Grizzly Bear live @ Scala (Cinema), London
If you are a reader of this blog you will know that the second album released by Rufus Wainwright [new site up!], the masterpiece "Poses" from 2001, is a big favourite of mine. Back then, I predicted Rufus would ascend to superstar fame. He now has.
Regular readers will also know that the second - proper, studio - album released by Grizzly Bear, the masterpiece "Yellow House" from last year, is another favourite of mine. I still predict they will rise to superstar fame and the stellar recordings and supreme live performances are getting them there fast. I predict several successful solo careers to come out of this great ensemble, too. (They are all "operatic" singers as well as multi-instrumentalists).
I am in London en route to Paris and Nice. I am reviewing the latest of the Kit Kemp designed Firmdale Hotels, the newly opened Haymarket Hotel for a city guide and a web magazine. And I am here to see Grizzly Bear play live in a small club. Later, in the summer, I will see them again at Roskilde Festival. (Also, the celebrity whore, that I am, I want to see the Pete Doherty "Bloodworks" exhibition on Lonsdale Road. Try to find Lonsdale Road in London: there are more than four of them!).
Scala near Kings'Cross/St. Pancras station is a former art cinema - I once watched a Russ Meyer festival there, and I mean every single movie! - now turned in to a full-fledged club. The crowd is a mix of local anorak/shoegazer/vinyl record collectors types, a handful of japanese girls and some of Rufus' friends from the gay scene. Lead singer and guitarist Ed Droste is hanging out with us at the bar during the warm-up.
The small club is packed but dead quiet when Grizzly Bear enters the stage and begin their set with a couple of extremely quiet, neo-folk ballads, drenched in reverb effects with harmony singing and string strumming (guitar, bass and other small folk instruments). When I had to try to explain how Grizzly Bear sounds like to my guest, I said: "Imagine The Beach Boys meeting The Strokes...or Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young meeting Sonic Youth...or a punk rock version of The Eagles". She likes The Beach Boys and came along.
Listening to Grizzly Bear in a small club full of dedicated fans is nothing short of a magic experience. The set was short - London short, which I love - and the 12-song set ended with "Fix It" from the first album and their trademark song "On a Neck, On a Spit" [MP3 here]. In between, an intense version of the new UK single "Knife" and the new live favourite "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss)".
I think we were really struck by the lyrical content and how dark it was. Lead singer and guitarist Dan Rossen has been listening to the Phil Spector box set a lot. Apparently, one day, he said, ‘I think we need to play this song.’ A man singing it is really intriguing.
Everybody was standing there watching in awe and with London cool. I was laughing my head off. It was so beautiful, but at the same time so funny to hear their version of this classic love song.
Grizzly Bear hit me. And it felt like as kiss.
Regular readers will also know that the second - proper, studio - album released by Grizzly Bear, the masterpiece "Yellow House" from last year, is another favourite of mine. I still predict they will rise to superstar fame and the stellar recordings and supreme live performances are getting them there fast. I predict several successful solo careers to come out of this great ensemble, too. (They are all "operatic" singers as well as multi-instrumentalists).
I am in London en route to Paris and Nice. I am reviewing the latest of the Kit Kemp designed Firmdale Hotels, the newly opened Haymarket Hotel for a city guide and a web magazine. And I am here to see Grizzly Bear play live in a small club. Later, in the summer, I will see them again at Roskilde Festival. (Also, the celebrity whore, that I am, I want to see the Pete Doherty "Bloodworks" exhibition on Lonsdale Road. Try to find Lonsdale Road in London: there are more than four of them!).
Scala near Kings'Cross/St. Pancras station is a former art cinema - I once watched a Russ Meyer festival there, and I mean every single movie! - now turned in to a full-fledged club. The crowd is a mix of local anorak/shoegazer/vinyl record collectors types, a handful of japanese girls and some of Rufus' friends from the gay scene. Lead singer and guitarist Ed Droste is hanging out with us at the bar during the warm-up.
The small club is packed but dead quiet when Grizzly Bear enters the stage and begin their set with a couple of extremely quiet, neo-folk ballads, drenched in reverb effects with harmony singing and string strumming (guitar, bass and other small folk instruments). When I had to try to explain how Grizzly Bear sounds like to my guest, I said: "Imagine The Beach Boys meeting The Strokes...or Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young meeting Sonic Youth...or a punk rock version of The Eagles". She likes The Beach Boys and came along.
Listening to Grizzly Bear in a small club full of dedicated fans is nothing short of a magic experience. The set was short - London short, which I love - and the 12-song set ended with "Fix It" from the first album and their trademark song "On a Neck, On a Spit" [MP3 here]. In between, an intense version of the new UK single "Knife" and the new live favourite "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss)".
I think we were really struck by the lyrical content and how dark it was. Lead singer and guitarist Dan Rossen has been listening to the Phil Spector box set a lot. Apparently, one day, he said, ‘I think we need to play this song.’ A man singing it is really intriguing.
Everybody was standing there watching in awe and with London cool. I was laughing my head off. It was so beautiful, but at the same time so funny to hear their version of this classic love song.
Grizzly Bear hit me. And it felt like as kiss.
posted by Ronnie Rocket @ 12:32 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
I may have been cocky, but my prediction came true. Again, again.
Grizzly Bear live on David Letterman:
http://www.realvj.com/2008/08/grizzly-bear-two-weeks-letterman-show.html
rufus wainwright is hardly a "superstar" and appearing on david letterman does not make one a superstar. if it did, then buckwheat zydeco has been a superstar for years
In my part of the world (Denmark) Rufus is considered a superstar and has played all the main venues here. He may be an "artist's superstar" and the same goes for GB and so be it. They are both extremely cool artists and I feel blessed to have discovered them early in the career and are having a great time promoting them. It is not a contest. It is great music. It is great art.
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