I believe there was a third band tonight, but I'm afraid I missed them due to being asleep. Well I was tired!
So Euphone are the first "band". Which is stretching it in some ways, as it's a drummer and bassist only, with samples and other technology providing the backing. To be honest, it didn't work live for me. It felt like an elongated rhythm section solo, with the focus on the drums, playing along to a backing tape. On record it may work better where you allow it to drift along to whatever your doing, but here where your focus is aimed firmly in one direction, there's no visual engagement, and the music is fragmented. It's also difficult for me to make an accurate reference to it. I did think a few times of New Wet Kojak without the sax, but that could well be waaaay off the mark. Did little for me, but I saw a number of people clutching newly purchased copies of the album shortly afterwards, and they did receive a rousing reception, so maybe I just don't have the right mindset for it.
And to be honest, Jets To Brazil were slightly disappointing. From the opening of Lemon Yellow Black they were fine musically, but it just didn't have that extra spark that I was hoping for. There's hints of something special on the album, but it didn't translate live for me. They were good, but they were workmanlike. There's also the problem that the set list, like the album running order, seemed unbalanced to me, meaning that we get the slow more introspective songs in one lump towards the end, and as good as the likes of I Typed For Miles and Sea Anemone in particular are, it just felt that things lost momentum. There's a couple of new tracks offered up tonight, which again sound good but without that little extra special something. By the time they make it to record they may well become so, we'll see. It's not helped by the fact that although the place is seemingly pretty close to a sell out, with people transfixed, there's no real atmosphere. At least I didn't sense it. And there's like 3 different conversations going on around me at different times. Tracks such as Morning New Disease, are good even without that spark, simply because they're good songs. But I dunno, it just felt that this one was good, but could've been soooo much better. And it's cut short once more due to the 11pm curfew. It's not the fault of the bands or the management, but people do know that this curfew exists, and so it shouldn't pose major problems, but that's the second time this week it's interrupted a gig.