Normally I would be at home with my family eating a Sunday roast on Easter Sunday, but this year, I headed to one of my favourite pubs in London, The Old Queen’s Head, for their ‘all dayer.’
First up, at 7pm (making it hardly an ‘all dayer’), was the wonderful Dimbleby and Capper bringing her sparkly, electronic artpop to Angel. With it only being a small show, without a band, Laura Bettinson took it as an opportunity to showcase new songs, which were sounding incredibly strong. I’m really looking forward to hearing them again soon! She also of course, played older favourites ‘Structure’, ‘Want This’ and recent single ‘Let You Go.’ Catch her at FLOCK in London tonight, in Birmingham with SaintSaviour on Wednesday (27th) or Friday (29th) at Club NME at Koko in Camden.
Following Dimbleby and Capper’s fantastical show were Ursa Minor, a young electronic pop band who seemed to have been put together in an S Club Junior style way; they just didn’t have any connection with each other, it was almost like they’d never met each other. They were also making incredibly lame attempts to be ‘quirky’ and look like a band with one of the boys in the band wearing a ridiculous pink baseball cap and the front woman salmon coloured skinny jeans which were probably from Topshop, how original. The samples used sounded like they’d come from a horrendous 80′s computer game and the melodies lacked a chorus. Yes, there were times when beats were strong enough to carry the song but then the pulse would just flutter away like a dying butterfly. This band make Brother appear creative. They are definitely not going anyway quickly with their lack of originality and solidarity.
Next on were electro-pop duo, Alunageorge, who kicked their show off with ‘Analayser’, the b-side to forthcoming single, ‘We are Chosen’ which was played later on in the set and went down lovely. It was a great way to start the set with Aluna bursting with energy already. She certainly had everyone’ s eyes hooked on her very quickly, and not just because of her brilliant, yet envy invoking, long legs. Highlights of the set were ‘Body Music’ and ‘Disobey.’ With Aluna’s on stage charisma, it’s pretty certain that Alunageorge will reach pretty vast heights. This said, at times, because the band are just made up of vocals, drums and synth, it did seem a little like Aluna was carrying the performance however; I definitely think that maybe if something was added to the line-up to increase the texture, it would give the band as a whole a little bit more bite. The band have not been established for very long, so little things like this will always crop up at this stage.
Alunageorge were followed by Sheffield band, Shake Aletti. I must hand it to them, they were definitely, by far, the most enthusiastic band of the evening; they were busting moves all over the shop. This said, their music was a bit like Ou est la swimming pool? with buckets full of added campness. It was interesting for about five minutes as no-one had played anything like this throughout the whole evening but once I came to the realisation that all of their songs sounded rather similar, I left the happy drunk people to dance along to Shake Aletti and went to the roast beef incensed toilets- someone appeared to have eaten a roast dinner in there; there was even an empty plate in there. They were clearly feeling rather anti-social!
http://www.myspace.com/shakealetti
And finally, at 10:30pm, it was time for the alter-ego of Anita Blay, Cocknbullkid, to take to the stage, with, unlike in her early days, a full band. Predictably, the sound was massive. We all knew that Anita had a large voice but in my opinion, it was always held back by the use of samplers and the like. Her new show really suits her down to a tee. With her church singing background (see my interview with her here for more details), the big gospel-like sound, seemed to bring out the real her. Her performance was fun, lively and interesting. The forthcoming single, ‘Asthma Attack’ went down fantastically with the crowd before her as well as past singles ‘ Hold on to Your Misery’ and ‘One Eye Closed.’ This said, I would say that ‘Mexico’ was also a huge highlight, maybe because it’s one of the best songs from her album, Adulthood, which is going to be released in late May. Throughout the whole set, I don’t think that the crowd was still whatsoever at any point. Despite all criticisms that Cocknbullkid has faced in the past, if you go and see her play her new album, you’ll definitely enjoy it, trust me!
Words by Katie Wilkinson
