Low playing in tbmc om May 1st

indiewindy

Originally this concert was scheduled to take place in tha ambassador but was switched to tbmc and is still nowhere near selling out. Am I the only person going to see this excellent band?
and with the support act my latest novel getting amazing reviews like this

MOJO - 4/5

Romantic Boho-RockBravado from Greenock Quintet.

If they weren't hell bent on taking risks, these Scots could easily settle on being a replacement Belle and Sebastian, given their ramshackle, velvets sweetness, guitar-violin axis, boy-girl harmonies and more than an occassional traipse into the land of fey. But MLN inject their indie-pop frame with a swarthy melodrama that's more Tindersticks in flavour, and the word 'kickass' comes to mind when they really get going. The MLN experience is best savoured on 2005's lengthy debut single Sister Sneaker Sister Soul, with its languorous mood giving way to a violin-driven meltdown, but its matched here in range by Ghost in the Gutter and in tenderness by The Hope Edition. There's poetry too, "But just like a star, my pining subsides/Dropes but then swells, clamps my insides," If vocalist Chris Deveney is preoccupied by girl (or boy) trouble, his pain is memorable.
UNCUT - 4/5

Fine Post-Post-Rock From Touted Glaswegians

Wolves raises the spectres of both post and alt rock, but adeptly avoids the lethargy of americana which has settled like a fog on both genres.It's a root stew of sea-shanty, melodic guitar, sober violin and unsettling percussion interventions, as on the hammering-on-the-front-door-at-mid-night of "Learning Lego".Singularly, MLN match both lyrical and musical busy-ness, particularly on "The Job Mr Kurtz Done" with its highly inventive Brian Wilson-esque vocal arrangments.An album and a bad you want to find out more and more about.

John

I'll be there. They were savage the last time.

John

So is anyone going tonight?

honru

I might be goin'. I haven't heard any of their stuff but I've heard good things, so we'll see.

indiewindy

Heres a reviw of their Manchester gig a few nights ago. Looking forward to seeing them for the first time



Posted in Reviews, Gig Reviews on April 30th, 2006 by The Ledge
We were down at the Academy 2 on Friday night to see Low make a welcome return to Manchester after Alan Sparhawk’s health problems last year made for some some uncertain months and a canceled tour. It was a disappointing turn out, however, with the hall little more than half full for Low, and just a handful of people turning up early enough to catch openers My Latest Novel. Which was just plain wrong because they were excellent, a literate five-piece from Glasgow steeped in the fine pop traditions of their native country and recalling at times Teenage Fanclub, Belle And Sebastian and even The Proclaimers. Belle And Sebastian comparisons will be inevitable thoughout their early career but they produce a much more strident sound than B&S and have darker experimental side that should further distance them from their fellow countrymen as they continue to progress. They are blessed with four members who can sing and the opening “When We Were Wolves” showcased their close harmonies, while “Sister Sneaker Sister Soul” was as compelling a six minutes as I’ve seen from a support band for quite some time. They left the stage to rapturous applause and calls for an encore.

Low have always been a great live band; playing slowly and quietly they demand the utmost respect from their audience and they always get it. You could hear a pin drop through most of their performance and the minor annoyances of rustling paper and camera shutters replaced the major one of audience chatter that usually comes with the territory of the quiet band. I was expecting Low to be a little louder than usual after the release of their “rock” record The Great Destroyer last year and though Alan Sparhawk certainly turned his amp up for tracks such as “Monkey” and “Pissing” they didn’t rock as hard as on the album, opting for subtlety instead. Towards the end of “Pissing” Sparhawk turned everything up to 11, the buzzing from his amp almost drowning out the rest of the band, and as the crowd anticipated searing ear pain from the torrent of noise he was surely about to unleash on us, he instead eked out the tiniest squall of feedback to close the song. Perfect.

They played a good mix of stuff including oldies like “Lazy”, from their debut, and “Condescend”, as well as crowd favourites like “Sunflower” and “Over The Ocean” and a few newies like the opening “Sandinista”, all of which sounded like classic Low and suggest that their next album, like most before it, will be a cracker. As ever, Sparhawk and Mimi Parker were in fine voice throughout, they are two of the greatest singers operating in the indie rock arena at present and their voices are the most important ingredient in the band’s sound. They dovetailed beautifully on “Sunflower” and the brilliant quiet/loud thrill of “On The Edge Of” while Mimi excelled on the heartstopping “Laser Beam” and the closing “In Metal”.

The only negative aspect of the performance was that new bass player Matt Livingston doesn’t seem to have bedded in well and seemed detached and isolated, a non-presence at the far end of the stage, barely acknowledging the audience or even his own band members. This should change as they play together more and hopefully it won’t be too long before they’re back in Manchester with a new album to promote.

John

indiewindy wrote:

The only negative aspect of the performance was that new bass player Matt Livingston doesn’t seem to have bedded in well and seemed detached and isolated, a non-presence at the far end of the stage, barely acknowledging the audience or even his own band members. This should change as they play together more and hopefully it won’t be too long before they’re back in Manchester with a new album to promote.

The new bass player is the only thing I'm anxious about tonight. I loved Zak, he had a great stage presence and played wonderfully. Still, I can't imagine such a thing as a bad Low show exists.