Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Revue a go go...

Mark Ronson does it live, oh he so does....what a terrific night last Friday at The Hammersmith Carling Apollo when Mark Ronson visited on the London leg of his mini tour.
The whole evening consisted of nearly 4 hours of live music. 1st support slot went to 'Dan le sac vs Scroobius Pip' who were amazing...I always describe him as an electronic and more vitriolic 'Streets'...his set featured his singles 'thou shalt always kill' 'The beat that my heart skipped' and 'Letter to God'..he was charismatic and deserved a larger audience although the keen ones(including me and lisa) who did manage to get in first were treated to a very cool set from someone who could quite possibly be a name for 2008.

The Beat That My Heart Skipped.

2nd Support slot went to the utterly fabulous 'Rumble Strips' who very much reminded me of the 'Farmers Boys' for the 00'ies. The rumbles have a very cute lead singer called Charlie who is very charismatic and holds the band together extremely well...the set consisted of material from the recently released Debut album. The horn section were terrific and the guys kept the atmosphere on top as they entertained us for about 40 minutes.

Alarm Clock

Mark Ronson then took to the stage at around 9.20 and presented his revue for the next hour and three quarters. Mark is a great producer and an adequate guitarist but his arrangements of songs are what he does best and all of his guest starts such as Daniel Merriweather, Candy Paine and Tim Burgess (from the Charlatans)laid testament to that fact on Friday night, it really took the format of Guest comes out, guest does the track or two off the album 'Version' and then guest does a song off their own album or single...it really worked...it harkened back to the days of the Motown revue etc... where a house band would play with the featured vocalists taking it in turn. This was not only something I had not seen in a long time, but it was also something that I think worked extremely well especially when hosted by the very good looking Mr personality who was Mark Ronson.
I have one gripe...the sound was quite muddled which was a shame...the vocalist were too 'in the mix' with the music which made it very hard to hear clear lyrics or the onstage repartee that went on between guests and Ronson. I thought that this might be one point that we would not have to worry about with Mark being a producer but no..the sound was dodgy...the stage was a spectacle though so what the hell!

Charlie and Mark doing 'Back to Black'

Sweet baby Jesus...it was a good night :)

ciao xx

No comments: