So I am back at the intimate Bush Hall in Shepherd's Bush. I had a pretty great night here in February so the precedent has been set. Tonight it is Canadian indie singer-songwriter Dan Mangan.
I was first put on to Mr Mangan last year by one of my fellow music-loving mates, Leonie. She's one of my Dutchies and has excellent taste in music so I was more than open to her suggestion. The result was the fairly heavy rotation of Dan's 2009 album Nice, Nice, Very Nice 'NNVN' (yep it's a Kurt Vonnegut reference). It's a fun album chock full of skilfully writtenl songs about a myriad of different subjects such as robot love, pining for your home whilst on tour and how humans fit into this thing we call life. I have to say I had a great response to it do I was keen to see what Dan was going to offer up live.
I made it to the venue in time to see the last couple of songs by support group Zeus. They are a Toronto based unit so not physical comrades of Dan's (who is from Vancouver). They make plenty of noise and have a real 70s feel to them. It's not particularly ringing my bell but they get a great response from the crowd.
Dan is on at 9.30pm. He has a full band with him - drums, bass, guitar and even trumpet - and they start without ceremony. Well I say start, but to be absolutely honest it's hard to tell whether they are trying to set an ambient mood or tuning their instruments - we soon work out that it is the former and that they are in fact segueing into About as Helpful as You Can Get Without Being Any Help from his latest album Oh Fortune.
This is not the acoustic Dan Mangan I was anticipating, but I enjoy the fact that he is immediately stepping outside my expectations and pushing the audience beyond it's comfort zone. This is what a true artist should do in my opinion.
It takes the band the first couple of tunes to get into the swing of things - the songs from Oh Fortune are not as immediately accessible as those on NNVN but it's good to know that Dan is stepping outside the well delineated 'folk-rock' mould. It's a very big sound that they are bringing to the stage and I'm finding that the sound mix is not particularly great - as Thom Yorke would say it's 'buzzing like a fridge' at the back of the room where I am standing but to be fair that's not unusual in this box of a room.
The crowd also warm up sufficiently to get into NNVN track Sold. Catchy little number that one - 'it hurts, it kills, it screams' - yep sounds like a normal day at work for me! I always wonder whether the musicians I see realise that they are living the dream whilst us mere unmusical plebs deal with the rat race - these guys are at least having a good time.
Dan is active all over the stage, even dropping back to his guitar player's mic at times to do his own backing vocals (with some effect assistance).
The next highlight for me is Basket - which Dan says is a song really about birth - it's more a song about re-birth at various stages of life to me but let's not be pedantic about these things! This song showcases Dan's songwriting talents - the lyrics are incredibly visual and compassionate at the same time:
"We are old And our son took the dog away And fair enough, guess we're tired all the time All the time And you know dogs they need ample time outside"
This is closely followed by an all in singalong to one of Dan's most well-known tunes - Robots. I love this track and the audience are well up for some backing vocal duties.
Somehow we've managed to wizz through the set and an hour and bit bin we are already heading towards the 11pm curfew time and Dan notes that the standard action would be for them to leave the stage and come back on however its his view that the best use of their time is to ditch the encore break and just play to the curfew- I am down with that!
We are back into some more NNVN territory with Fair Verona where Dan is cut and pasting the starts to his heart - the boy has got some charisma and he's working it overtime at the moment.
He then invites the members of Zeus back on to the stage for a rendition of Elliott Smith's Waltz #2. It's a cool cover and the stage is suddenly very full of Canadians tearing it up.
Dan saves the best for last - he declares that he is coming on down into the crowd to get amongst it and then gives us some specific backing vocal duties - there's no words, it's just a melody which he is going to sing over and off he goes into So Much For Everyone. It sounds fabulous and the audience collectively decide to really bring it. I live for this shit at gigs - it's entirely engaging and this last five minutes is worth the ticket price alone.
Dan has certainly showcased his talents tonight and I'm glad to have had an opportunity to see him at such close quarters.
I've had myself another night of musical goodness at Bush Hall for a tenner - long may this trend continue!
So this gig came completely out the blue for me - just the way I like them!
It was a little surprising given that I regularly keep my eye on the listings for this venue (Bush Hall) and this gig ended up involving not one but two Irish artists and I am normally all over anything musical and Irish that comes through London.
In any event, a tweet from Glen Hansard a few days before brings this gig directly to my attention. Glen says he's going to be in London and was planning on coming to this show anyway to support his mate Bronagh so seeing he's going to be there, he's going to strap on The Horse (aka his guitar) and do a few tunes to open up - RESULT!!
I don't know a lot about Bronagh's musical leanings - I've only heard and seen her acting exploits so I'm looking forward to seeing what she is going to dish up. A further carrot (not that one is needed!) is that Graham Hopkins from The Frames is part of Bronagh's band so it's an all in Irish-fest in London - woot!
Bush Hall is set up tonight with tables and chairs - it's the laid back blues club kind of feel which I don't experience at shows often. I'm more than happy to be able to sit around with my mates and put my glass of wine on the table as opposed to standing for several hours.
Glen is on around 8.10pm and starts with the traditional acapella tome Spencer the Rover. I'm always amused to hear Glen do this piece - it works as a nice self- assessment and makes me wonder how many frequent flyer miles Glen himself has from his constant international roving!
We then move on to a couple of Swell Season numbers - Low Rising and In These Arms. When these songs are stripped down it gives you an opportunity to consider their construction and their lyrics. For someone who claims that he doesn't spend a lot of time writing lyrics there are some real 'Cohenesque' pearlers in there - one of my favourites being the opening line of In These Arms:
'Use the truth as a weapon to beat up all your friends'
Glen then introduces a song new he calls Bird of Sorrow and says it's for his Ma. I actually heard Glen perform this song in Basel last year but it wasn't anywhere near as developed as this version which is gobsmackingly good. Glen projects magnificently on this towards the end and the addition of a powerful foot stamp which resonates through the stage floor really makes it riveting. This 5 minutes is more than worth my £10 ticket for tonight and I'm delighted to hear that this will be on Glen's upcoming solo album - it can't come out soon enough for me! I have taken video of this performance but in keeping with Glen's wishes y'all gonna have to wait until the album's out for me to share it.
UPDATE: The album is now out so here is the video:
Glen finishes his 6 song opening set with two other newish songs - Lover Don't Keep Me Waiting and Song of Good Hope. These songs have flown by and it leaves me longing for some European Glen solo dates - patience is a virtue I'm a tad short on at present!
Bronagh is on around 9pm and to my complete surprise brings on a full band and by full band I mean drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, sax, trumpet and two backing singers - the stage is suddenly chokka block full of Irish men and women -and I wonder has there ever been this many people on stage at Bush Hall?
Fittingly the first song is called Here They Go - and go they do!
Not knowing what to expect I am impressed to hear Bronagh's low soulful voice imploring the audience to 'look inside yourself and no-one else'. I'm sitting very comfortably at a nice table with a glass of vino and a complete soul band dishing out great tunes - this is awesome!
They take a long road into the short cut next with a song aptly titled Short Cut. The band sound really good - I don't know how long they have been together but it's pretty tight so far. This is helped in no short part by Graham Hopkins who is playing his part as the engine of this Irish soul train with beautiful touch. He's a force but isn't overpowering and it goes to show how important a really good drummer is to a band's dynamic because the band appear to be working really well onstage - everyone is having a good time and as an audience member that's what you want to see. There is nothing worse than sitting through a performance where the artist and band do no more than 'pose out' and/or look miserable.
Next up is a song called Mexico which Bronagh says is about Mexican rockabillys - I love it - it's a romantic tale where the protagonist of the story:
'Took her hand by the guacamole taco bar'
Awesome - where's the tequila? :)
A couple of songs later we move into the soul diva section of the set with Bronagh giving us her Aretha ode in the form of Love is Going to Find You. It's clear that this is where Bronagh's passion lies and her dedication to honouring the soul greats in her own way through song is infectious and this number really gets the crowd going. Bronagh declares: 'We white but we awwright'. I particularly enjoy the reference to woman in Whelans and so does the vast majority of the crowd - it seems that there are a lot of friends and family present and Bronagh remarks on more than one occasion that she can feel the love in the room. It helps that her band members include close friends and even family (like her god-daughter on backing vocals).
The tracks closing out the main set cover fairytales, 70s rockstars and a Dolly/Hank/Willie ode - this mixture of country, blues and soul has dominated the evening.
They finish up with Bronagh's new single 'Fool'. She happily advises that it is available for free download as of midnight (anyone interested should go get it here: http://www.bronaghgallagher.com/) and it's easily the poppiest soul song of the set and - at Bronagh's insistence - THE dance number of the night.
The encore break is lightning fast and within a couple of minutes the band is back on and delving into a Gladys Knights cover - If I Was Your Woman. It's a great song and a fitting choice for Bronagh given the dedication to the soul queens she has shown tonight. That is closely followed by another cover - You Got a Friend - where some audience participation by way of singalong is requested. We oblige and it ends easily one of the best nights I've had out in London for a tenner in a long time - but then again it's unusual for me not to have a good night where Irish musicians are involved!!
Go raibh maith agaibh (it's thank you in Gaelic - yeah I looked it up!)
