This show was a Dimple Discs showcase featuring three bands whose albums I have either already reviewed or will be reviewing in the next few weeks, although they altered the original running order of this gig it was clear that Keeley was the headliner and Dragon Welding very much the act most people ignored.
First on was Mari Dangerfield who was promoting her excellent Love & Other Machines album as well as her new EP Eco Fever that's out later in the summer, she was performing solo with a table full of synths, stylophones and samplers she opened with The Stars Were Wrong as the looped backing got going her vocals came across crystal clear as she told us all to avoid the spurious advice of all sorts of snakeoil salesmen.
Webcam may have started life as a lockdown song, but this has taken on new levels of intrigue as AI starts to take over, that dancefloor beat got lots of us grooving along with Mari. Fashionable was the first song from the new Eco fever EP and it asked some very good questions as to why we should all fit in and wear the same clothes, of course Mari was in a very 60's style pvc outfit different to anyone else in the venue, unlike this reviewer who was one of the two people wearing identical Dream Syndicate T-shirts, I'm such a fashion victim when it comes to 80's bands.
Mari gave us a good explainer for what the term Eco Anxiety means, why she's written a song about it, if you don't suffer from Eco Anxiety currently then you really need to figure out why not, this is a great anthem for change housed in a gauzy synth pop song.
Screen Time is a pop banger cautionary tale for anyone who can't get there head out of there phone screen long enough to talk to some actual people, this sounded great live. Love Machine was the most Stylophone heavy song of the night as Mari played was it two or three Stylophones to get just the right of pop magic going to seduce us all with, this went down very well indeed. Ruins from the new ep was introduced with a story about filming the video at Brean Down Fort near Weston Super Mare and how hard it was to reach this remote location before this song about the ruins of another relationship floundering on the rocks grabbed our attention.
Mari closed her set with her latest single Eco Fever a delightful slice of Eco-friendly pop to nudge us all into doing more to save the climate and the planet by being more conscientious about our surroundings and what we are doing to the planet. I am so glad I got to see Mari Dangerfield live as she deserves to become a huge act.
It was soon time for Keeley the band devoted to spreading the story of the still unsolved murder of Ingar Maria Hauser over 33 years ago on her first night in Northern Island as documented at https://thekeeleychronicles.wordpress.com/, this show was the third show the current line-up of Keeley have performed featuring on drums Tom Fenner the Microdisney legend alongside Nick Foxtrot Mitchell on Bass and of course Keeley Moss on vocals and guitar.
They opened with Where I Stay Tonight the question most backpackers asked on arriving in any new town, only things didn't go to plan for Ingar as Keeley's guitar really went off. This Is Where the Monster Lies takes us on a walk down a dark backstreet that Ingar was never to emerge from set among the crisp drumming and insistent bass driving things on. Shadow On The Hills one of her singles was next and sounded great fleshed out live with that nagging bassline driven deep into our heads. Gift From A Ghost was full of strident searing guitar set against Tom's totally on point drumming.
Scratches On Your Face is what should have been enough to catch Maria's killer, sadly not the case as this dark song got everyone going. To A London Sunrise about Maria waking up early in London about to continue her travels to Ireland, that turned out to be a fatal mistake when it really shouldn't have been.
|
Keeley made sure in between songs to let us know how happy they were to play at a venue as legendary at the Water Rats without naming it as a venue that Sir Laurence Olivier, Laurel & Hardy and Peter Sellars have acted at, before Never Here Always There asks what Inga saw in the short period between leaving the boat and meeting her murderer, did she see any of the beauty of Ireland or was it all darkness. Seeing Everything asks where Inga might have gone arriving at 11 o'clock at night seeking shelter and safety but finding the opposite, if only she had turned a different way, Keeley's vocals were full of the bitter anger, this tale that has so consumed her, has become her defining mission to get that murderer brought to justice finally.
Boarded Up In Belfast was one of the new songs they played and takes us back to the bad old days of the troubles, a city full of shuttered businesses and a foreboding edge to the place. We then got the magnificent Echo Everywhere a song that seems to grow with every listen from the original ep version through to the album version and now this live take that added layers of reverb as you hear Ingar's voice crying out for help.
Forever's Where You Are was introduced as being the song on the album that isn't allowed to name the main suspect but live in among a hail of feedback that name may well have slipped out, this is as angry as it should be for the injustice done on that terrible day, as well as in the intervening years when the killer has continued to roam free.
The Glitter And The Glue about how the more Keeley found out about the murder the more it consumed her every thought was a real high spot live, a great bouncy slice of indie pop with deceptively dark lyrics.
The set concluded with the essential anthem Arrive Alive making sure we all know to avoid the pitfalls on the road and get safely to journeys end as Keeley's guitar fried at the edges and Tom's drums came to a crashing conclusion of a brilliant set that just left us all wanting more.
By the time I wandered back into the now almost empty gig room Dragon Welding were well into there set of room clearing tunes by Andy Golding ex of The Wolfhounds and his vocalist for part of the set Ant Chapman, who was singing about Dangerous Times set against the dark distended guitar lines.
In The Dark was exactly where this music left most of the people popping in for a song or two before retreating to the bar, as it was sadly pretty lifeless compared to Keeley and Mari Dangerfield. Once Ant had sat down and Andy continued solo on an instrumental I admitted defeat and wandered back to the bar as Dragon Welding had done very little for me live sadly.
|
