Time, I thought, to rescue the music category from the horrors of 80s kitsch, and post a brighter picture of groovy London life than the last post, by mentioning that Complete & Mrs Tosh made it down to the Brixton Academy (now sponsored by: Bevvy) for those polite LA rockers, Maroon 5 the other night.
The headline act were as polished live as we’d been led to expect, but the surprise of the evening was the pre-support support act, Los Angeles-based singer songwriter Sara Bareilles. Now, you have to be careful with support acts. Sometimes mere competence can have you raving, through nothing more than relief. And normally I’d agree that a description using the phrases “LA-based” and “singer songwriter” might fill you with all sorts of Avirile Levene/Shania Twain-inspired doubts, or even mild nausea.
But she was really bloody good. Vegas – performed better in Brixton than in that streamed MP3 – was good enough to send me off to the lobby straight away for her bargain-at-a-fiver album. Good enough to have me in such haste I bought the disk by support act Guster – who were also very fine, but not quite the ticket. Mrs Tosh rectified matters, as ever.
On hearing Sara’s album – Careful Confessions – it’s fair to say it doesn’t sound quite as strong as her live show, where she comes across as a bit more soulful with a strong band around her keyboard and lovely voice. But better-live-than-recorded is refreshingly different from the norm, and I’m sure she’s got a big future. She’s not on iTunes yet – “Do you mean Barnacles” it asks earnestly when you search by her surname – but I’d give it only a little time.
As a footnote, Guster also deserve mention for urging the crowd to remember that nearly 60m Americans didn’t vote for dubya. It was no surprise to hear them say that – Maroon 5 were involved in the Rock The Vote effort, and were known to be as anti-Bush as you’d expect non born-again city dwellers to be. But the comment still got Guster a great cheer.
Guster were notable for releasing one of their albums onto file-sharing networks after replacing all the lyrics with the singer just going Miaow, Miaow, Miaowin an effort to combat piracy. I’ve only ever heard the “miaow” versions, ha.