According to someone nearby, Richard Swift’s band look like they’ve just come off a trawler – the sort of image I aspire to, obviously. They sound, however, quite different: at this point, uncannily like a soul harmony group, somewhere between The Miracles and The Stylistics.
As promised, the judges' prevarications over the Uncut Music Award shortlist continue today. Here's what they said about the Elbow record. Monday, I'll post the Drive-By Truckers discussions.
We're changing venues tonight – instead of the Pressure Point Uncut have moved to the beautiful Spiegeltent, kind of a cross between a circus tent and a mirrored boudoir. Aside from the creaking wooden floors, it's perfect.
This gig is being recorded for BBC Four and, as with this kind of thing, there’s something slightly odd about tonight’s proceedings. We’re in the splendid hall of a restored 18th century church, sitting around tables, mindful of the cameras and lengths of cables snaking across the floor, practising clapping for the Assistant Stage Manager. If “live” is a spontaneous celebration of the power of rock’n’roll, then we’re a long way from Kansas, Toto.
It is, arguably, a somewhat incongruous environment to see Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds play, anyway.
The Raconteurs album is playing for the second time this morning, and I’ve just got round to reading the paperwork which arrived in my inbox with the download just before 9am. “Consolers Of The Lonely”, it notes, is “loud, bombastic and littered with changes of tempo.” Can’t argue with any of that.
