GIG REVIEW: Unkle
- Posted on July 14, 2008 2:38 PM
- 0 comments
UNKLE
Somerset House
12th July 2008
Review by Max Hogg
Saturday night’s gig really hammered home something that I’ve suspected for a year or two now. UNKLE have been deceiving us. Myspace calls them a “production collective” with a strong focus on electronic, hip-hop and dance music. Myspace are telling porkies – UNKLE are a rock band. Luckily they’re a damn fine one – perhaps not quite as good as James Lavelle, their founder and only constant member, thinks they are – but a damn fine one all the same.
Forget the days of joint production with DJ Shadow or Richard File that generated the classic electronic albums Psyence Fiction and Never Never Land respectively. Ignore the fact that Lavelle is a world-renowned breaks DJ. As we watched the current live line-up kick off by rocking out to Chemistry, opening track from last year’s War Stories, it finally hit home that the old UNKLE is gone, probably forever.
To be fair, it’s not like Lavelle didn’t warn us. This particular collective has always bridged a divide between rock and dance. Releasing War Stories planted them firmly on the rock side of the remnants of that divide. Even their headline slot at last year’s Glade festival, an ‘electronic dance music festival’ was unashamedly guitar-thrashing (and didn’t go down too well as a result).
Lavelle and his merry band of guitarists had a lot to prove after the aforementioned slot at Glade. And on Saturday night, with a little help from a stunning setting in the courtyard of Somerset House and a very impressive sound and lighting setup, they just about proved themselves for me.
It’s hard to overstate the effort put into this performance. They rattled through a set list that, despite relying quite a bit on War Stories, covered each of their albums and had them playing almost non-stop for nearly two hours. Considering we were in a historic building in the centre of the capital, they were both very loud and very late, not finishing until 11.30 pm. The list of guest performers included Damon Gough (Badly Drawn Boy), Leila Moss from the Duke Spirit (also the warm-up act), Gavin Clark, Joel Cadbury, Lupe Fiasco, the Heritage Orchestra, and probably others that I’ve forgotten.
It wasn’t by any means a faultless evening though. You see, UNKLE have a problem – Lavelle’s apparently compulsive addiction to collaboration. Despite the impressive list I’ve just highlighted, notable lead vocalist absences from the stage were Richard Ashcroft for Lonely Soul (which nevertheless sounded eerily similar to The Verve’s Space and Time in parts), Ian Brown for Reign, Ian Astbury for Burn My Shadow and Richard File for In A State.
This meant that the tracks that for me might well have been the standout tracks of the evening lost their edge. Burn My Shadow (a highlight of War Stories) and Reign (an absolute classic from the early days) both had pre-recorded vocal sections. When Reign kicked off it was hard not to hope Ian Brown was going to leap out of a speaker stack or something. And In A State (which along with Eye for an Eye are UNKLE’s most recognisable tracks, both of which the band played in the encore) was, bluntly, murdered by an off-key Joel Cadbury.
This might go some way to explaining a very subdued crowd. Despite Lavelle’s boundless energy on stage UNKLE never quite got the place rocking. This was particularly noticeable when he had to come out to tell the almost silent crowd that they had more material for the encore, and would they please show a bit of excitement!
Perhaps many of the audience, like us, think guitars are foolishly over-rated devices and were expecting the old electronic UNKLE to rear its head at some point. But it would be unfair to characterise the gig in this way. Once you see through the deceptive veneer of beats and see UNKLE as the rockers they (currently) are, the flaws I’ve focused on fall away to leave a very impressive performance. The best number of the night, Restless, sums up their genre-surfing pretty well. If only we could all keep up!
Related links:
Unkle concert tickets.Unkle's official site.
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