Last night we went to see the long absent Tom Vek play his ‘coming out’ gig at Heaven, and boy was it worth the wait. To a crowded room packed with happy hipsters he rolled out hit after hit, winding the assembled throng to a fever pitch of dancing happiness culminating in his latest single ‘A Chore’ to rapturous applause – helped by the girl from the video (or lookalike) fronting the song at the start.

Last time we saw Vek play was at a small venue in Montreal in 2006 – to only about 50-100 people and supported by the wonderful The Duke Spirit. It was a great gig, even with Vek having to play drums on most songs as his drummer had left in the tour. This time, the band was in full force and we got to enjoy Vek front of stage, his angular, skinny frame bouncing out the beats to his slices of beat driven indie genius. The sound was amazing, the light show simple but effective. Vek himself seemed to start off a bit nervous, but as he played his hit songs the crowd got increasingly excited and Vek got more relaxed and chatty. Classics such as “The Lower the Sun”, “Nothing but Green Lights” and more kept the crowd moving, and the songs from his latest album fared just as well. Even if I have to admit to not really knowing them (yet) they certainly got my body moving.

Thanks for a great night, Tom – and please, don’t wait so long till we see you again…

Full Set Listing

1. C-C
2. World of Doubt
3. We Do Nothing
4. If You Want
5. Lower The Sun
6. Hold Your Hand
7. Someone Loves You
8. Nothing But Green Lights
9. Aroused
10. I Ain’t Saying My Goodbyes
11. Seizemic s-Leisure Seizure
12. Too Bad
13. A.P.O.L.O.G.Y
14. A Chore

Last night, Montreal friends Sunfields played the last night of their two week UK tour at The Windmill in Brixton. It was a great gig, in a great *very* un-London feel venue, and I’ve uploaded some photos here. There’s also a video floating around of their lovely, catchy new song Kiss Shy (we expect proper release soon, please…) recorded on the first night of their tour.

It’s been splendid fun seeing the lads over here doing what they do best – play great music and get drunk in their smiley, friendly Canadian manner. Just wish I’d been able to get to some of the non-London gigs. Until the next time though – whichever country it is this time – bon voyage, chaps.

1. Pre-heat the over to 180c. Chop up five large onions into large pieces and lay over the base a flat, over proof pan.
2. Score the rind of the pork belly lines 1cm apart, you can ask your butcher to do this for you as it’s pretty tough going. Luckily for me my local butcher (the amazing Ginger Pig) were one step ahead of me. Lay the pork belly over the onions, then pour oil over the top and rub in sea salt and crushed peppercorns to taste.
3. Put the pan in the lower part of the oven for 1 hour, then remove and baste the pork belly. If there’s not much juice add some water.
4. Continue cooking at 180c for another 1 1/2 hours, basting every 15 minutes. During this time, peel the potatoes and start them boiling near the end of the cycle if you’re having mash.
5. Rub 2-3 teaspoons of honey over the rind and put back in the over at 200c for 30-40 minutes. At this point you need to baste every 5 minutes or so keeping an eye on it to make sure the rind doesn’t catch fire or burn.
6. Remove the pork belly and cut into reasonable size portions and serve over the potato, with the onions & juice over the top.

Mmm.. delish. Also more of a winter dish than a balmy spring night light meal, but in my defence it was quite cold at the market this morning when I decided to try it.

Last week we had the pleasure to go and see Robert Plant and the Band of Joy play at The Roundhouse as part of the BBC’s Electric Proms season. The crowd veered towards the older range, with some folks obviously not used to going to gigs (‘Are you going to stand there? You’re in our way.’) but that’s hardly surprising given the longevity of Plant’s success. Thankfully, Plant and the excellent Band of Joy graced us with songs from the entirety of his back catalogue; from excellent renditions of Zep classics (Gallows Pole, Tangerine and Rock and Roll being standout), some classic Plant solo music in the form of ‘Tall Cool One’, more recent work from Raising Sand and finally plenty of great sounds from the Band of Joy’s recent album. Overall we couldn’t have asked for more, other than perhaps a full re-formation of Led Zep but let’s not get greedy shall we.

For those of you in these fair British Isles you can see the whole gig tonight on BBC, or later on iPlayer. Not sure if you can see us in the footage… Enjoy.

And in other music gig news, we saw the excellent Yann Tiersen of Amelie soundtrack fame at Koko on Wednesday night. Have to say not a great fan of Koko as a venue, but Tiersen is an amazing multi-instrumentalist, with his violin work truly breath-taking.

• Toy Story 3: It’s pretty amazing that the Pixar folks manage to constantly outdo themselves from movie to movie, but to have a trilogy of movies that just gets better and better each time is mind blowing. Just think how good Revenge of the Sith would have been if that was the case for George Lucas? Anyways, I digress. Toy Story 3 is beautiful and heart rending to watch, as well as being a kid friendly roller coaster of a movie. A must watch, if only for the Buzz Lightyear secret modes…
• Ponyo: Another Studio Ghibli classic, the story of a goldfish princess who goes off an adventure and falls in love with a human child, causing havoc to the balance of nature. Beautiful animation style. A wonderful glimpse at life in fishing villages in Japan and a mum voiced by Tina Fey, what’s not to love? Well, the story is a bit derivative and the ending seems to just happen, so it’s not the best Studio Ghibli film ever but worth a watch.
• My Name is Bruce: Bruce Campbell, star of the Evil Dead movies, stars as ‘himself’ in this send-up of B-movie stardom. A bit flat in places, if you’re a fan of Bubba-ho-tep (“everybody likes Bubba-ho-tep”) then this is well worth watching.
• Prince of Persia: Great special effects, epic scenes and some of the worst ‘English’ accents you’ve ever heard.. even from the British actors. Ben Kingsley and Alfred Molina I’m looking at you. The storyline is a hodge podge of revenge and mythology in the classic style of Tomb Raider, another game to film conversion. A six beer movie at least.
• The Last Airbender: M Night Shyamalan has not really produced any classic suspense movies in a while, so I was interested to see how he fired up this new trilogy. The answer? Beautifully shot, with some great special effects, but none of the Shyamalan story magic.

Must spend less time in front of a screen…

Last night we headed down, yet again, to the Union Chapel in Islington. This time, we weren’t checking out beardedly soulful singers of Americana, or disgracefully growing old Welsh crooners – we were there to see the transition of a fine screen actor into a card carrying musician. Whether it is the post-divorce mid-life crisis tour, or the ultimate fulfilment of a childhood dream, Tim Robbins and his band put on an admirable show, with an excellent, but way too short, support slot from Kami Thompson.

Looking suave in a long coat, his grey white hair slicked back atop his child-like face, Robbins strode out onto the stage with his extensive band. His expression was a mix of nervousness and joy throughout the set, and that showed itself in his songs – with a set-list that seemed more ‘favourite songs on random’ than careful curation, veering between his own songs and covers. The Chapel was nowhere near full capacity, with the top balconies closed off and seats still free in the venue, perhaps it was a bit too brave to try a small medium sized venue at this point in a career, but those people who were there enjoyed the show to its full. The highlight of the show came too early, with a singalong to an old blues gospel staple that had the audience grinning gleefully. This energy carried Robbins through the next few songs, but at some point that seemed to desert him and the set peetered out rather than ending with a bang. With the encore, ending a song earlier would have helped us leave on a high – but these are all tricks that Robbins will likely learn as he faces more real audiences, as well as finding which songs his voice carries best. Camp Billie Holiday covers may not be an ideal to strive for, Johnny Cash was a good fit with some great harmonica and Tom Waits.. well, you need Tom’s voice as Scarlett Johansson already proved.

Overall, an interesting night but more ‘watch this space’ than a gig that everyone will rue missing. Either way, you have to give Tim credit for following a childhood dream with such gusto and obvious joy. Bless you, sir.

There Will Be Blood is a real powerhouse of a movie. Daniel Day-Lewis takes the lead as an oil prospector, Daniel Plainview, who works his way up from the bottom through his own hard work and cunning, yet still acknowledging that only one in twenty prospectors ever strike big. Along the way he loses a lot of compatriots, and makes few friends, being unrelenting in his pursuit of oil success. After achieving some early finds, he is approached by a young man who tells him of oil on his farmstead in return for money. Plainview visits the farm and finds the boy’s twin brother, Eli Sunday, a fanatical Christian played with creepy genius by Paul Dano. Buying up the farm and the surrounding area, Plainview grows his empire – facing loss and gains along the way, within a circle of his own self-created loneliness.

There is no redemption in this movie for the principle players, just dark drilling into the human soul and psyche. The beauty here lies in the cinematic vistas of early oil fields, and the starkly wonderful soundtrack by Johnny Greenwood of Radiohead fame. There Will Be Blood is a must see movie, but have a cheery follow up film as a follow up – for us it was The Triplets of Belleville, a quirky French animated movie about one Grandmother’s quest to cheer up her Grandson with surreal consequences. Very enjoyable.

On entering the chapel, with its front tower currently shrouded in scaffolding, you have no sense of the size of it as the ticket desk is in a cramped entrance way, but head to the left or right and up the stairs to the front balconies and the place unfolds like a Tardis till you come onto the cavernous, yet somehow intimate, performance space of the chapel knave. We sat right on the front pews, at the front up by the stage – just a few metres away from the performance. The side angle isn’t ideal, but the closeness is wonderful, plus you get to sit and rest your arms on the stone ledge in front of you. From this vantage point we could see everyone crammed into the pews below, much closer than us but arguably a lot less comfortable. Looking up you see the other balcony pews all around, and the lofty roof above in all its ornate glory. What a place to see a gig.

First up was Iron & Wine, featuring the soulful southern croonings and skillful guitar of Sam Beam. I’ve been a fan of Iron & Wine since an encounter in Fix years ago in Williamsburg, but this is the first chance I’ve had to see him in action, and it was worth the wait, especially in such an amazing venue. Beam started with a totally acapella rendition of one of his songs, which entranced the audience from the get go. Then he moved onto solo guitar, before being joined by a single backing instrumentalist to fill out the parts on some of his more complex melodies. The playlist escapes me right now, but he did cover off most of my favourite tracks, at times leaving us almost in tears. An amazing singer and well worth a listen.

Next up was a slight change of pace, seasoned Welsh singer Tom Jones singing the entirety of his new album ‘Praise and Blame‘. Given the gospel leanings of his latest offering this was a highly appropriate venue, and from the moment Jones came out in front of his (mostly 50+) audience he set a lot of store by that with his between song banter. With his shock of pure white hair, the now 70 Jones still sets the heart racing on his fans, though no knickers were (perhaps thankfully) thrown, and his voice swept teh rest of us along – the man can sing. Another great gig, only slightly let down by his decision to play any classic Jones songs as part of an encore, instead repeating one of his earlier Praise & Blame songs.

So a great week for gigs, and another new favourite London venue located. One of these days I might start actually loving London.. who knows.

And as a brief re-cap of what I’ve been up to in the last month or so since the last post.. There was a brief trip to Israel that was absolutely stunning (some pics here) – Jerusalem is a must see, followed by a long weekend in Barcelona over my birthday. In between those we fitted in a very lovely canoeing trip down the River Wye, which didn’t result in hypothermia for a change, but did result in a broken exhaust for the second time this year. Ah, car ownership. Pip pip.

In the middle of getting ready for an imminent work trip to Israel, I found time to attack a couple of classics from different media; the book Treasure Island, and Hitchcock’s masterpiece of film, Vertigo.

First up, Treasure Island, a book I can’t actually remember if I read when I was younger as the themes are now so familiar; pirates with parrots and wooden legs, buried treasure and heroic cabin boys. Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic is best read at a younger, more innocent age, yet maintains it’s ability to thrill even to us jaded older folk. A fun, lightweight classic but don’t expect anything too mentally challenging.

Then we have Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. As someone who watches a lot of movies I’m slightly embarrassed to say that I’ve not watched any Hitchcock films. This is something I realise I now need to rectify, as Vertigo is visually sumptuous, engaging with great acting from James Stewart, and a thrilling soundtrack. There’s also a classic early intro sequence from Saul Bass. The story follows Stewart, who plays a detective on retirement due to the onset of crippling vertigo which caused the death of a fellow officer. Stewart, for want of anything else to do, accepts a friend’s request to follow his wife, Kim Novak, who has been acting strangely and apparently is possessed by the suicidal spirit of a dead woman. Stewart accepts, and in carrying out his duties falls in love with the wife and things progress from there.

Although the film is now over 50 year old it is still a joy to watch. The speed of pacing may put off some viewers, but Hitchcock was well ahead of his time and if you’re not addicted to jump cuts then all will be well. Happily for me this now means I have the rest of Hitchcock’s back catalogue to watch as well. Splendid stuff.

Last night we went along to see The ENO/Punchdrunk co-production of The Duchess of Malfi at a remote office block in the east end of London. This was touted as one of the ‘must see’ events of the theatrical season in London, and caused the ENO’s ticketing server to crash quite horrendously when it went on sale – luckily I managed to grab four tickets in the melee, and now I really wish I’d gotten more as it was quite splendid.

For those of you not familiar with Punchdrunk, they formed in 2000 to create immersive theatrical experiences where the audience is expected to wander around, interact with the performance to some degree and to create their own relationship with the works rather than just sitting in a chair and watching. Audience members at Punchdrunk events are required to wear masks which helps to separate audience from performers, but also creates a wonderful sense of alienation. Instead of creating a single thread of narrative that unfolds on the stage in front of you, there are little nuggets of story happening all over the venue and your participation in this requires you to find and unravel what’s going on. To add complexity, Punchdrunk events are generally quite dimly lit and involve a lot of subtle set dressing that just adds to your confusion, joy and discomfort – to varying levels. And now onto last night’s performance, in which spoilers may be revealed…

I have to confess that my attendance last night was purely due to the enjoyment of Punchdrunk’s Tunnel 228 show last year in conjunction with the Old Vic last year. The thought of seeing an opera is not one that often comes into my head, even with the illustrious ENO a short bus ride from our home. Combined with the subject matter, an obscure play from the 1600s involving lycanthropy, incest and murder, then you don’t have the makings of our usual night out.

Sounds positively enthralling doesn’t it? Going to an obscure opera when you don’t like opera is one thing, but an opera where the already confusing plot will be obfuscated almost completely? Well, sign me up! The complete lack of information prior to the event adds to the vague sense of unease. Reading a few spoiler reviews confirmed the obligatory Punchdrunk masks for the audience, and suggested following the conductor as a way to grasp the fractured narrative threads. Other suggestions were to follow a key character, such as the Duchess herself. None of this really made any sense until after we went, at which point it makes a lot of sense indeed.

The venue was just outside of Gallions Reach, slightly east of City Airport and a long, slow DLR trip away. Walking up to the grey, faceless and slightly run-down building you could be approaching an illegal rave and not the latest masterwork from the partnership of an established British institution and an up and coming theatrical agency. On arrival we were given an innoculation card, which entitled us to a free drink at the bar while we waited. So far so good – get drunk on punch, how ironic. Hanging around outside the building offered no clears and our slightly nervous smiles masked joyful anticipation at what was to come.

Eventually our turn came to go in, at our allotted 7pm slot. We lined up patiently and received our white half-face masks. Dawn, like many others, had trouble getting her glasses under the mask and ended up with her mask off her face most of the time – something that Punchdrunk really ought to have figured out by now, people wear glasses don’t you know. Then we were through, into some small rooms set up as if in a modern hospital with papers strewn about discussing lycanthropy, werewolves.

Then on, through a dark tunnel into the main building, dark and gloomy.. Immediately we went away from the main crowd, up to the top floor. Here we found a deserted forest made up of electrical wires wrapped around each other, a small shrine made out of desks leaning against each other and a bar – selling drinks that you couldn’t take out with you – no time for that then. Past a glass wall showing a drop down to the ground floor with nothing going on. Everywhere there were empty seats ready for the orchestra.

Then down to the second floor where we finally found some characters, cavorting amongst cupboards placed centrally in the room. Then we noticed the orchestra ready to play next to a four poster bed through some soundproof glass – and let me tell you, that soundproof glass works really well, you can have an orchestra next to you and almost not notice it. On the bed the Duchess started to sing, with full orchestra opposite her and us in-between. Her brother, getting frisky with the crowd, joins her with his falsetto/mid-range singing and the play is on. Electrifying.

The scene finished. We rushed to follow the conductor successfully, to where he sets up as the Cardinal presides over a marriage seen – touching our masked faces as he passed. Then onto another scene, along a long partially lit sliding floor, a mix of dance and opera with bodies everywhere. This visceral, sensuous show combined with the richness of voice and music is quite overwhelming in close proximity – everyone standing still, you look around and see white masks watching. An amazing experience. Then we lose the conductor into a staff only door and find ourselves adrift. Up some stairs we find some toilets, then a pair of dancers cavort round us – we have no idea who they are and what their characters mean, but the act is hypnotic. I briefly become part of the show as one dancer drapes herself over me, then she is away to her next act.

We re-find the main act happening two floors below us as we watch down into the main courtyard from the third floor. This distance, similar to a usual theatre but vertically down, is disorientating but a glad respite from the intimacy of other scenes. Then the act comes to join us on this floor, dancing amidst the wire trees. We also find one of the actresses in her bedroom, possibly the Cardinal’s mistress, with orchestra scattered around her on all sides as we squeeze in to watch. Later, in that same room, Richard & Dawn are locked in alone with her as she injects poison into grapes and we wait outside unseeing.

At this point we realise that certain narrative threads are repeating, as we see the Duchess and her brother re-commence the bed scene. This double loop was the only indication that not everything happens once, so arguably you could follow two characters to see the whole play. We wander elsewhere, see a woman attack a man, follow him to a shrine where he tells us to go away but then prostrates himself at Dawn’s feet as if she was the statue he previously wept at. Then he’s off away again. We find the main cast, surrounding the lycanthrope brother crawling throw the wire woods to distant band. Then, naked, the brother walks through and away as we watch a woman writing on chalk walls. Opposite we find a nurse, tending a patient and then tenderly trying to kill her in a stunning dance act across three beds until she finds her own death. Sitting on the beds can be a dangerous choice for the spectators by the way!

Suddenly we are, for the first time, being directed. The black masked attendants, indicative of staff, prevent us going one way then another, till finally we are all herded back out the tunnel we entered into a large hanger with a catwalk in the middle. Faceless marchers with crosses corale us around, as the brother arrives then the Duchess, carried on shoulders and placed on the catwalk. Encroaching madness is represented by red draped dancers, and an incense burner is swung dramatically along the length as the cardinal and servant try to convince the Duchess to change her ways – she resists and is finally killed. The brother walks to his sister, dragging the large red curtains behind him as a cape and revealing a wider scene before the play finishes, our masks are collected and we stand stunned and smiling. It’s now three hours later, but it feels like no time has passed and we still want more. What a night.

What would I do differently next time? Well, I’d certainly read up on the subject matter – assuming there was a narrative I had to try and follow. I wouldn’t bring my bag and would likely wear darker clothes to better blend into the background and increase the effect for everyone else. Possibly I’d bring antiseptic wipes to use on the mask, as I’m not sure they clean them between performances. Hmm.. I would also, no offence to my wonderful co-attendees, go off on my own to experience it more fully. We were, I’m sad to say, one of those small groups of people who tried to stay together and occasionally talked with each other. Apologies to everyone we offended, you sometimes forget that this is an ‘opera’ and not a quest you undertake as a team, but each to their own. I would also try and follow one of the main characters rather than the conductor, although it was wonderful seeing the full orchestra, the frustration when he disappeared through a staff-only door was huge – the characters don’t do this.

Finally, I would try and book for more than one night, as one night of any Punchdrunk event is never enough – but I’ll tell you more about the second night experience next week. Thanks eBay!