The number of gigs where the temperature is quite cold is probably much smaller than the amount of hot gigs. When I saw Turin Brakes in 2007, playing in a small pub called The Lock Tavern it was hot. Hotter than last night even but The Lock Tavern was in July, last night, mid-April was quite hot for an April gig. Hotter than I had anticipated, so by the time the first encore came along, I was desperate for a drink. And I had a cold. And then we had to sing along to Rocket Song, not the greatest situation to be in. But some noise came out of my throat, so that’s something at least.
Despite the fact that the show was sold out, it wasn’t really busy when Kate Walsh took the stage. Perhaps due to the early start time (it hadn’t even been 7.30 pm yet when Kate took the stage), people were still entering the venue. The result was a lot of squeaking from the wooden floor – and some laughter from Kate herself when someone actually dropped a plastic cup on the floor. She played a good set, though the previous time I saw her life I think her voice was in better shape and she also seemed a bit less into it than Canterbury last year. But that seems quite natural if half of the audience is paying attention and the other half is still coming in. She played some lovely, quiet songs like As He Pleases, Fireworks, The Seafarer and the duet with Olly that was a solo effort tonight: Greatest Love. Shame Olly and Kate didn’t do the duet together, it would have gone down even better.
About 15-20 minutes past 8 Turin Brakes. They had been rehearsing next to the stage for a while, which some of the audience could see, but it took them forever to come on stage. They clarified: “We were trying to make a professional entrance.” But they gave up eventually. Sea Change proved to be a great opener though, starting off nice and cool, then slowly evolving into a heavy, intense song which got some heads nodding. Gale started playing an African drum during the second half, which really added something. This song is so great with proper live drums by Rob (Allum) and Gale. The next song immediately started off with a glitch: Gale played a wrong chord in the Mind over Money intro and after some laughter said: “Oh well, let’s just do it without the piano.” That was the start of a gig where both audience and band seemed comfortable. The band seemed to win over the audience by playing Mirror, as the fourth song without the help of electronics. After that it was a long and nice road full of songs like, ehm, The Road, Fishing For A Dream, Dark on Fire, Long Distance, Painkiller, Apocolyps and Never Stops. The set ended with Slack, after which the band went off stage for several minutes.
Eventually though, Olly came back on to play Outbursts. Before the end of the song he was joined by the rest of the band (Gale, Ed and Phil). The audience was really quiet during the songs, while quite cheery (especially during the second half) in between. So when, after an audience supported version of Rocket Song and Underdog (Save Me), Olly quickly said: “Let us know if you want another one.” Well: the audience did want another one. And thus another encore was played, featuring Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (by Neil Young, recorded on the TB covers EP) and State of Things, which seemed like a perfect way to end the gig. The band however decided against it and ended with a very nice version of Future Boy.
So all in all: a great gig, that definitely left me wanting more.
Sea Change
Mind Over Money
The Road
Mirror
Feeling Oblivion
Emergency 72
Apocolyps
Painkiller
Fishing For A Dream
Dark on Fire
Radio Silence
Long Distance
Slack
—-
Outbursts
Rocket Song
Underdog (Save Me)
—-
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
State Of Things
Future Boy
Pingback: Amsterdam gig review | Ether Site