Alt-J @ Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco, 11-Dec-2012 (early show)

I was excited to go to this show because it was at 6pm. Please can we have more matinee shows please!

Alt-J seem to me to be an easy band to like but a hard band to love. At the heart of the band are its idiosyncratic lyrics and folkish harmonies. I know they have been very successful very soon in their career, but I was surprised by how completely confident they were. There was not a hesitation even when relying vocal tricks to hold a song together.

I thought that the drummer was a hired hand as he seemed to play like a drum machine, following the band not pushing it. I was wrong however as he appears to have been present from the start. Perhaps what I was hearing was an aspect of a studio oriented band reproducing their stuff on the road.

Despite the intellectualism there were times when the band really go goiing and people began to dance. I would like to hear more of this aspect of Alt-J.

A recent NYT article entitled If You Like the Moody Blues, Try Alt-J seems to completely miss the point of Alt-J. They are not bombastic, but subtle.

Manic Street Preachers @ Hibernian Club, Fulham 12-Aug-1991

I wrote this for Facebook but am putting it here too.

What I remember:

• This was as local as a London gig ever gets, I walked there and some of the women who lived next door were there too.
• I wondered what that second guitarist actually added to the band
• It was a good gig and this video shows that  it was pretty exciting but it did drag in the middle.

Wild Flag @ Bottom Of The Hill, San Francisco, 18 Nov 2010

Wild Flag is a new band which contains two members of Sleater-Kinney (as amazingly drummer Janet Weiss has not been snapped up by Led Zeppelin). All four members sing but the band is dominated by singer/guitarist Carrie Brownstein. Even when the band are setting themselves up they all end up looking at her waiting for the signal that they are ready. But Carrie won't start until a scotch on the rocks has been bought at the bar and passed hand to hand through the crowd. In Sleater-Kinney she was the second best singer but now she lets loose, singing louder and clearer than ever. The other guitarist-singer (Mary Timony) is in danger of being overpowered by all this but keeps going while keyboardist Rebecca Cole is cheerful but not generally audible.

This band hasn't made a record but I expect I will buy it when it does appear. If it can capture Carrie Brownstein on this form then it should be interesting.

Janelle Monae @ All Shook Down Festival, San Francisco, 25-July-2010

The day before I went briefly to the Tidal Wave Metal Festival in McLaren Park. This was a much more organized affair with the location being a street fair in North Beach. There was even a published schedule (please could all concerts have this?) and this enabled me to time my arrival perfectly so I could be near the front. The sound was not good at first but got better. Janelle Monae can sing, as she clearly demonstrated singing Smile. She can dance on one leg, a bit like JB in the Tami show, and in the picture above you can see she even wore a cape at one stage. She has her band looking cool in their uniform of evening dress. And she has good songs. I expect her to become a big star.

Dead Weather @ The Warfield, San Francisco, 22 July 2010

Alison Mosshart is a great rock'n'roll chick. She looks fabulous, like Keef's long lost illegitimate daughter. She jumps on the monitors, she climbs on the speaker stacks. She thrusts her hips. You'd think that this would all get a bit boring after a while but it doesn't. When she isn't singing she prowls about the stage. At one point Jack White wickedly announces that she is ovulating and the audience certainly seems to feel the effects of a few hormones. There's just one big problem: she isn't the best singer in this band. Jack White actually has a similarly pitched voice, and when they sing (or shout) together it works well. But he does more things with his voice, and also articulates better, you can actually hear the words he is singing.

Dean Fertita is the Dead Weather's guitarist and keyboardist. He makes a lot of good noise. At their best the Dead Weather get a heavy Led Zep sound going, and Fertita plays the parts of both Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones (in his riffing keyboard mode). There's just one big problem: he isn't the best guitarist in this band. Jack White is a really interesting guitar player. Even when repeating a riff he seems to be able to play it differently each time.

I think John Peel once said that the problem with Led Zeppelin was that their audience started to just unthinkingly approve of everything they did. I can't begrudge anyone trying to sound like Led Zep; it looks like fun. On the BART ride home I saw someone reading Hammer of the Gods, which seems like ancient history. Maybe there should be a statute of limitations which limits how long a band can be copied.

I did enjoy this concert even if it sounds like I didn't.

Deerhoof /The Donkeys @ Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco, 8 July 2010

The Donkeys are having a good time. They have a hot guitarist and the rest of the band share the vocal duties around. Yes, this means they have a singing drummer: he is pretty good but he has to stop that trick of raising one drumstick to the sky. The band has a soft rock, 70s sound and they reminded me of 10CC. As I was brought up on The Original Soundtrack this is a good thing.
Obligatory complaining about photographers: the annoying person was a young woman who was standing on the stage to take photos. I think she thought she was invisible because she was wearing black.

I have heard several Deerhoof records, and liked them, but that didn't prepare me for how good they are live. They were formed by drummer Greg Saunier. He has has minimal drum kit set up and the front, and he pounds it. He also provides several long winded but mildly humourous speeches to the crowd. There are two guitarists who play like James "Blood" Ulmer crossed with Bob Mould. Finally Vocalist/bassist Satomi Matsuzaki provides cute and mellow vocals. I don't think this combination should work but it does. This was a fantastic gig. I proclaim Deerhoof to be the best ever band from San Francisco. I look forward to seeing them again.

Die Walküre @ San Francisco Opera, 13 June 2010

This was the first Wagner opera that I have attended. Opera is all about epic emotion and the scope of Wagner's story is large enough to make all the dramatics seem appropriate. I enjoyed the sets and costumes, the large cast (including some dogs), the special effects (including flames) and the acting (which not all singers like to do). In this production Brünnhilde is portrayed as a jolly hockey sticks pilot and was completely adorable. Now I want to see a complete ring cycle, though it is rather expensive.

Dum Dum Girls / Crocodiles @ Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco 30 June 2010

The only words that Crocodiles utter to the audience are uttered while the guitarist is tuning up and I can't understand a word. The singer is shaped like Joey Ramone. He twists and turns as he sings and he moves like Lux Interior. The band sound like the Jesus and Mary Chain which requires some good guitar playing. As each song ends in a wail of feedback the fab drummer takes a breath, then thumps out a new beat and we're onto the next song. Rounding out the lineup we have an imperturbable bassist and a keyboardist who fiddles with her effects boxes and dances in her chair. This band may not be supremely innovative but they are perfect in their way and I loved them.

(I would just like to whine about the photographer who stood in front of me. He took 74 pictures in 10 minutes, flashing away like some, er, flasher. Will no one rid me of these selfish amateurs?)

Dum Dum Girls look great. The two guitarists often pay the same chords, then the non-singer will switch to playing an annoyingly tinny solo. The singing guitarist has a distinctive husky tone. The best part is when the guitarists harmonize, sometimes joined by the bassist making a good impression of a 60's Wall of Sound production. Though the Dum Dum Girls are vastly more original than Crocodiles I could not enjoy them as much.

Kate Nash / Supercute! at Bottom of the Hill, San Francico, 8-May-2010

Oh dear. Kate Nash is a clever songwriter, vaguely in the Lily Allen genre. She doesn't have a strong voice so what she needs is a sympathetic backing. Unfortunately she seems to have fallen in with the complaint rock crowd. She has a stodgy backing band who can play (they keep switching instruments and roles) but don't know how to not play. Kate Nash herself gets to strap on a guitar and play loud but the whole effect is like having George Best on your team and putting him in goal. The best part is when she is joined by support band Supercute! who are surely destined for world domination.

Florence and the Machine / Holy Hail @ Mezzanine, San Francisco, 17 April 2010

Poor Holy Hail had some good ideas and lots of enthusiasm, but terrible sound. I hadn't been to the Mezzanine before. It is a big location for Indie rock (shudder) and they do get a lot of British bands. For a time they didn't offer advance tickets which was a deal breaker for me. Inside is a nice club layout with a few hidden away places where you could sit around. The stage is weirdly in a corner of the dance floor. I was worried that this was the source of the poor sound but it must have been just traditional cruelty to support acts.

Florence and the Machine are a band but are really one person, the eponymous singer. The hired help consists of players of drums/bass/guitar/keyboards and (super trendy) harp, all dressed in black so as to fade into the background. Florence was dressed in a traditional combination of wedding dress style leotard over metallic shorts, along with a flowing shawl which was worn in several different ways. She has two tones when singing, a plaintive throaty voice, and a full blooded roar form the gut. When she lets loose it is an awesome sound which sweeps everyone along with it. Some of the songs on the album are pretty decent so altogether it is an impressive package. Why then did my attention wander a bit? Well I was tired. But I would have sacrificed a bit of power in the singing for more detail, and I'd like to have heard a bit more character from the band. Overall though this was memorable.

Vivian Girls / Best Coast @ Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco, 9-Feb-2010

Best Coast is possibly a person rather a band. She sings with a lot of echo on the vocals. The songs have tunes (this is a good thing). The other guitarist seems shy and is half turned away from the audience. They borrow Vivian Girls drummer Ali, (although she hits harder later when playing for her proper band). They did a cover of "I know what boys like".

Vivian Girls are a punk-ish band who sound to me a bit like The Shop Assistants. They are cute and adorable and it is hard not to like them.

At one point they do an a cappella cover of "He's Gone" by the Chantels (as shown in the photo above). On most of their rock songs they make a nice noise and the audience bounces around. Sometimes though they play longer more improvisational songs in which the bassist plays more melodically and the guitarist solos. I liked these songs a great deal, they surprisingly reminded me of one of the Fripp/Wetton/Bruford lineups of King Crimson (this is a good thing).

The Slits / The Go-Going-Gone Girls / Sassy!!! @ The Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco, 10 December 2009

Ari Up is roughly the same age as me. We are pretty similar except that at age 14, when I was listening to Supertramp, she was forming The Slits. In this small club her confidence was overpowering, she is among the most charismatic performers I have ever seen. As often happens with British bands The Slits had lost a member to the INS, in this case a keyboard player. Despite this they made a full sound, anchored by founding member Tessa Pollit on bass and with San Francisco guitarist Michelle Hill (I am sure I have seen her in some other band) adding colour.

Earlier San Francisco duo Sassy!!! got a good reception. They dress a bit like 1975 Led Zeppelin, and sound a bit like them, or maybe The White Stripes. There's a young woman drummer, in white, with glitter and a young woman guitarist in black, with glitter. Both sing, I preferred the drummer's croaky rock'n'roll voice.

The Go-Going-Gone Girls are a sort of multi-generational, post-modern version of a girl group. They are clever, with some amusing shtick about different languages which included songs in Spanish, Italian, and Swedish (I think). When I am king, support bands will be limited to 25 minutes, and they went a bit too long for me (as it was a school night).

The show was not sold out, which surprised me. The crowd was a mixture of old and young, with several mother/daughter outings in progress. The older crowd looked good, with one person near me sporting a nice punky tea-cosy hat.

So the Slits were fantastic. A weirdness of modern life is that at every concert there is some loser who would rather play with a gadget instead of actually enjoy the show. So you can actually see one of the highlights of the show (embedded below), where Ari Up invites some members of the audience to participate in the backing vocals for their classic old song Typical Girls. The volunteer vocalists turn out to be Sassy!!!, who by this time have been celebrating their earlier success with a few drinks (I know as I was sitting by them in the back lounge). There is also a false start, just like on a very amusing Slits bootleg I have. And it was great. But of course watching the video is a bit boring. I guess you had to be there.

Lady Gaga @ Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, San Francisco, 13 December 2009

The Bill Graham Civic Auditorium is owned by the city of San Francisco. In its time it has hosted an NBA team, the Democratic National Convention, and now Lady Gaga. last time I went to the Bill Graham it was a seated venue. Now that it is configured for standing on the floor area, plus seated bleachers, it has a capacity of about 7,000 which makes it San Francisco's biggest venue.

I took my teenage protege to this concert and she is still several inches smaller than me. She didn't want to venture into the seething mass of adults on the floor, so we initially sat up in the bleachers. We had an OK view, supplemented by video screens, but the sound was terrible. I think when you get up near the roof of these old buildings you get lots of sound reflections which mean you hear a fuzz. Later we descended to the floor where we could see and hear what was going on.

2009 was Lady Gaga's year. She seems like one of those talented sports figures who appear every so often and appear to be complete players even as teenagers. Even Madonna took years to achieve a similar mastery of all the elements of Pop: music, fashion, interviews, videos.

The concert was fun. It was definitely a large scale production with many dancers. There were occasional glimpses of musicians but I believe most of the music was pre-recorded. As with most of these type of shows, some of the vocals were also pre-recorded, with some parts of the vocals (especially the choruses) being also sung live. This doesn't offend me, Gaga clearly did sing some of the show, and it is surely physically impossible to dance, hang upside down and sing at the same time.

The only thing that Lady Gaga has not completely mastered is the talking to the audience bit. She has obviously read my unpublished article on how you have to suck up to SF audiences, but her stories do tend to ramble on a bit. Still, I did believe that she was enjoying herself as much as anyone can in such a situation. I felt much the same.

Girls / Tamaryn / Dominant Legs @ Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco, 21 Nov 2009

I saw one song by Dominant Legs which is new Girls' guitarist Ryan Lynch's band. This was fun in a REM plus girly harmonies way.

I liked Tamaryn. The main sound comes from the John McGeoch style guitar of Rex John Shelverton, coupled with a driving bass. The focus of attention is on singer Tamaryn Brown. She is serious and passionate, brave and likable. She emotes, and dances, and throws a few shapes. Their fast songs are best, where the drummer starts to pound like Budgie. There's something not quite right about their sound, the singing is hard to hear at times because too much of the rest of the band are trying to play in the same tonal spaces. But overall this was rather good.

Both Tamaryn and Girls setup their own equipment. The main act didn't have a dramatic start as the guitar tuners slowly morphed into guitar players. Girls are an up and coming band from San Francisco. When they play at home they add to their lineup Miles, a percussionist, who is a bit of a Bez (without the dancing). The core of the band is singer/guitarist Christopher Owens. His songs seem to be to be about catching a mood, or a fleeting instance of happiness. The songs often end in a shimmery bit of improvisation as we try to keep the happy feeling from fading away.

It was a weird crowd at the Bottom of the Hill. Although it was a 21 and over gig there was a whiff of immaturity about. There was a lot of pushing near the front and eventually a small fight broke out. After the handbags had been put away I found the lost glasses of one of the combatants and was duly hugged. Then some people were shouting at the band, stupid things like "you rock". I saw pain and disgust pass across Christopher's face. The band seemed rattled. Can such a sensitive and subtle band survive in the world of rock? I hope that the inevitable transition to larger venues will actually help them. I am sure they will be successful as they are a bit special.

The Horrors @ The Independent, San Francisco, 3-October-2009

If it is true that talent imitates, genius steals, then The Horrors are pretty clever. The good thing about them is that they have good taste in who they copy: Joy Division, Stone Roses, My Bloody Valentine. I liked their latest CD and was hoping that their quality ingredients would be blended more smoothly when played live.

I was impressed to see that they have spent a chunk of their record company money on new clothes. I particularly liked the guitarist's jacket which you can see above, though I was not convinced by the bassist's attempt to introduce the double breasted jacket into rock.

OK, so they have OK songs, a tasty if unoriginal sound and they look great. How was the concert? Alas I was unconvinced. The vocals are hard to hear, the guitar seems aimless. it just did not blend for me. For another view I refer you to Hard Rock Chick.

Little Boots / Music Go Music @ The Independent, San Francisco, 19 September 2009

I was tired and not looking forward to seeing support bands. So it took me a while to realise I really liked Music Go Music. At first I was distracted becasue their singer Meredith Metcalf was so enthusiastic, throwing a few ballet poses, playing air violin while standing one one leg, shrieking with delight when a song went well. Then I tuned into the Mark King style bass which is the heart of their sound and I got it. The combination of 80's Britfunk and Abba seems strangely fresh. Here is a video of Music Go Music on some sort of pretend TV show:

The audience seemed to be a gay/straight mix of disco fans. I get stuck by one attractive couple who were really into the DJ and I had to watch them bounce around happily. I shrunk into my (metaphorical) long overcoat.

You can tell from Little Boots' name that she is a trooper. I was half hoping the power would fail as I am sure that she would be able to entertain the crowd with a flashlight and a singalong. She wears posh frocks, writes her own twitter feed and posts bedroom YouTube videos of songs played on wacky electronic instruments.

She is, in short, the perfect modern pop star.

For this tour she has a tasteful drummer and another keyboardist. I felt she missed the backing singers that she sometimes uses to add to her slightly thin voice.

She played the songs off her CD. I would have liked to see her being a bit more relaxed and trying some different things in the way that she does in her YouTube videos. But the show gained momentum as it went along, climaxing with modern classic Remedy, which included a singalong.

Heaven and Hell / Coheed and Cambria @ the Warfield 10-Aug-2009

This was another legacy act at the Warfield accompanied by a strong support band. I like Coheed and Cambria’s recordings a lot, at least the ones I have heard. Their singer amusingly sounds like Geddy Lee and their albums all allegedly form part of some giant comic book story. When performing live the band is led by its two guitarists. I don’t know their story but they look as though they taught each other to play guitar, their left hands move in exactly the same way on the guitar. Unfortunately their live sound is muddy and you can’t understand the singing or distinguish what the two guitarists are doing. I know this wasn’t just his concert as I watched some of their live DVDs as well. This is a case where they should let the singer concentrate on singing and hire another guitarist. They also didn’t seem to like being a support act and the only person who spoke was the bassist. The part of the audience that came for Coheed and Cambria was significantly younger than that for the headliners and there was some serious moshing.

Heaven and Hell is the lineup of Black Sabbath Black that existed between 1980-1982 and 1991-1992. There have been some legal issues with the Black Sabbath name and so the band is touring under this moniker. So far so good, but they have made the foolish mistake of only playing Black Sabbath songs of their own era, ignoring the classic Ozzy stuff. Still, when they appear there is a lot of excitement, and many devil horns are thrust. Singer Ronnie James Dio has one of the classic voices of Heavy Metal. He looks great too, jumping around and grinning. He is careful to ration his screams, and his song introductions are a little verbose, I’m not sure we really needed to be told that their performance of a sing about the end of the world would not actually signal said event. Sabbath main man Tony Iommi also looks fabulous, sporting a satanic beard and blue tinted spectacles. I am pleased to see the man who is indirectly responsible for SunnO))) and all those other droney metal bands. Geezer Butler has also been at the hair dye, and is here too, along with Vinny Appice, who has the most ridiculous drum kit. The new songs aren’t bad, but it is when they play their few older songs that this band generates quite a power.

Overall this concert was a bit of a disappointment. Both bands could do better, maybe their adoring fans prevent them from seeking to improve. As at many metal shows the audience was surprisingly friendly, really they were the best part of this show.

Sonic Youth & Awesome Color @ Fox Theater Oakland, 2-Aug-2009

I had not realised that the newly reopened Fox Theater is so huge. It has a capacity of 3800, standing downstairs, seated upstairs. The moorish decorations are cool, I particularly liked this deity which reminded me of the cover of the Dungeons and Dragons Player's Guide.

After having previously seen Nirvana and Sun Ra as support bands for Sonic Youth I was careful to be on time to see Awesome Color. They seemed a bit small in this venue, perhaps they should have huddled more. They were super polite and kept giving respect to Sonic Youth. Their best moments are when the guitarist wrestled a small monitor against his guitar. This made a delightful squealing until an electrical problem cut out the sound. That never happened to Jimi. Later there is some more play with the monitor which seemed to involve standing on a guitar. I am not too old to enjoy this sort of thing.

The audience is mostly white and fairly young. There were a few children, I saw a ten year old wearing a Sonic Youth tee shirt I used to have.

This is my fourth time seeing Sonic Youth. They now have a permanent bass player and so Kim Gordon alternates between bass and guitar. This means sometimes they have three guitarists. It is a Rule of Rock that no band with three guitarists is any good, but Sonic Youth have smashed that rule forever, they now sound better than at any time before. People have complained about the sound at the Fox but it was clear and I could hear each guitar separately when they played those pieces with chained chiming bits. As well as the pretty tunes there are the superbly executed surges of ecstatic noise. Most of the songs are from their last two CDs. At the end they play more of their earlier punkier stuff.

No review of Sonic Youth is complete without a picture of Kim Gordon. I tried to write about her but it sounded all gushy and I have deleted it. I will just say that she is an admirable figure.

La Roux & IO Echo @ Cafe Du Nord, San Francisco, 22 July 2009

Photo of Elly Jackson's shoes by Amber Gregory. She has more fab photos of La Roux at Cafe Du Nord.

IO Echo are just beginning. There is a strange contrast between the engaging singer's gun pointing poses during the songs and her giggles during the breaks. They don't have many songs and include a Beatles tune but the songs they do have were nicely structured.

It was crowded and hot in the Cafe du Nord. I had a younger, slightly shorter companion with me, attending her first concert, so we squeezed in near the front. As we waited we admired keyboardist Mikey’s Mac, which had a La Roux screen saver. Elly Jackson was performing with two keyboardists as her drummer was absent with visa problems. She sung better than I expected, her melancholy voice is clear, though stronger in the lower registers. The crowd liked the more up-tempo songs. She dances occasionally, crouched down at the back of the stage. She wraps an arm about her diaphragm as she sings, as if she needs to squeeze out the words. She is not a natural performer, but she does enjoy herself, at one point she tries to put keyboard player Nikki off her backing vocals on Quicksand. She seems used to playing festivals, at the end she makes a joke that people who don't like electropop will be pleased that it's over, forgetting that we all paid to be there to see her. They only play songs for the album, which keeps things pleasantly short.

I was around for the first wave of synthpop in the 1980's (when I was, like Elly, a major user of Elnett), and I love the way La Roux have used that sound. I am also amused at the way Ben Langmaid has taken the role of being the quiet one in the duo to greater heights than even Chris Lowe by not actually appearing on stage.

Elly was also on the cover of The Guardian that morning...

Yes / Asia @ The Warfield, San Francisco, 2 July 2009

I had a ticket to see Yes in March, but it was canceled. They rescheduled with Asia as support band. This make some sort of sense as Steve Howe plays guitar in both groups. The new show is at the Warfield, which is a downgrade from the Fillmore. Inside they have video screens, is this just for the aged audience or a new feature of the venue?

Asia were a great laugh. They only ever had one good album, so they play most of that. They are a real supergroup made up out of parts of old bands like some Frankenstein's monster. They played a big song from each of their former groups. John Wetton was in my favourite version of King Crimson and he boomed out In the Court of the Crimson King in his distinctive baritone. He looks like one of those football players you see playing on senior teams, you would not want to mess with him. Carl Palmer (Fanfare for the Common Man) looked like he was really happy to be there, and I was happy too until he played a drum solo. Geoff Downes (Video Killed the Radio Star) poses like the 70's star he never was. He has 10 keyboards to choose from but mostly he plays with one hand, using the other arm for balance. Later he played air guitar. Steve Howe seems wasted in this band. He looks thin and frail (he is a vegetarian) but his playing is superb tonight. There are big cheers when it is announced that Roger Dean is attending the concert.

Yes are one of those groups that have had a lot of different lineups. At one point they had so many ex-members that there were two extant bands playing the same material. I saw Yes in 1980 when they had got rid of their distinctive singer and lyricist (Jon Anderson) and gotten the Buggles in instead. Now, when I go and see them again, they have shown their usual disregard for history by again replacing Jon Anderson, this time with a singer from a tribute band. Still I should be happy that I can see them at all as they mostly play evil seated stadiums. And for once I am not anywhere near the oldest person in the audience.

The most surprising thing is how good the new singer is. Plus he is having a good time, dancing to the long instrumental sections. The other new player is the son of a previous member. I don't like this trend but Oliver Wakeman is modest and rather prettier than the rest of the band.

The only person who has been in all of Yes's incarnations is bassist Chris Squire. I have to admit that at one point in my life I owned one of his solo albums. He is great, he has the rumbliest bass sound in rock. As Steve Howe has got more emaciated, Chris has got larger. Still he sounds good, especially after some discussions with the sound guys.

Yes play a lot of the same songs they always do. Apart from 2 songs from Drama (the one with the Buggles) which are greeted with great excitement they don't play any songs written after 1974. But who cares? This is what everyone (including me) came to see. Yes, they are a it of a nostalgia band, but they still rock.