LIVE GIG REVIEW

ARTIST – Kelli-Leigh

VENUE –  The Regal Rooms, Hammersmith

Its a rare thing to be invited along to gig (especially acoustic) in a small venue and have the pleasure of witnessing something really special. Well I’m delighted to report thats exactly what happened to the Music Jobs team last night at The Regal Rooms in Hammersmith.

Kelli-Leigh is a 24yr old singer/songwriter from Croydon who previously sang in a band called ‘KI’ and collaborates with up and coming DJ/Producer Butcherd Beats most notably at this years Great Escape Festival.  Her bio is impressive having written & performed with the likes of Leona Lewis, Katie Melua, Luke Pritchard of the Kooks and Daniel Bedingfield.  Last nights show however was all about the little lady with the huge voice and boy did she take advantage of the opportunity.

Kicking off with the infectious ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Mind’ and accompanied by the excellent Ryan Haberfield ( with whom she shares fantastic chemistry) on guitar any sign of pre-show nerves where lost the minute she opened her mouth and the astonishing array of notes came flooding out.  With natural charm and like-ability beaming from the stage Kelli moved on to the poignant ballad ‘Thru The Storm’.  You could literally hear a pin drop throughout (even the really annoying, drunk guy by the bar kept his trap shut).  A stunning, controlled vocal performance.

Next up was ‘Smiling At You’ a track about how social networking sites can cause some people to suffer with amnesia.  As the lady herself declared this one’s a ‘little edgier’.  Rockier vocals and a diva stance remiscient of Pink soon any thoughts of us witnessing a one trick pony were dispelled.

For the fifth number ’Just Want You’ the baby grand piano tucked away at the back of the stage was put to use.  By no means a bad song this was the least lyrically memorable of the set despite her more than competent skills tinkling the ivories and sublime vocals.

For the finale she stripped it right back to perform ‘Missing You’.  This track is the one getting the most attention from listeners and fans alike and you can tell its one that resonates deeply with her.  The throat tightening pathos in which she delivers each note and lyric draws you in and doesn’t let go until the final strum on the guitar. Tears were shed my friends.

It wasn’t only the emergence of a terrific solo singer last night but an outstanding musical talent that has worked hard on perfecting her craft.  It might be leveled that her songs are a little traditional (especially in the current climate of GaGa, La Roux & Little Boots etc) but who cares!  Kelli tells stories in her own way and delivers them with a voice that is simply world class.

http://www.myspace.com/kellileighhd

***** (5 out of 5)

To celebrate their only live club performance of the year at Eddy TM’s  Remix All Nighter @ Matter on July 17th, we have an awesome Vector Lovers remix of Ladytrons single Tomorrow to give away.

Download link: http://www.yousendit.com/download/cmcyb3BHSysrV3dLSkE9PQ

Lovebox Festival 2009

We don’t know about you but we love music festival weekends.  Beer, sunshine, good friends, dancing, singing, obsessing about seeing the bands you love and then raving about the ones you discover….happy days!  What we like even more are the one’s right slap bang in the heart of London town.  

Lovebox returns to Victoria Park, East London on Saturday 18th July and Sunday 19th July 2009 and it looks set to be bigger & better than ever before.

First of all Duran Duran are headlining the Saturday night and its their only UK festival date of the year. Rather bizarrely (yet weirdly brilliant) they will follow N.E.R.D who we saw live at the Isle of Wight Festival a few years back.  We weren’t sure how that was going to go but trust me those boys know how to get a crowd jumping.  Quite literally as it happens….

Duran Duran play their own UK festival date@Lovebox 2009

Other acts confirmed are the brilliant Florence & The Machine, Friendly Fires (a band you absolutely must see this year), legendary punk rockers New York Dolls, the sublime Doves, Groove Armada, Noah & The Whale, rising soul diva VV Brown (who’s track Crying Blood we absolutely love) and the magnificent Ladyhawke plus many more….

Friendly Fires set to rock Lovebox 2009

Soul Diva VV Brown playing Sat 18th July 2009@Lovebox

In addition to the mouth watering musical line up the organisers have also extended with an even bigger 40 acre site, 7 stages, the Gaymers Stage (which is London’s largest purpose built tree house), The Pushmi-Pullyu circus tent & the All Star Lanes outdoor bowling championship….phew!!

Lovebox is not only one of the most credible festivals of the summer its also the most fun you could have during a weekend in a field in East London!  The Music Jobs crew will all be there so if you see us come up and say hello! A beer would be nice too….;-)

Tickets are available from www.lovebox.net as well as from Ticketmaster (www.ticketmaster.co.uk) or by calling 08448472436. 

Tickets can be purchased in person from Stargreen Box Office, 20/21a Argyll Street, London, W1F 7TT.

Ticket prices:

£42.50 + Booking Fee per day ticket.

£75.00 + Booking Fee per weekend ticket.

If you want to be really clever and cool you can follow all the latest news, line-up updates and special offers on Twitter by clicking here;

http://twitter.com/LoveBoxFestival

Culture, music, beer, sunshine. This weekend sees one of the ultimate offerings of all these elements under one roof. And by roof I mean ‘district’ of London. And when I say sunshine I mean more beer.

The Camden Crawl is a two day event spanning Friday 25th and Saturday 25th April, showcasing 150 bands, artists, poets and film pieces across 40 venues, ending up on Saturday Night at the Roundhouse with performances from Kasabian and Madness.

As a preview, the lovely people at The Londonist have compiled a collection of free, legal mp3s from the majority of the bands performing. There’s 65 free tracks to download, so you can select your favourites, share the love, and make sure you don’t miss out.

Before this starts to seem like a big promotional ploy or sponsorship for event or website, I’ve no affiliation with either. My reasoning is that music discovery has changed. You don’t hear ‘new’ bands on national radio anymore. Up and coming artists aren’t getting the support of CD sales that they used to, and so live events are becoming extremely important for both performer and punter. Yes, the internet is a great source of new music, but you need a very good filter or the patience of a saint to wade through the endless streams of average (and below) music.

Why the Camden Crawl? Why not? It’s today, you have nothing better to do, and the free download taster just tops it all off (oh, did I mention the beer?). Head over there now and buy your tickets before it’s too late.

Unfortunately I won’t be there this year, but you can certainly thank me at future events. I accept beer, in case you’re wondering.

Lee Jarvis.

Win a slot to support The Sugababes

Urban music contest Hugo Urban Rules has signed up the Sugababes to headline an intimate show on December 3 in Cargo, London.

The winner of the contest will be supporting the Sugababes at the gig and will have their music professionally produced. The show will be later broadcast on MTV.

On December 2 and 3 industry experts will give the 15 best submissions specialist tutorials in vocal coaching and stage craft.

Artists wishing to take part can upload demos at www.hugofragrances.com/urbanrules by November 17.

Finley Quaye LIVE @ Koko, London
Saturday 8th November 2008

After a decade on our radios the reggae/folk maverick Finley Quaye will be playing a selection of songs from his acclaimed 1997 album ‘Maverick A Strike’ at this very special concert in the illustrious KOKO, with his full band, celebrating the recent release of his compilation ‘The Best of The Epic Years’.

Finley is unquestionably one of the most prolific songwriters and performers of the last decade. The triple platinum artist (and 1998 Brit Award winner for Best Artist) has worked with the likes of William Orbit, A Guy Called Gerald, Lauren Hill, and Beth Orton, and tonight, in addition to performing tracks from his back catalogue he’ll also be performing tracks of his new album ‘Pound for Pound’.

Once the main event featuring Finley is over, your ticket will also allow you to stay behind for the Soundcrash Reggae after-party with some of the finest DJ’s around until 3 in the morning. They’ll be a live performance by Leeds’ Gentlemen’s Dub Club, the 11 x piece heavyweight dub collective
bringing pure fire to the dancefloor. Smith and Mighty will also be DJing.

http://www.soundcrashmusic.com
http://www.koko.uk.com
http://www.finleyquaye.com

By Tim Weissberg

Word association time. I say “Field Day 2007”, you, or at least most of the Field Day 2008 previews, say “teething problems.” Yes, you’ve probably heard it all by now – the toilet queues, the four bar staff spread between two bars and the three-hour crush to get one of them to serve you a drink. Ironically, the one thing you probably wouldn’t have heard was the music, especially when Justice, a duo not exactly known for their peaceful sets, took to the stage at the end of the night. Well at least it was sunny.

This year, Eat Your Own Ears promised it would be better and that there would be a professional company brought in to ensure the punters could hear the music, buy their drinks and then make room for more. Ok, thought the dubious public, let’s give in another try.

And then the heavens opened. Rain at a British festival is certainly nothing unusual and most people just got on with it as normal. The only problems arose when it really started to pour. Those people with umbrellas decided to put them up and those that didn’t made beelines for the tents. This provided me with two bugbears.

First off, the bloody umbrellas. Seriously, if you are going to a festival and it looks like rain, wear a waterproof with a hood, leave the umbrella at home. During Les Savy Fav, a band which centres its live shows around the visual antics of front man Tim Harrington, my view was entirely obscured by a sea of selfish umbrella wielders. Occasionally I caught a flash of the stage to see Harrington’s belly spilling out over his tight white jeans. The sound was about as good as the general view, no not the view of Tim’s fetching ginger-haired stomach, which indicated that maybe a few lessons from last year were still to be learned.

Second, the tents. Yes, they may be undercover, but they will not stretch to accommodate everyone looking for shelter. My attempt to see Crookers in the Bugged Out! tent was thwarted by everyone fleeing the umbrellas outside and piling into the already packed area. To add insult to injury, just as I’d fought my way through the tide and into the open, they went and dropped Wearing My Rolex by Wiley. What timing.

Right, after that slight excursion into self-indulgence, let’s get back to the event. The bar situation was infinitely better. There were more and they were big. The bar staff were not so good though. But then maybe I was asking for trouble by veering from the sensible festival drinks order of beer and cider. I’ve no idea what drinks I came away with but by that stage no one in my round seemed to mind. Red Bull Cola, on a side note, is disgusting and I can see why the more traditional cola drinks had run dry. Toilet-wise there still appeared to be a problem. This was indicated by the very long lines of women snaking out of the porterloo clusters and the extended periods of absence by female members of our group. At least that was their excuse. There was less of a problem for the men, especially since someone – official or not – had put a set or portable urinals in the woods by the bandstand.

From what I could gather, half of London’s police had been invited along. The place was crawling with them. Ok, I know that people will be of the view that the police are there for the good of everyone and if you’re not doing anything wrong then you’ve nothing to worry about, but when it gets to the stage where one of my friends is stopped and searched three times before even clearing the gates, maybe the presence was a little heavy handed. For the second time that day I also had my entry into the Bugged Out! tent blocked by crowds, this time all in uniform, looking like they were about to form a police cordon around the entire tent. I don’t know, maybe James Holden is particularly popular with the Met Police. His acid-dripping set certainly sounded amazing from outside.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom. The steam pouring out of the Bloggers Delight tent may have made it look as if it was on fire and inside, musically, it was. Mikki Most and Ian Robinson played a blinding set of upbeat electro that made any gripes about the day disappear.

The night was rounded off by Simian Mobile Disco’s live set in the Adventures In The Beetroot Field/NME tent. Again, it was ridiculously packed to begin with but the other headliners, such as Foals and Richie Hawtin, soon thinned the crowd down to a level where some upper body movement was possible as opposed to the rhythmic head bopping. Standing still, obviously, was not an option.

In conclusion, there were a lot of things right with Field Day 2008 but a few things were still wrong. Maybe next year, they’ll get it right. And, if this year’s line up is anything to go by, I’m sure I’ll be tempted, yet again, to give it a chance.

The former front-woman of Aussie band Superjesus the supremely talented Sarah McLeod will be performing live at The Metro Club on Oxford Street on Wednesday 13th August 2008 and we implore you to check her out!

Sarah first stepped into the spotlight as the lead singer for The Superjesus who released three successful albums and went on to win multiple awards including 3 Aria’s (Aussie Grammy).
In mid 2007, Sarah jetted off across the globe to Jimmy Douglass’ studio in Miami, The Spot, where they were joined by Grammy nominee, cult hip hop guru ill Factor (Roisin Murphy, Ginuwine, MatisYahu). Ill Factor and Sarah discovered they had a unique musical chemistry, and ill was instrumental in nurturing and drawing out an untapped side to Sarah’s compositions. Currently finishing up the mixes, the record is said to have her distinctive gutsy pop rock vibe mixed with the genius overtones of Jimmy’s globally respected production techniques and iLL’s edgy driving beats and is no doubt her finest work to date.

For tickets to Sarah’s London show please click here;

www.blowupmetro.com

For more info on Sarah and to listen to her music visit her MySpace;

http://www.myspace.com/sarahmcleod

I, for one, am very excited for the Sonar Music Festival this year. Probably because I couldn’t go last year and kick-off this season is just 9 days away and counting! Sonar is a three day event in Barcelona, Spain that attracts artists, musicians and clubbers from across the globe. Their extravagant themes and mish-mish of music and art make for a weird and wonderful time; they have successfully hosted the annual event for the last 14 years and show no sign of slowing down, expecting 80,000 people this year.

The festival’s line-ups tend to favour electronic dance music, be that house, techno, electro, hip-hop or a modern mash-up of them all. They love to feature new exciting experimental acts, unafraid to push boundaries of music, DJing and VJing, and also support many home-grown artists.

This year’s show has two main themes as the basis for it’s programme: the “female factor” in today’s music and “hybridism” as the result of the intersection of musical genres and subgenres. Sonar has incorporated world class female acts into the immense line-up; live shows from Roisin Murphy and Goldfrapp complement DJ sets from the likes of Mary Anne Hobbs and Magda. A great example of the ‘hybridism’, and part of the sustained proof that Sonar is one of the best festivals in the world to check out the cream of national and international talent, is the premiere outing of a unique ‘dream team’. Pop jazz superstar Jamie Cullum, alongside brother Ben, have enlisted the help of original Underworld member Darren Emerson, then top it off with Matt White, guitarist for The Bays and The Egg, and Dave DeRose, drummer for Roisin Murphys band. Wow. I think you’ll be getting a full review on that!

The Sonar experience is split into two parts. Sonar by Day takes place in the centre of Barcelona from midday and is a great place to meet and network amongst a real variety of art and music. Sonar by Night is one crazy all-night party, out in the suburbs with the music taking place in huge arenas, hence the huge line-ups!

All this in the wonderful city of Barcelona, Gaudi’s playground, I just know that I’m going to be so torn and pushed for time, and ultimately, late for everything. Good job they don’t eat dinner until midnight.

Check the full Sonar Line up in our forums and add your comments here…

http://uk.music-jobs.com/forum/sonar-2008-thu-19-fri-20-sat-21jun-line-ups-announced-562112

Fancy working at a music festival this summer? Search our Jobs Board here…

http://uk.music-jobs.com/searchjobs.php

Lee Jarvis.

If you have yet to catch one of the music industry’s finest, Swedish electro pop sensation Robyn at her previous shows then we are imploring you to get your assess in gear and book tickets to one of her UK dates this month.

The show promises to be bigger, better, sweatier and sexier than her previous outings and having been to many of the London shows already we can guarantee that you won’t want to miss out.   Support will be provided by the brilliant Sam Sparro.

Click one the links below to get your tickets now!!

June 07 – Birmingham: Carling Academy
June 08 – London: Astoria
June 10 – Manchester: Academy 2
June 11 – Norwich: UEA
June 12 – Bristol: Carling Academy

For more information on Robyn visit – www.robyn.com