Otoboke Beaver
London Scala
J-rock mayhem-mongers level King’s Cross.
Hey you! Have you forgotten the sheer
exhilarating thrill of having Japanese-language
all-female noise-punk blasted in your face at shotgun
volume and nosebleed speed? In that case, meet your
new favourite band, Otoboke Beaver. Buoyed by
rave reviews for their new album Itekoma Hits, the
Kyoto quartet are on blisteringly great form at this
packed show, with vocalist Accorinrin headbanging
like a three-legged pig on crack.
Counting Lars Ulrich among their growing army of
famous fans, Otoboke Beaver draw on Japan’s rich
tradition of female-fronted punk-pop mentalists, from
Shonen Knife to Melt-Banana to Babymetal. This live
show cannot quite match their album’s experimental
ferocity, but there is still plenty of bowel-bursting
mania in Don’t Light My Fire, the giddy whoop-fest Love
is Short and the loud-quiet, fast-slow, whisper-scream
tirade Anata Watashi Daita Ato Yome No Meshi.
As joyously anarchic spectacle, Otoboke Beaver are
instantly exciting. But there is virtuoso precision going
on below their gloriously chaotic stupidcore racket, from
bone-shaking rockabilly to knotty math-rock to
vomitous jazz-metal convulsions. Effortlessly switching
between gabba-speed machine-gun jabber and head-
cocked, splay-legged, screamo-thrash power-gurgling,
Accorinrin repeatedly pulls off the fantastic trick of
calming the audience into silence before unleashing the
next blast-furnace moshpit meltdown.
Stephen Dalton
Daryl Hall & John Oates
London SSE Arena
The hits. Done properly.
It’s a simple business sometimes. Daryl Hall
and John Oates have a shedload of hits to
their name, and they and their six-piece band unfurl
them with respect, joy and verve. What could
possibly go wrong? As it happens, nothing.
After 50 years making music and almost as many
million album sales, they don’t even have to pretend
to be best buddies. After a show where the superslick
Method Of Modern Love has merged with a loose-
limbed, extended I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do), the
band cuddle and take bows. Hall (tall and grizzled)
and Oates (short and grizzled) are nowhere to be
seen, the prospect of physical contact clearly a step
too far for them both.
However, when the seventy-somethings’ voices
cannon off each other during a marvellous She’s Gone
(“the song that defines us,” notes Hall, correctly) or
their surprisingly edgy, southern soul take on You’ve
Lost That Lovin’ Feeling, it’s as if they’re twins of the
Siamese variety.
In a some-expense-spared production, Hall’s voice
is lower than it was in their pomp, but his newfound
rasp gives extra depth to Private Eyes and Maneater,
while Oates’s guitar still shines. Wisely, the pair let
the songs – be they relatively obscure (Is It A Star) or
more familiar (everything else) – carry the load and
everyone is satisfied.
An obvious triumph.
John AizlewoodNick Mason’s Saucerful Of
Secrets / McNally Waters
Aylesbury Friars, Waterside Theatre
Road-honed alternative Floyd shine on.
The last time Nick Mason sat behind his
drums on a Friars-related stage was in
November 1969 with his old band at the venerable
club’s Dunstable satellite. “It’s taken a little time to get
back here,” he announces during a sparkling set with
his wildly successful “time machine” Saucerful Of
Secrets, part of Friars’ golden jubilee celebrations.
In 2019 this is the closest the packed house’s Floyd
diehards will get to the original model, rightly credited
by Mason to Syd Barrett. Bonhomie and reverence
charge his accomplices: guitarist Lee Harris, Floyd
bassist Guy Pratt, Spandau Ballet singer/guitarist Gary
Kemp and keyboard wizard Dom Beken. “My
considered opinion is that you sound a lot better than
we did back in the day,” Roger Waters commented
when he guested with them in New York.
After lift-off with Interstellar Overdrive and Astronomy
Domine, the set dips into the first seven pre-Dark Side
Floyd albums, plus Syd’s obscure Vegetable Man. By
the deliriously received Set The Controls, See Emily Play,
Bike and One Of These Days, it’s apparent that this is
more a readjustment of Floyd history than any vanity
project, defiantly closing with Point Me At The Sky.
The evening opened effectively with the contrasting
country balladry of McNally Waters; esteemed
songwriter John McNally with Roger’s pianist son
Harry keeping it in the family.
Kris NeedsA screaming, whooping audience is threatening to
shake the foundations of this refined old theatre.
Tonight is Tedeschi Trucks Band’s first of two sold-out
nights here, playing a completely different set-list on each,
mixing originals with rootsy covers.
The 12 people on stage feel more like a shy group of
music nerds who happen to be infuriatingly talented – two
brilliant drummers? Sure. Can the keyboardist also sing?
Of course. Does that backing vocalist have pipes to rival Bill
Withers? Naturally... No matching outfits or staged moves,
and barely any chat. All soul, no bullshit.
Co-founder Derek Trucks is routinely included in
‘World’s Most Uhhmazing Guitarists’-type lists, and it’s
easy to see why. But he’s also one of the least showy.
Turning towards his amps and seldom fully facing the
audience, he makes a ‘reluctant’ rock star like Myles
Kennedy look like Yngwie Malmsteen. The one respect in
which he doesn’t hold back is his playing, dropping jaws
from the emotive Laugh About It to joyous sun-kissed
streaks of the Allmans in Keep On Growing.
But it’s Susan Tedeschi (Trucks’s wife) who steals the
show – and leads it. As a singer she’s characterful and
soulful, like a female Lowell George crossed with Bonnie
Raitt, and her guitar solos prove she can more than hold
her own next to her husband.
Next year they’re playing Wembley. It’ll be great, but
seeing them in this comparatively intimate space feels
quite special.
Polly Glass
Tedeschi Trucks Band
London Palladium
Spellbinding southern rock royalty.
‘No matchi
ng (^) outfits,
and b^
arely any
chat.
All soul, n
o bullshit.’
A family affair and one
hell of a partnership:
Susan Tedeschi and
Derek Trucks.
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(^) CLA
RKE