I had two events to hit last night, so I couldn’t stay as long as I wanted to watch a whole list of talented Swedish singers perform as part of a Birds Will Sing For You showcase but the couple of songs I managed to watch Cajsa Siik were beautiful.
Others on the night were Ms. Henrik and The Fiery Piano.
Just back from seeing Mutya Keisha Siobhan (i.e. the original Sugababes) launch their comeback at London’s Scala. They mixed up the classics like ‘Overload’ and ‘Run for Cover‘ along with new tracks from their upcoming record (including the brilliant ‘Flatline’).
It’s probably going to be the gig of the year for me. Maybe it’s because I have so much emotional attachment to these girls from my teens. Or maybe just because the world forgot how amazing they were and got reminded of it. I’m so happy they’re back. MKS all the way!
Ahead of releasing his ‘Lost’ EP, I caught Tom Dibb in London last night to watch him perform his unique mix of folk, acoustic, reggae and pop. Great show.
Immense is not a word I use often when I describe most showcases- but Kim Cesarion was out of control this evening at The Social in London. Huge voice, heavy beats and a big sound.This is one Swedish export that will go global very fast.
Last night I went to catch Man Like Me’s album launch party for their new record, Pillow Talk, out now. The single ‘Sleaze’ is out March 18th. Get it.
I caught a mini showcase yesterday and saw Jetta do a few tracks in front of a crowd at the Roundhouse. Was immense. You have to catch this girl live before she gets huge!
This gig happened on Wednesday but I’ve been so busy this is the first chance I’ve been able to put a couple of pictures up. This man is a musical legend in my eyes. I think he was as confused as we all were during this set, but whatever sounds came out of the speakers was genius.
I’ve been to Bush Hall more times than I can remember (I even based my university dissertation on the place), but I don’t think I’ve seen it so beautifully lit up as it was tonight. Such a great show, and the crowd there was loving every minute of it. This was French pop at it’s most fabulous and campest. Check him out!
I don’t want to say much about what I saw Woodkid do this evening at the Southbank Centre, just because it was indescribably huge and needs to be experienced in the real. All I can say though is… awe-inspiringly epic and perfect. Probably one of the best gigs I’ve been to, period.
Aiden Grimshaw’s brilliant debut album ‘Misty Eye’ is officially out today (click here for my verdict), so an album launch was held in Cargo London to celebrate.
I only managed to get in late to the venue but I was impressed by how well the songs carried themselves live.
Aiden’s awesome, I really hope this album does well and enough people realise how ridiculously talented this kid is!
I managed to catch a short set by Bo Saris last night at Proud Camden in London. There’s a lot of Amy Winehouse in his sound, which is a only a good thing in my books. Looking forward to hearing more from this guy. If you get a chance to see him live you have to go!
I had some tickets organised for me on Friday to see Juan Zelada at the amazingly beautiful (and super warm) Bush Hall in London. I wasn’t expecting this gig to be as good as it turned out to be, which was a really good surprise.
This guy’s full of mad energy, and his tracks really kick to life when they’re played live. See him if you can, it’s fun!
Sometimes friends let you down in a massive way. Yesterday evening was one such. I got blown out by a buddy minutes before heading to see Oh Land in Heaven London. I was gutted and annoyed. But I still went. Alone. And I sort of forgot all my frustration for a couple of hours because this lady is out of control. She drove everyone wild with her tribal beats and cute Danish voice. Catch her if you can.
Firstly, sorry for the shit pics again. I think I’m just going to start getting press passes and risk it with my Sony NEX from now on…
I’ve just realised that I haven’t been to a proper gig in months. This scares me a bit as I usually go at least once a week to something. I guess I’ve just been either super busy or super skint. But anyway, Man Like Me are an amazing band and I was excited to catch them live tonight (to launch their new single, Peculiar’) because I just knew that they would blow the roof off. And they did. I don’t really know how to sum it all up other than there was lots of sweat, brass, face make-up and mad dancing.
Think Madness mixed with The Streets and you get Man Like Me. Biggest moment was ‘London Town‘ playing at the end, and the start and finish when the whole brass band raved it through crowds to get to the stage. I caught a bit of Caan who was playing support- amazing as always.
I mentioned Waylayers last month on here, although I had seen them once before in a line-up supporting Yelle at Electrowerkz back in March. I like their indie/electro/pop fusion thing they’ve got going on- and it works well live too. Considering they haven’t been around for long they look to be very promising.
And apologies about the pictures. I brought a new camera but it’s turned out worse than the older one. But on the bright side it looks a lot sexier. I think I’m doomed with cameras…
First featured on here back in May, I saw Kill Van Kulls tonight in London’s tiny Social, off Oxford Street. They had such a big sound for a venue so small which was fun to see. Their sound is sort of epic, anthemic British indie, but in my view it really kicks off when they experiment with their beats and percussions. Sort of ‘The Hurts‘ but with balls. Highlights were their new single, ‘Lost and Found’, as well as ‘Wooden Heart’ and ‘Impossible Man’. Try to see them if you can- they’re good.
Just back from seeing Professor Green (with support from Ed Drewett) at Somerset House in London. It’s a bit of an unusual place to have a gig like this, but that made it all the more fun. Was very good. Previews of Green’s new material were really very good- I have a feeling his next album (out in October) will be tons better than the first one (although that was pretty good too). He played my favourite track on the album, the hugely ‘Goodnight‘, which was awesome. Another highlight was an appearance of Emeli Sandé. Can’t wait to see more of this girl!
I was in two minds about seeing Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs last night. If you don’t live in London I’ll tell you that the weather has been disgusting- it’s just been raining like mad. But I went anyway. It was probably the best gig of the year.
Totally blown away! I mean, it was just him fiddling about on some machines while some crazy girl dancers went a bit wild to the beats but I shuffled like mad. You have to check him out live- he will blow your mind! I think it’s those big hats he wears or something, but it’s pure genius.
There’s been a lot of buzz for this Aussie electropop duo. They’re in London to play some gigs and I caught them last night in Hoxton to see what all the fuss was about. They’re good live, I guess I’d call the whole thing ‘cute.’ The tracks are fun, but they also diversified and played Tom Petty‘s ‘Freefalling’ without one electro pulse in sight, which was refreshing.
Most of the crowd seemed to be Aussie too, so I can totally see these guys making a bit of an impact here. One of the other acts playing just before them, Caan, was exceptional. Will feature him!
Tim Schou, aka the lead singer from one of Denmark’s hottest new bands, A Friend In London, stopped by in London to play a short set of tracks for his biggest UK fans at UCLU. We were lucky enough to catch him for ten minutes and ask him a few questions! You can read what Tim said, or watch the video at the end of the post. There’s also pics from the gig on Flickr, and a of video on our Youtube channel right now.
We’ve got Tim from A Friend In London who were this years Danish entry for Eurovision, you guys came in 5th – was that the result you wanted?
Tim – We definitely went for the number one but it didn’t turn out that way but we’re satisfied and it opened up a really big market for us inEurope so it’s all we can ask.
What did you think of Azerbaijan winning?
Tim – I think it’s a good pop melody and the first time I heard it I thought ‘Ok that’s kinda a little like Timbaland production thing- you can almost hear Timbaland singing in the studio’ so I think it was pretty good and that’s the last thing I could hope when I see that ‘ok we stand no chance of winning this’ then it has to be Azerbaijan.
You’re in London today, doing a gig – what’s the reason for coming here?
Tim – The number one reason is for my fans. After Eurovision I experienced a lot of traffic on my Twitter and I just built my Twitter fourteen days before Eurovision and there’s really heavy traffic there and all these fans from all around Europe, and because I was touring in London two years before and I always loved touring in London.
I could see there was a crowd for me in London, and people were writing me on Twitter saying they would love to fly over to hear me in London so I thought ‘Ok lets do it’, so we’re putting on this free show, giving out free tickets for fans, just a way for me to say thank you for supporting and hope you’re in it for the long haul- because I am!
Where’s the rest of the band now?
Tim – Ash, he’s in New York to scout out a few places, and Sebastian and Esben are writing songs for the new album.
Did you ever think you would end up where you are now after Eurovsion, playing gigs all around Europe?
Tim – I have to say yes, because that’s been the whole idea from the start when we said yes to do the Danish Eurovision, and it’s been the goal for us to tour around the world. It’s so nice to see the gigs in Europe.
What made you want to apply for Eurovision in the first place?
Tim – It came out of the blue- like really out of the blue. We were called by a publisher who had this song; ‘New Tomorrow’ and we’ve always been writing all the songs in the band, in the past six years, from the day we started.
And then we got this opportunity to stand up in front of two million people inDenmarkand play this song. But we were like ‘Hey we can’t play a song that’s not our own,’ but we heard the song and we thought it was good and we could see ourselves playing it most importantly. So we told them that if we were doing this then we would need to arrange the song and we would need to do give it a more ‘A Friend In London feeling’ and they said ‘Ok guys – do it!’
Were you well known in Denmark before you applied for Eurovision?
Tim – We were getting a pretty cool buzz, and we’ve been touring inCanada three or four times now and feeling a good buzz over there too. So things were really looking good for us before Eurovision, but then after we did it we just got even more of a buzz.
Would you ever do Eurovision again?
Tim – This is something you can hold me up to in five years, but I think no. Because the thing about A Friend In London is that we’re a live band, and we started out by being the four of us playing. The first concert we did I was I think after one rehearsal, playing all new material playing live on the stage. And that’s where we belong and being out there with the fans. In Eurovision you can’t get contact with the fans because it’s a TV box – a TV bubble. So I guess it’ll be a no.
Denmark normally does quite well – I guess it’s a big deal in Denmark?
Tim – Yes it’s a proud tradition, it’s a great tradition. At the same time which was also why we had all these thoughts about doing it, there’s a lot of clichés that I guess are there too in England?
Lately we have been trying to take it more seriously, but generally in the UK we don’t really see it as a serious thing.
Tim – Exactly and that’s one of the reasons we chose to do it, because we were like ‘Hey no one can tell us where we can play our music, and what is allowed and what’s not allowed.’ And what happened was we really turned the coin. We slapped their asses man, and people were like ‘Whoa what’s up with this British rock sounding indie band who just turn up to this really commercial thing.’
And I think it puts some thoughts into other bands in our genre who think ‘Ok well there’s two million people watching the Danish Eurovision show,’ and its all about doing it for real and being honest with the music and not caring about what people think.
You’re big in Canada and Denmark. Alfitude.com is all about new music, so is there anything happening in Canada or Denmark that’s worth listening to right now?
Tim – I’m really bad with names but I don’t know if you’ve heard of the Danish singer/ songwriter Mads Langer? He just came out with a new album called ‘Behold’. It’s pretty good. And it’s got four tracks that were on the last album- because it’s his first international released album. He’s an amazing singer. If you don’t know him you should check him out!
What’s next for you guys?
Tim – We’re going to finish our Danish tour – but we have a ‘break’ and I say a ‘break’ because were going to record our debut album in Canada actually. So we’re leaving June 26th and coming back July 15th and then hopefully we’ve got some songs.
Is it a world wide release?
Tim – Yes.
And what sound are you going for?
Tim – I like to say it’s all the way from the universe of Justin Bieber to the universe of Radiohead. I’ve always been really fond with these pop melodies and pop to the bone, and really like the mysterious ways of how you can play the different chords in a very British way. So it’s gonna be a good mixture!
Are you looking forward to tonight?
Tim – I really am! I can’t wait to see if people really are flying out from Holland and Sweden like they said they would!
