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Bishop Allen / Slow Club / Fireworks Night
London, The Gramaphone
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Article
written by Paul M
Dec 9, 2007.
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Sunday is not my idea of the perfect night for a gig but the rare chance to catch Brooklyn’s Bishop Allen in Blighty is too good to miss. The Gramaphone is a new venue to me (and yes, that is how they spell it). Situated in the basement of a Victorian building on the frankly scary after dusk, prostitute patrolling, Commercial Street, near Spitalfields, it’s only a bus ride away for the Shoreditch fashionistas but the back of beyond for those of us who inhabit the outer caves of South London.
Inside, it’s a nice size (it holds about 100) but it’s not an ideal layout. The sound’s not too bad but the room is split by ceiling supporting columns that mean that only those in the half with the performers in can see them and even then with the stage being no more than a few inches off the ground, it’s only really the top of their heads. Things are made even more silly for Fireworks Night as those in the stage side decide to sit down throughout meaning even less of us can see the band. Grrr! Still it doesn’t ruin the experience and there’s a hush in the venue, a necessary requirement to appreciate these guys (GUYs? Fireworks Night? Geddit, fer Fawkes sake?!). They do a set of slow brooding material, most of which commences at an almost whisper before bursting into an explosion of keyboards, cello and violin. It’s too subtle to be gypsy punk and possibly even too orchestral to be folk, but anyway, whatever you call it, it’s bloody good.
On the back of a couple of cracking limited singles, Slow Club, are certainly not here to just make up the numbers. They’re a boy/girl call/response vocal duo, him on guitar and her stand up percussion, who perform catchy skiffle pop, pitching the cowpunk songs of, say, the Boothill Foottappers and the pacy clip clopping percussion of Tilly and the Wall or early Pogues. Recent release Me and You is a brilliant riot of handclaps, yelps and galloping rhythms. They’re enjoying themselves so much that during one track they get a fit of the giggles but we don’t mind as we’re all already smiling along too. Indeed I’m still grinning five minutes after they’ve finished. Let’s blame the draught cider.
This is a real whirlwind tour of Europe for Bishop Allen, taking in only 2 UK dates; the other is Tamworth of all places which even an American band realise is an odd place to pitch up in (unsurprisingly they tell us they prefer London!). The venue’s thinned out a little, meaning by now and we can all squeeze into the part that can actually see what’s going on at last. We witness the third decent performance of the night, a mini stage invasion (one very drunk girl) and a hatful of bouncy preppy pop songs. One’s so infectious it’s already been picked up by Sony for a TV campaign (Click Click Click Click) and it’s likely that next time they hit our shores they’ll be playing considerably bigger venues than this little place in east London. Most people who see them tonight will no doubt happily be back then too.
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