Tonight presents attendees with a hugely varied bill, spread across two venues, but all three acts bring something special to the table that’s worth the ticket tax.
Micachu kicks off proceedings at the Macbeth, backed by her band The Shapes (Marc Pell and Raisa Khan). The trio have a lot of work to a genuinely top-notch second half. Simple percussion, electronics and a Jamie T-echoing vocal delivery combine to comprise a ramshackle approach, which gains purpose once gears are shifted. At their best tonight, Micachu make it clear why so many people are tipping them to do well over the next 12 months.
California five-piece Iglu & Hartly bring big hair and bigger beats to the stage, daring to take us back to Blondie’s ‘Rapture’-era Big Apple, mixing hip-hop, disco, funk and some awesome cock-rock riffs to get the whole crowd jumping to whatever tune they play. They could do with a few more songs, and a little more variety, but when they’ve offerings as good as ‘Violent and Young’ and ‘Day Glo’, who are we to complain?
The not-so-secret gig is fast becoming a staple of Levis’s-branded series, and this week’s not-so-secret attractions are edgy rockers Foals. The band squeeze themselves onto the tiny Hoxton Hall stage, a fraction of the size of where they’ll play later in October: Brixton Academy. The Oxford-based five-piece played the 4 Night Revue last year, and since then have gone from strength to strength, releasing their debut album ‘Antidotes’ along the way. Whilst any new material is still some way off they have honed their live show to anarchic perfection, as a jam session-like opening (perhaps offering clues to were they’ll go next) makes way for bona-fide hits in the shape of ‘The French Open’ and new single ‘Olympic Airways’.
The walls creak as ‘Cassius’, ‘Balloons’ and ‘Hummer’ follow, before a bizarre turn of events. Leaving the rest of the band to finish ‘Electric Bloom’, frontman Yannis Philippakis decides to take out his frustration with the room’s acoustics on the soundman, the fans, the drums, his mic stand, some more fans, bassist Walter Jervers and the his amp stack, drummer Jack Bevan and then, finally, his own guitar stack. He subsequently flees into the night, traversing a sea of guitar leads and adoring arms before bolting out the main door.
Thus, the sheen is swiftly removed from a frenetic show, and many a young fan looks on baffled and beleaguered, and probably quite pleased they survived. With Foals at the top of their game, but possibly cracking up and most definitely unhinged, things could get increasingly interesting between now and album two.
