probably because it was in a pub – albeit in the venue room of what is certainly one of Birmingham’s very bext music pubs – I suppose I expected it to be more lively – but actually the gentle mood suited the line up very well.
If the Capsule ladies ask me back, I may well with what was my first thought for this gig – since attendees at a Capsule gig are likely to be fairly seriously into music - and take the chance to do a fully instrumental set, but instead I played what is currently my established set for acoustic nights and such – mostly my songs, with just a couple of my instrumentals.
Next Up – Friendly Fire built on the chilled mood, with moments of intensity and neat combination of modern, geekdom and classic 70s American folk rock.
Finally Phosphorescent took the stage – not totally at their ease for several songs, perhaps in part due to having travelled down from Glasgow in the day and arriving a bit late – but their relationship with the crowd progressed as the night went on. Some superb musicianship was on display from all six members, comprising piano, soulful lead guitar, beautiful and haunting pedal steel as well as bass, drums and rhythm.
The sound was amazing – a great PA in there with Bartram ably and assuredly handling the controls as always.
Here’s a good review of the show, with pics by Katya Ogrin (one of which Ive borrowed for this post) over on brumlive.com
