Thursday, May 30, 2013

Better Later than never

It had been a while since I'd watched Later..., so it was a real treat to turn on last Friday and catch Low midway through 'Waiting'. Better still was the subsequent rendition of 'Just Make It Stop', one of the best tracks on yet-to-truly-win-me-over new album The Invisible Way.

An apposite song title and sentiment, as it turned out, given that the show's headline act were Stereophonics. 'Indian Summer' sounded like an even more anodyne attempt at Bryan Adams, while listening to Jools Holland blow smoke up Kelly Jones' arsehole as the latter misunderstood the meaning of the word "philosophically" was excruciating.

Still, that sort of thing can be forgiven for the fact that the show continues to expose viewers to a wide variety of fascinating acts. Friday's curios included Lebanese artist Yasmine Hamdan, Melt Yourself Down (featuring former members of Acoustic Ladyland and Polar Bear - hence the duelling saxophonists) and former Czars frontman John Grant, whose confession to being the "greatest motherfucker you're ever going to meet" helped make 'GMF' the showstealer ('Blackbelt' was an odder and markedly less successful diversion into electro, though).

1 comment:

skif said...

I also enjoyed GMF's 'sweary Glen Campbell'-like manner, but I also liked both his other two tunes which were in the electro vein too. I didn't go for 'Blackbelt' at first, mainly for lyric reasons, but I can't get it out of my head now.

Jen and I are going to Latitude this year, mainly for non-music things (Kitson is there wearing many hats), but ol' Granty's efforts on Later... mean he'll be on my 'music to see' list.

Saw Melt Yourself Down last month and they certainly have a lot of energy - I wouldn't mind seeing what they'd be like in a festival environment. Not at Latitude as far as I'm aware though.