Seabear were awesome, I think they’ve nicked top spot in my best live band end of year poll. Just thought I’d get that in early. I’m getting ahead of myself though as the evening didn’t begin with a Seabear, it began with a Sea Cow…
When you first set eyes on Jam On Bread you could hazard a guess at where this was going. Beardy man (more later) with ukulele emblazoned with a Times New Viking sticker. He (as he is but one man) kicked things off with a song called ‘I’d Choose To Be A Manatee’ which was all about wanting to be a Sea Cow (understand now?). With lyrics such as ‘don’t have to pay council tax or worry about terrorist attacks’ it was hard to argue the point. This was followed by more oddities, a song about a Swedish record label and a song about eighties pop lyrics that quoted Jason Donovan. The lyrics were personal without being self indulgent, quirky without being annoying and funny without being daft. A song about his having the piss taken out of him for having a beard went, ‘ they like to call be Jesus which I thinks a bit odd, I’ve got a bit of a beard, I’m not the son of God’. Good call. Thoroughly entertaining.
The filling in the Bear sandwich was Alex Dingley and his band. I’ll be honest, I’m a bit confused by this lot. They started with a song called ‘The Matador’ which was pretty folky and could’ve been The Battlefield Band or something. I started to panic a bit at this point thinking I might be about to watch a Levellers support act. The guitars kicked in from that moment on though (bass was sporting the evening’s second Times New Viking sticker, it nestled alongside a …Trail Of Dead one) and the crowd started showing the kind of adoration that has led to my confusion. They’re by no means a bad band but the crowd reaction led me to believe I was watching The Clash, I think I was missing something. To be fair, the two people I spoke to afterward both owned the album and urged me to give it a listen. I will, mainly because the last 4 songs sounded a bit like The Crocketts and I fucking loved The Crocketts.
On to the headliners and my new favourite Icelanders. I go and watch loads of bands these days and work in a record shop so listen to loads of music so it’s really not often that I hear something that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. It’s so hard to describe this music to someone without them hearing it because it didn’t really sound like anything I have a reference point for. I’ll damn well try though. The have members of both Sigur Ros and Mum’s touring bands and you can see parts of both in patches. Seabear though are a different proposition, the songs aren’t 11 minutes long for a start. The layers of instruments underpinned by the haunting trumpet playing, by a man incidentally, that looked like he was having the most fun in the world, recalled Beirut, if Beirut had grown up playing Bjork hurling on a remote island rather than in Santa Fe (to my knowledge they didn’t play Bjork hurling in Santa Fe either, I’ll check Wikipedia).
There was acoustic guitar, violin, keys, electric guitar, a mad instrument that was like a harmonica with horns coming out of it, a trumpet, bass, drums and a voice that brought to mind Tom Barman from dEUS in his more reflective moments (ie not screaming ‘Friday, Friday, Friday’ at people). The band looked like they were having a blast and wherever I looked there were people grinning.
The last song was called ‘Lion Faced Boy’ and was ‘about a boy, who ate a face, and screamed like a lion’. Nuts, obviously but nuts in a genius Neutral Milk Hotel (look them up) kind of way as opposed to a ‘look at me, I’m trying to hard’ kind of way. It all just worked beautifully and I urge everyone that likes music to try and see them live or at least buy their album. I’ll leave you with the words of my friend Sioned:
“They completely envelop and overwhelm me, I keep getting goosepimples and my face hurts from smiling”.
I really can’t think of a better way to sum them up.
So another great night from the guys at Shape, ably co-promoted by Dance Like This. Keep it up people, keep it up.
