I love the Oude Zaal in the Melkweg and this was the first time I’ve seen a solo artist headlining there. He really commanded the full stage, stalking about like a singing acoustisaurus on his skinny legs, sometimes stepping forward to invade the private space of fans at the foot of the stage. He’s a wonderful guitarist, with some Nick Drake-like finger picking mixed in with percussive strumming. I was only familiar with the songs from The Wild Hunt beforehand, so they were the highlights for me – particularly King of Spain. But just about everything was good. He finished up the main set with a couple of new songs, on one of which he was joined by (I guess) his girlfriend for a lovely love-duet.

I certainly recommend seeing him live if you ever have the chance – the records don’t really do him justice I think.

Support came from the Nurses, an electro-pop trio. Nadine rightly pointed out that they were a bit Shins-like, although only if James Mercer lost the ability to string a sentence together. Other bands that crossed my mind while listening were The Incredible String Band and The Beta Band. Not much in the way of lyrics, but plenty of catchy melody lines and some nice sounds from the various keyboards and noise boxes that joined the electric guitar and drums. I’m not certain the sound guy was on top of things as I’m sure we weren’t hearing the drums properly. But a worthy support act for TTMoE, who clearly is a big fan of theirs, as he dedicated a song to them in his own set later.

Nice way to spend a Thursday evening!

It was another cover, Summer In The City, that kicked the second half of their set (i.e. my fourth quarter…stay with me!) to life. Prior to that the songs, even though a mix of tempos, were just a bit boring. The slow ones didn’t really go anywhere and the faster, louder ones didn’t really ever off. But from about halfway in they seemed to start lifting their game – Mr. E’s Beautiful Blues borrowed very heavily from the Beatles’ version of Twist and Shout, which worked really well. And all in all the last half hour was great fun. E himself finally spoke to us a few songs before the end, getting us to sing happy birthday to one of his band members. I thought it was a bit unnecessary to come back three times for three separate single-song encores, but all in all I went home happy.

Oh, and there were beards. Lots of beards. Not sure why.

The second quarter, or the second support act, was Alice Gold, on solo electric guitar and rather shouty vocals. Actually the songs weren’t too bad and she was an impressive performer. But her Axl Rose meets Bonnie Tyler singing got a bit annoying after a while, and anyway the songs would probably benefit from a more subtle performance. She may go places.

Which is a lot more than can be said for the first quarter/first “support” act. Quite why the promoters thought it would be a good idea to have a fifty-something ventriloquist who looked like a pudgy Elvis throwback in a tartan suit try to entertain this audience is a mystery. He was easily the WORST support act I have EVER seen. And also the worst ventriloquist as it happens. It was excruciatingly embarrassing watching him try to get a volunteer to come up on stage with him. Really, really terrible.

So, a game of four quarters, that finally came to life at the end. Was it worth the €35? Probably not…

Broken Bells Live at Bootleg Theatre Los Angeles

I’m not sure whether James Mercer and Brian Burton (a.k.a. the lead singer of The Shins and DJ Danger Mouse, a.k.a. Broken Bells) originally planned to perform the material from their album live. Seemingly they’ve been working in the studio together since 2008 and, to me at least, the album sounds like one that was put together painstakingly in the studio rather than through loose jamming in the living room. In any case I was expecting to see just the two of them on stage tonight, but I was wrong: they were accompanied by five other musicians, with a varying mix of percussion, keyboards and guitars along with up to three vocal harmony lines.

I’ve seen their music described as “space age elevator tunes” and they certainly don’t fall too far from the middle of the road. For some of the slower tempo numbers it was probably a good thing that there were endlessly changing visuals projected onto and behind the band. In a live setting I felt that some of the tunes needed a bit more oomph to hold the attention. But the upbeat catchy tracks (the ones that best combine a Shins sound with a Gnarls Barkley beat) were really very good. And for all tracks it’s impressive how they recreated the full arrangement live, with minimal use of backing tracks or loops.

James Mercer has a really great voice. It sits perfectly in the indie pop mix and somehow he makes every melody sound more dynamic than the basic notes might suggest on paper. (Of course it helps that he has a great range as well – there aren’t many Shins songs that I’ve been brave enough to take on myself – except in the shower perhaps!)

There was no support act tonight and they played for about 70 minutes. With only one album to pick from that wasn’t too bad. To the full album (I think) they added a new track – a little heavier and pretty catchy – along with a track they wrote together for a Sparklehorse album and a cover of Crimson and Clover.

I think they ‘suffered’ from the fact that they’re not really a band per se, so we didn’t get any of that chummy camaraderie that you get with bands that have been together for a while. In fact, there wasn’t much emotion at all – a little more chat from James Mercer would have been welcome, if only to introduce the band members that, other than Brian Burton, were strangers to me (and presumably to just about everyone else in the room). The flip side of that is that the focus was on the music, with a refreshing lack of ego. And the music was good. Very good.

• Visit Kiasma – the museum of modern art is located in a building that is a work of art in itself. We went to see a show called It’s A Set-Up, featuring works that in some way challenged you to do more than just stand there and stare. A short film by Marja Mikkonen called 99 Years of My Life was particularly moving and thought-provoking; and walking through the hanging ribbons of Jacob Dahlgren’s The Wonderful World of Abstraction was just plain fun. The exhibitions change regularly, but even if whatever is currently in situ doesn’t appeal, the building is worth seeing. The cafe serves tasty sandwiches too.
• Swim at Hietaniemi beach – a good place to catch the last rays of evening sun, with plenty of sand to sit on and calm waters in which to paddle or swim. We were there during a bit of a heat wave, so the dip in the Baltic was refreshing. And, a big bonus in expensive Helsinki, it’s free! (Take tram #3 to Kauppakorkeakoulut and walk about ten minutes west by the cemetery.)
• Get smelly breath at Kynsilaukka Ravintola Garlic – this rustic restaurant specialises in all things garlic, from the breads and spreads you’ll be offered on arrival to the garlic ice cream on the dessert menu. The reindeer skewers with roasted garlic and pototatoes were magnificent. It’s not cheap, but it is tasty.
• Café & Eepos – if you visit the Temppeliaukio church that’s dramatically carved into a big hunk of rock in the middle of the city, you can escape the tourists at this warm and friendly little café. Tasting the chocolate fondant with vanilla cream was at least as religious an experience as visiting the aforementioned church. Find it by walking out the door, turning right, heading around to the back of the church and turning left on Sammonkatu.

A boat trip through the archipelago is recommended, although the pre-recorded tour in Finnish, English, German and Russian got a bit tedious. The company with the live tour guide might be a better bet…but that’ll have to wait for a future trip.

We’ve all got skills and talents – gifts that are given to us by an accident of birth or that we develop through careful nurture – but it’s what we choose to do with those gifts that counts. As Bezos says, “cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. [...] Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you’re not careful, and if you do, it’ll probably be to the detriment of your choices.”

What I really take from this speech is that it’s not just the big choices (quitting your job to risk all on an internet start-up) that count, but also the smaller choices we get to make every day, like whether to try to impress someone with your cleverness, or reach out to them with a little kindness. Sometimes I think the bigger ones are easier.

Jeff Bezos – 2010 Baccalaureate remarks – Princeton University

Nada Surf

I think if I had been a long time fan of Nada Surf this would have jumped right into my top ten gigs of all time list. In fact I’ve only recently bought one of their albums, Lucky, and hadn’t really been able to get into it. After the gig I went straight home and bought another album and I’ll definitely be taking any chance I have to see them again. They are a great live band, and the records sound so much better having seen the songs performed live.

They put so much energy and good humour into their performances, and they have a really strong back catalogue of songs to draw on. The three members of the band were supplemented by a multi-instrumentalist guest musician who added keyboards, 12-string, trumpet and theramin (!) to the standard guitar, bass and drums combination. Together they produce a really full sound with enough catchy choruses and riffs to hold the interest right through the gig, even though 90% of the songs were new to me.

Actually the only song I really didn’t like was from their latest album, a set of cover versions, of which the best known is Enjoy the Silence. I really don’t like their version of it, and in general I think I preferred their own stuff to the few other covers they did.

So lots of thumbs up for Nada Surf. I’m looking forward to spending more time with their music and hopefully seeing them live again before too long. I might even try to make it to the front so that I can clamber up on to the stage for the (presumably) traditional dance-/sing-along to Blankest Year (“Ah f#ck it, let’s have a party!”) Great stuff!

The support act was Garcia Goodbye, a Flemish guitar pop three piece. Quite enjoyable – catchy, energetic power pop….but not really in the class of the main act. Even though it’s “only” pop music and the lyrics shouldn’t matter so much, I did find some of the lines a bit jarring or just plain silly. Then again, it’s hard enough to write lyrics in your mother tongue, let alone make them work in a second language. Good committed performance from them though. Got more attention from the crowd than most other support acts I’ve seen in the Melkweg.

Here’s how we described it on our wedding website:

The Alternative Wedding List

We’d like you to contribute a some recommendations, with a few lines about why you’ve made the choices you’ve made. The kind of things we’d like you to recommend for us are:

• Two or three books we should definitely read sometime
• A country, city or place we should visit at least once in our lives
• Some music we should listen to and explore
• Two or three films that we really must see
• A special recipe you think we might like (remembering that Nadine is vegetarian!)
• Some poetry or other writings that we should read
• Or even just some advice that you think we should follow as we set off on married life(!)…

Respond only to the options that mean something to you and that you’d like to share with us. When thinking about what to include on your list, keep us in mind. For example, if you’re recommending music, we’d love to hear about artists, composers, styles of music that we’re unlikely to know already.

We’d like you to write or print out your contribution to our Alternative Wedding List and bring it along to the wedding where they’ll be collected. Your list could even take the place of a wedding card, for example. After the wedding we’ll use the contributions to make a scrap book that we can turn to whenever we want to be inspired by our friends and family – or are just feeling nostalgic.

And how did it work out?

We were really pleased with how many people made contributions to the list. There were cards of all shapes and sizes, collages, mini-magazines, beautifully written notes, letters and inscriptions – so much variety and inspiration. Opening and reading them the day after the wedding was a moving and memorable experience. We even received contributions from people that couldn’t make it to the wedding. The end result is a big scrapbook (see pics) packed with suggested watching, reading, listening, eating, travel destinations, advice, and lots more. The idea also seemed to inspire some friends and family members into giving us gifts that were a little unusual and in some way tied in with the sentiment behind the alternative list idea. (One friend knitted us matching scarves, finishing them the morning of the wedding.)

The full list of recommended music, film and literature is here. I published it online partly as it might be of interest to some people, but also as it’s a central place for us to look for inspiration when we’re buying or downloading. The real pleasure, however, is just picking up the scrapbook and opening it to any page. It’s a wonderful memento of the wedding and contains a lifetime of inspirational ideas.

(We were really pleased to learn that already a couple of friends that were at our wedding are hoping to create their own Alternative Wedding List when they get married later this year. We wholeheartedly recommend it!)

I must make some time to listen to the original album again soon.

The Fab Faux – Abbey Road Side 2 (mostly) from The Fab Faux on Vimeo.