It’s going to be a good gig. I know this because the drum kit
is festooned with fairy lights and after a certain amount of brandy and cokes
the significance of these kind of things becomes perfectly clear. The empty stage
is suffused with an orange glow and there’s a scattering of instruments - a metalhenge
of snares and keyboards - and beneath the railway arches of inner city Leeds,
the Cockpit’s smaller stage becomes a grotto set out for the witching hour. Into
it steps opening act Jeremey Warmsley with the look, sound and daft glasses
of a Graham Coxon. Warmsley has been making a name for himself with some
delightfully eclectic electronica that uses everything from trombones to laptops.
Tonight, however, he rejects the playfully baroque arrangements of much of his
recorded material and comes on clutching an acoustic guitar that his fingers cajole
and harangue alternately. Without the added arrangements of the studio recordings
his songs come across as kitchen-sink-folk with echoes of Ray Davies and Richard
Thompson. Next up, a toy piano. Don’t get me wrong; I love the nu folk appetite
for odd and old instruments; borrowed, broken, dirty, shiny sounds from whatever
source – recorders to samplers to wind up toys – but this piano’s bloody awful,
the clanging notes, too cheap and dead under his huge, dynamic voice. It sounds
like an ice cream van stuck in a ditch. Next comes Liam Frost and the
Slowdown Family. The band has a warmer, bigger sound than Mr Warmsley, and
by contrast it provides a soft crescendo to the night. Frost, twenty-two, has
been playing live since he was fifteen and he steps into the clearing like its
his natural habitat. The band dissemble the forest of mike stands and guitars,
start to play and we are taken, quite happily, in the slipstream of songs - layered
acoustic guitars, softly persistent drumming and vocals like grit-flecked velvet.
I’m thinking a softer version of The National? The Incredible String Band? The
‘She Painted Pictures EP’ was our first taste of the band’s studio work, followed
by their new single, ‘The Mourners of St Paul’s’. The songs have shades of Bright
Eyes and Tunng about them, too, with mandolins, harmonicas, street ballads and
poetry, songs of love and sleeping on friends’ couches. And tonight they show
how warm and complete they sound. The songs ebb and flow, welling up and reaching
a peak with the new single, the lustrous ‘Mourners…’ It’s an attractive,
relaxed manner he has. Members of the audience call out greetings, Frost smiles
and replies and sings a little more for us and things roll on like this and we
are happy that they do. And while the trains push on overhead and the fights
break out in the chippy over the road, we stay here awhile and listen to the band
- ideal companions to take us through a summer night’s escape at the Cockpit,
on a stage garlanded with lights, in a space set to one side of our lives. How
many brandy and cokes have I just had? Relevant sites:
www.liamfrost.co.uk
Irfan Shah for Crud Magazine 2006©
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| 01/06 Morning After Girls Interview
01/06 The Roger Sisters Interview
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01/06 The Longcut Interview
01/06 Union of Knives Interview
01/06 7/7 July Bombings London
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01/06 Beach Boys - Pet Sounds - 40th Anniversary Deluxe CD / DVD
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01/06 Jackson Analogue, Digital, Newcastle
01/06 Latitude Festival, Henham Park, Beccles, Suffolk
01/06 Liam Frost - Live - Cockpit, Leeds
01/06 Little Man Tate, Cockpit, Leeds
01/06 Monty Python Remastered Collection
|  | 01/06 New Pornographers / Spoon - Live - London Koko
01/06 NME Shows 2006
01/06 Orange Lights - Carling Academy, Newcastle
01/06 Protokoll - Live - Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh
01/06 Shout Out Louds - Live - Leeds, Cockpit
01/06 Airlines, Flights, Terror Plot July 2006
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01/06 Wireless Festival 2006
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