Allo Darlin'

Looking at my total blog tags you'd think the only thing I write about is Allo Darlin'. Well, they're bloody great, so what can you do? I went to the 100 Club on Saturday for the London Popfest all-dayer. As usual, I managed to miss most of what I wanted to see. The only full set I saw was Allo Darlin' and as usual they were great. Saturday's show was the last one for a while with Bill Moustache on bass, so he played half the set before turning over the bass duties to Greg, who will be filling in until Bill gets his daddy schedule under control.

The video for Allo Darlin's Polaroid song is finally up on youtube. Check out Bill's hair!!!

popfests and owls etc

Ok...so there's ALOT going on in London Town this week. In fact, there's so much going on that I should really just hide at home and not do anything. But, that's probably not going to happen. So, the problem is...what to do without getting completely OD-ing on live music.

The London Popfest starts on Thursday and even if I know it's gonna be a lot of fun, I don't really feel a desperate need to see anything. Everything looks good, but nothing on the line-up really screams at me (apart from Allo Darlin' of course, who might actually literally scream at me if I don't go...haha..just kidding...but I know they have some surprises up their collective sleeves for this show, so I really wouldn't want to miss it). Anyway, the popfest doesn't really need me to be excited about it, they're doing just fine without me and in general there are no tickets left anyway. The main reason for going would be to see friends and I guess that's a good a reason as any, so we'll see. But, as I said, it's not just popfest this week...

The Popfest kicks off on Thursday 25th february with Withered Hand (solo) and more at Cafe OTO. Of course I'd like to see Dan play and Camila from WeePOP! is DJing, but it is of course sold out and even if it wasn't there's also Shearwater at the Scala, Casio Kids at Barfly and of course Fuzzy Star at The Betsey.

On Friday The Just Joans are playing at the Buffalo Bar, which would be fun, but is also mega sold out anyway....I think.

On Saturday it's the big Popfest all-dayer at the 100 Club, with Ballboy, Shrag, Allo Darlin etc, but it is also the day of Owl Parliament at Union Chapel with Mount Eerie, Darren Hayman, Emmy The Great etc.

On Sunday there's a bunch of things happening at the Lexington, but I have a deadline for Monday and doubt I will be in the mood to do much.

Then finally next Monday, Pit er Pat are back in town. This is perhaps the most exciting live music thing happening over the next seven days and I really can't miss that.

London Popfest website

Owl Parliament website

The Popfest has landed

The London Popfest kicked off on Thursday, with a bunch of bands playing at Brixton Jamm. Highlights of the evening were Let's Whisper and Pelle Carlberg.

Let's Whisper at Brixton Jamm, with Elizabeth Darling on uke duties.

Pelle Carlberg was awesome as usual. I'm still amazed at his bandmate managing to play drums, bass and harmonica at the same time.

Then last night the Popfest headed to the Buffalo Bar, with amazing gigs from Allo, Darlin, Betty & The Werewolves, Zipper and Tender Trap.

Betty & The Werewolves

Zipper

More Zipper

Afterwards, there was dancing. Oh yes, there certainly was some dancing. 

I'm so tired I feel like dying. The only thing to do is to head down to the Macbeth for another ten hours of pop. Woooooo!

Tender Traptastic

Many pop kids would probably have traded their Talulah Gosh badges to swap places with me last night. I was invited to the Tender Trap dress rehearsal ahead of their comeback gig at the London Popfest on Friday. Playing their set to only a handful of people (five to be more precise) it was a strange but very pleasant experience. The new songs sound great, the old songs sound great.....so Friday should be alot of fun.

London Pop Fest

Every great city needs a Popfest and now London has one. At a first glance the line-up doesn't look that interesting.....to me personally anyway. Many familiar bands, but nothing I've ever really listened to....actually, only four of the bands listed appear on my last.fm page. But, but, but...that's not necessarily a bad thing....and I am looking foward to it. It'll be fun.


So, I guess I could have just copied the line-up from the homepage, but what's the point in having a scanner if I'm not going to use it? This one was in my pocket after Friday's Wave Pictures show at Bardens.


So....through boyfriend obligations, I am definitely going to see Allo, Darlin' and Tender Trap. Then I'd quite like to see Colin Clary again, cause he's nice and also Liechtenstein perhaps. We'll see.


London Popfest website