Rose Kemp Album Launch, 11 Sept

After nearly a whole year devoid of live music I manage to get down to the Croft to support Rose Kemp launching her new album Unholy Majesty. I'm pretty excited, I mean it's been one of those years where I can only get out to these gigs if I really really NEED to see the person playing. This isn't to do with being married (or practically married back then), it's to do with house ownership and life forcing you to realise that carpets and gardens are more important.

Not only do I miss Glastonbury because of my job, but I also manage to miss pretty much everything else that happens in 2008. Anyway, here's a review I found buried in my 'drafts' folder from a long time ago and there will be a few more to follow...

Aspen Woods provide the support for tonight's album launch. I do try to get into their music, from what I've heard about them it should be right up my street - psychedelic wig-outs - but it really doesn't do it for me. I don't think there's ENOUGH wigging out and musicianship. You have to be something pretty special to be able to pull it off and these guys just can't. It could be a combination of things - being the first band, there's hardly anybody there so I'm sure that affects your playing a bit but really I'm just not a fan of this particular sound. I retreat to the bar.

Rose Kemp has reinvented herself as a tall skinny goth metal chick tonight. Witch in a good way, naturally. I admit I had been expecting at least an element of the beautiful singing I had fallen in love with those few years ago, but this is not what we are here for today. Reminiscent of Sabbath, The songs are huge and dark, Rose pushes her voice a little too hard and the singing sounds tortured, and although it admittedly fits in with this epic doom metal direction she has embraced, it doesn't really work when applied to the old material, which is much less fearsome.

So while I do appreciate this new incarnation and the long interesting songs which seem to be made of movements rather than verses, I think I preferred the beautiful-voiced Kemp, where the loudness was contrasted with delicate whisperings. Still, here's a sample track from the new album, The Unholy on the BBC Introducing stage at Glastonbury 2007:

The Streets, 17 oct

Here's one just to prove I was there... The support band are a bit odd, I can't even remember who they were - playing a kind of funky studentbluesrock, very much a background kind of band and not at all in keeping with the music of the main act. I'm not begrudging them this, the people down the front were enjoying themselves, maybe I just don't pay them enough attention.

The Streets throw a party. We're all invited. It IS at the Wankademy but we think we can survive. It is also one of those Friday-night-before-Ramshackle ones that finishes way too early. Although I am a bit sceptical of this chav-centric messy garage hip hop, this is a surprisingly energetic and fun performance. He keeps on and on shouting Can you SEE me? Can you HEAR me? DO you UNDERSTAND me?1 and we all just sort of stand there, wondering.

Still, the show is lo-fi hip hop interspersed with dancey anthems that get the crowd jumping and the Streets' messy cockney sampling style transfers well into the full live band experience. I find myself getting more into the atmosphere than I thought I would, this music has grown on me like a scratchy jumper.

1. 1. Complete with silly hand gestures and macho posturing.