Howling Bells + The Joy Formidable + Chew Lips @ Birmingham Barfly – 8th March 2009
It is Sunday night and we are in the Barfly, officially Birmingham’s coldest venue. No no, I kid you not. Following on from Friday night’s shivery start to the weekend at the 444 Club up the road, Sunday night is positively arctic. Surely this means the only solution is dancing? En masse dancing? Possibly with synchronised arm-waving? No? I live in hope. On inspection however the crowd tonight are huddled together like penguins on the tundra (not far off temperature wise, I predict) and not doing much dancing at all. NEVER MIND. The bands tonight are spectacular enough to spark a few little fires for warmth.
Openers CHEW LiPS feel like one of those bands I’ve been seeing listed for ages and somehow managed to miss. This has got to stop! There, they’re on stage and it’s stopped. And my God they’re good – completely different to anything I’ve been listening to lately, bright, poppy and the sort of thing to put an instant smile on anyone’s face with their infectious energy. Singer Tigs is tiny and formidable, with an improbably huge voice and an even bigger presence, beseeching the frozen crowd to smile and dance, and it’s pretty damned hard to refuse. Their debut single Solo is out now on Kitsune Records, and if you go forth to their MySpace (go, go!) there’s a few more tracks to listen to but more importantly all the gigs they’ve got coming up soon. If they are coming anywhere REMOTELY near you, get a ticket – you will be happier for it.
Tonight’s second band, The Joy Formidable, are another band whose reputation precedes them, so I was excited to be seeing them tonight – and let me state for the record that they live up to, trample, and then wipe the floor with an already impressive reputation. One listen to the anthemic The Greatest Light Is The Greatest Light is enough to confirm that, with its big, looping guitars droning behind fuzzy, husky vocals enough to make even the most cynical (or in this case, woefully frozen) amongst us stifle squeaks of glee. If you’re not moving, I guarantee that at least the hairs on your neck will stand up. Moving between complex, warm blocks of sound and joyful refrains, this is surely a band for the times. They’ve got a great 8-track album available for download, free, here, along with a MySpace page, where their next gigs are listed.
Headliners tonight, Howling Bells, are different again, but no less glorious; singer Juanita’s voice is gorgeous, warm and liquid, either sliding lazily over languidly beautiful melodies or merging with the lush wave of guitar and backing vocals to create the sound so synonymous with the band. Touring to promote their new album Radio Wars, the band play the kind of melodic, beautiful music that creeps under your skin and you find yourself humming a couple of days later without realising it had caught you. Single Cities Burning Down, Into the Chaos and Golden Web, along with the extraordinary Setting Sun would be worth the ticket price on their own – never a band to to be trifled with, HB have moments of genius where the Juanita’s voice detaches and flies over the melody, and they are unstoppably gorgeous. There is, of course, a MySpace where you can have a listen and examine the forthcoming tour dates; well worth a look if you get half a chance.
Tonight’s bands have the shared factor of being fronted by women, but all similarities and comparisons stop there,and therein is the genius of this lineup. A truly diverse adn enjoyable night with some amazing – amazing – vocals. As always, half a chance is all I’d need to see them live again; if you get chance, go!
Review – Gill Duckett
Photos – Karl Bright