When I was asked to review this gig I said yes as much for a chance to go to St Pancras Old Church as to see the bands both of whom I knew nothing about at the time. Yes, it is very rare indeed to go to see concerts in a church that was established in the 3rd century and whose churchyard contains the grave of William Blake among others. It is also a good eerie and spooky graveyard and church that for most of my life had a reputation for nocturnal goings on with junkies and prostitutes, as well as being one of two sites in England that Joseph of Aramathea visited. Oh, and it was also the site of Boudicca's Iceni encampment that the Romans destroyed on their arrival in Londinium.
I felt that it would be sacriligeous to drink Beer at this gig so opted for the far more apt Jesus' Blood on offer as the day's Sainsbury's house red in a box as it seems ancient churches don't come with bars!! The stage was set up on the pulpit with a magnificent altarpiece behind the bands and all sorts of stones dedicated to the important folks buried beneath them adding to the atmosphere.
I chose to sit in the pews on the right hand side of the church and it appeared as the gig went on that the audience had self selected themselves into a wedding style split with the Three Blind Wolves fans on the left hand pews and the Dead Trees fans in the right hand pews. The THREE BLIND WOLVES are a young band from Glasgow who are appropriately signed to Communion Records and I will apologise to them now for guessing their song titles.
The first song Still Breaking Up Inside was a decent start although they seemed nervous performing in a church. They followed that with Hopeless Romantic and the way they were using vocal harmonies started to remind me a bit of CSNY but crossed with the latter end of the Willard Grant Conspiracy's career with hints of Big Country and the Waterboys thrown into the mix. Black Bowl Park was the highlight, having the harmonies and a bit of the Arlenes and Delgadoes about it, if sounding a little smaller than on the album Sound Of The Storm where much of this set was culled from.
The singer Ross Clark seemed to be getting more into it and loved being in this great old church even if the acoustics at times worked against them. Every time they used the vocal harmonies it worked in their favour, however, while large parts of the left hand pews were singing along to many of the songs especially the one I have down as I Stole The Sun. This was reinforced when they finished the set by going acapella and totally acoustic into the audience and making their last song (Can't Stand To Be Treated This Way) into a hymnal folk song rather than the windblown epics that some of their songs threaten to become.
I spent most of the break outside in the churchyard that was getting real spooky as darkness descended upon it. Soon, it was time for THE DEAD TREES from New York via San Francisco and Boston who were playing their first ever gig in a church, even if their Jewish Singer was a touch hesitant about it. But not as hesistant as the guitarist whose mother is apparently a staunch Boston Celtic catholic. Go figure. They were nearing the end of there tour to promote the new What Wave album on www.affairsoftheheart.de and have some associations with the Strokes.
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The opener seemed alright but kind of passed me by, but inbetween songs the singer held up the bottle of Tequila they had with them and offered it to anyone who wanted to come up to the stage for a shot of it or else the bottle of Jameson's they also had up there. A nice touch that was taken up by a good few audience members. I waited till I'd finished my wine before pouring myself a hefty shot of what turned out to be very very smooth Tequila indeed.
Slow Faze Fast was the second song and was probably the most Strokes-like part of the set. It went down well as did Land Of The Old and again I apologise for the wrong song title. They setled a bit as they got more used to the surroundings and having Jesus looking down on them from the altarpiece as well as the rather pagan sun that sat high above the stage. The guitarist had some nice touches on Back to Where and the band's sense of Bonhomie came across nicely as the singer seemed to want to step back into one of those 80's movies like Pretty In Pink or the Breakfast Club. Still he was singing about a block party on Punch For Punch so maybe he should have been the host of it.
I Don't Mind had some nice frazzled Psych touches and they then did a cover of a song by Adam Green called I think Come Dance With me. Rayna almost feels like it could have been an Opal or Viva Saturn outtake with a good train like beat to it, which with the Eurostar train lines less than a 100 yards away seemed to work well. Older, though, was the stand out song of the set and the one that got more of us going than most, though in my case it might have been the effects of the Tequila that really took me off on one.
They finished with Play Your Hand a song that is about being head over heels and yet having no place like home and it was obvious this was no place like home for them but they made the most of it and enjoyed themselves. They were also very friendly and approachable afterwards while selling their CDS and giving away some posters.
A cool gig in a great venue, then. My only problem is that even after listening to both bands' albums a couple of times the songs aren't remotely memorable. I'm hoping they will jump out a bit more in the I-pod but am not sure if they will. Oh and it's been a while since I bought a CD that lists none of the band members on it as the Dead Trees album does.
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