We Were Promised Jetpacks, The Twilight Sad, Mazes
21 September 2011, Botanique, Brussels
Cool! 3 bands on Fat Cat records, including one I'd been wanting to see for quite some time now. All for a reasonable price...
I can confirm that Mazes have at least one decent song to them, a good stage presence, a great sense of humour, and stick to the timing. Hence me only getting to see the one song. Oh well.
It would be easy to think now-a-days that Rock has lost its innovative or spiritual side. The Twilight Sad will prove you wrong on both counts.
I'd seen live footage from 2-3 years back when McFarlane was a bit shouty, but his vocal control here tonight is simply amazing, not unlike Elbow's Guy Garvey at times, but with the distinct charm of that Glaswegian accent. He is genuinely touched by the welcome here at a close to capacity Rotonde. His emotion and intensity is matched only by the band's frenzy and commitment. James is up there singing like - well there's really no 'like ' about it - his life does depend on it.
For those of you unfamiliar with the wonderful world of clatter and expansion that The Twilight Sad dish up, think what Coldplay could be like if their songs were good and really meant something and were played by Sighur Ros with the intensity of Arcade Fire.
I quite like this band. Like I sort of quite like the Cocteau Twins.
Their indie-grunge-pop is a big change from the brutal subtly and emotion of TTS. But they do seem to have brought along a core fanbase who are singing along to all the tunes.
Despite screwing up the 3rd song, they can be a bit Big Country-ish at times, doing Green Day covers.
Ooh - this is one track that does decide to start off with a very long intro, then drops off for the vocal, rather like Sighur Ros on speed. In fact, each song is pretty much better than the other, and despite a slow start, by the end of the set, we're getting material which has enough depth and maturity to be close to Mogwai-like and might well stand it's ground in a Twilight Sad set.
/fdata%2F2722392%2F%2Favatar-user-2031678-tmpphpDzkxQT.jpeg){kind=avatar}
