SWSL Top 10 Live Performances Of 2003

A large proportion of my 2003 has been spent in fields and grimy sticky-floored venues exposing myself to both the new, the familiar and the breathtaking. Each and every gig or festival has been documented here on SWSL: this year, as I wrote in the wake of the Leeds Festival, “I feasted at the table of Rock, and I feasted well. Indeed, at times I feasted too well, and was in danger of becoming vomitous.”

So, the highlights of what has been another busy year of gig-going – the Top 10:

10. THE DELGADOS, 2nd February, Birmingham Academy 2
“What sets The Delgados apart from the crowd is the fact that the strings and woodwind are completely integrated within the fabric of songs which blossom into glorious technicolour, to the extent that self-pity and disillusionment attain a bittersweet grandeur. Although with the lyrical content of their tracks they may, like Arab Strap, have their hearts in the gutter, like The Flaming Lips their eyes are very much focused on the stars.”
(Also seen at Glastonbury)

9. YEAH YEAH YEAHS, 22nd August, Leeds Festival
“It’s quite telling that there’s no place in the set tonight for ‘Our Time’ – the track from last year’s ‘Master’ EP that features the repeated line ‘It’s our time to be hated’. Absolutely bang on the money, and the best band of the day.”
(Also seen at Nottingham Rock City)

8. MOGWAI, 27th June, Glastonbury Festival
“But then what was already great becomes instantly magical with the opening chords of ‘My Father My King’. Almost 23 minutes of the reworked and instrumental version of the Jewish hymn later, and having taken the song from the brink of silence to the outer edges of the sound barrier, the band’s diminutive and moustachioed genius Stuart Braithwaite is rubbing his guitar on the edge of the stage and then pushing it up and down the tracks fitted for the moveable cameras. Awesome. The title of the new album might be ironic, but they leave happy people everywhere.”
(Also seen at Birmingham Sanctuary)

7. EELS, 6th July, Birmingham Irish Centre
“The real gems, though, are reserved for the encores, of which there are three – E thanks us for playing the game of ‘celebrity cat and mouse’ for applauding and encouraging them back on. It is here that the rock mask slips, to wonderful effect. In the first encore, sandwiched between ‘Rock Hard Times’ and ‘Grace Kelly Blues’, we get the one song I’ve been praying for, ‘It’s A Motherfucker’ from the Daisies Of The Galaxy album. Short, simple, understated and effortlessly heartwarming, it’s what E does best and what marks him out as quite such a talent. In the second encore, they finally play ‘All In A Day’s Work’ in its entirety with vocals, and then, with neat and effective symmetry, Shootenanny’s closing track ‘Somebody Loves You’. In the third we get just E and his keyboard for an unexpected rendition of the gorgeous and touchingly naïve ‘Beautiful Freak’ which somehow blows everything that has gone before out of the water.”

6. THE RAVEONETTES, 30th October, Birmingham Academy 2
“Eventually, after the queasy and bruised metronome of ‘Love Can Destroy Everything’, dedicated to Johnny Cash, the warped surf guitar genius of ‘Untamed Girls’ and a fabulous mauling of Buddy Holly’s ‘C’mon Everybody’, old favourites ‘Attack Of The Ghost Riders’ and ‘Beat City’ round the evening off in a joyous celebration of pure noise. The biggest compliment I can pay them is that they make me want to go out, buy some gut-rotting headfuck white cider, drink it in the bushes, enjoy a drunken snog and then go home to spew all over the carpet. As it is, I step back into the rain with ears and head buzzing, glowingly happy. As PJ Harvey sang, this is love.”
(Also seen at Leeds)