Trädgårn - November 16. BEARD! John Grant, untrimmed and disheveled, stands to the left side of the stage looking for all the world like he's come to fix the electrics. I've been listening to his latest album "Queen of Denmark" but nothing could have prepared me for what was about to happen. He opens his mouth and suddenly time stands still. What a voice! It literally picks the audience off their feet and entrances everyone. He's accompanied by a pianist, who I initially mistake for a lady (no beard you see) but turns out later to be a member of Midlake. Grant, when not enchanting everyone with his amazing vocal skill, turns to a keyboard and all manner of space-age sounds come bounding forth. It's quite something as it throws you somewhat off balance when a piano ballad suddenly becomes the soundtrack to an alien invasion. I find myself at one point musing that he reminds me of Barry Manilow but with more swearing, better tunes and less, ie. no, plastic surgery. John Grant is really quite unique and it's refreshing to hear someone pushing the boundaries of singer songwriting.
BEARDS!
The same cannot be said of Midlake. Their show went roughly like this. Ok song, good song, bad song, good song, insufferably long band jam which has everyone checking their phones, going to the toilet, or - in one girl's case - losing the will to live and collapsing to the floor. It's not that Midlake don't have tunes but they're increasingly few and far between. Also their stage presence amounts to beards and a spooky resemblance to a tribe of electrified Bee Gees. I imagine Midlake to be the kind of people who still get scared during eclipses and think the World Wide Web has something to do with spiders. It says something that when they invite the support act onstage he wipes the floor with the rest of their set. Midlake are like Radiohead would have been, if, instead of pursuing new sonic territories, they had instead chosen to write albums reflecting the toil of life in the 15th century. In 2010 there is definitely no sane reason to have 2 flute players in a band. Still, great beards though.
