Ned Powley checks out Slow Club’s live performance at Heaven as part of our series of NME Awards Show reviews..
So the time has come again for NME to bed up with a brand, hire out some venues and pimp their wares through a series of gigs featuring line ups of varying logic and consistency. Tonight sees Kwes open with a set of lush electronics that straddles the line between James Blake esque post-everything pop and the post-rock stylings of Explosions In The Sky. Thrilling stuff sadly lost on a overly-talkative crowd. Gross Magic (somehow) fare better. Christ knows they’re nothing more than a poor man’s Smith Westerns circa 2009 (and Smith Westerns weren’t terribly wealthy to begin with!)
They open with a version of Pulp’s Disco 2000 so disarmingly sparse and beautiful that it silencs the crowd’s unrelenting yammering. The calm doesn’t last as they rip through highlights from last years stunning sophomore album Paradise and throw out fan favourite ‘Our Most Brilliant Friends’ with such stunning vigour and enthusiasm that during the brief respites offered, they threaten to unbalance themselves…but somehow the tonal shifts never jar. Maybe it’s down to that enthusiasm or maybe it’s the fact that Slow Club are the kings and queen of onstage banter. Striking the perfect balance between in-jokes, the delicate slow burner ‘Horses Jumping’ is introduced by Rebecca as “War Horse the movie”, prompting Charles to respond with a curt “f*** off” – and audience interaction.
Towards the end of their set two new tracks are introduced. The first leads us into familiar territory with it’s boy-girl vocals and quiet verse. Guided by some of Rebecca’s strongest vocal work to date, it’s a grand standing track with country and western influences clearly. Though they tease with insights into the future, their past and present offerings are still more than sufficient.
Closing with an impassioned rendition of ‘Two Cousins’ that teems with unbridled joy, the scene’s set for a suitably ramshackle encore. But no, they return to the stage in the two piece form they began life as. Unplugging instruments and discarding their mics they stand on the precipice of the stage they deliver a version of ‘Gold Mountain’ so unbearably beautiful that no shushing is required, the silence simply descends. Then it’s gone within the first two seconds of ‘Giving Up On Love’. It’s a testament to them that one of their oldest tracks has lost none of it’s power to reduce the room into a mass singalong that drowns out everything going on onstage effort-free. Well done NME, you’ve won this time.
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