Good Weather For Airstrikes

One of the better Monday nights in recent history, right up there with this. Check it.

PLAN B @ JOE’S PUB

While I didn’t have much in the way of high expectations, this was a phenomenal show. You see, I wrongly passed off Plan B as a mediocre combination of Eminem and the Streets when I first heard of him last year, and even when he opened my eyes with his starring role in Epic Man’s “More Is Enough”, I still wasn’t quite motivated enough to check out his solo material. I was wrong.

Born Ben Drew in Forest Gate, London, Plan B makes “films for the blind”, as he put it last night. That is - he writes songs so tightly woven with detail and description that one can just close their eyes and watch the story unfold before them. And yeah, while his controversial-as-shit lyrics have brought him under fire from the British media on more than one occasion, he’s really just telling a story of things that are really happening that, uncomfortable and depressing as they may be, need to be discussed. Furthermore, he separates himself from the rest of the pack in the British rap scene by setting his songs to predominately acoustic beats and possessing a voice capable of producing vocals that would make even the most trained singer-songwriters jealous. One second he’s spitting caustic rapidfire verses on a track and the next he’s launching into a soulful, passionate chorus, all the while strumming an acoustic guitar like it ain’t no thing.

Joe’s Pub proved to be an interesting venue for the event, as the crowd seemed to be split evenly between people there for Plan B and older couples there for dinner and some post-meal entertainment, but despite lyrics discussing “anal passageways”, “genital warts”, graphic accounts of murder and other fun stuff, they seemed to love it more than anyone else, and his performance likely became the unexpected highlight of their night. Highlights were set opener “Mama”, “Charmaine” and closer “Who Needs Actions, When You Got Words”, the title track from his debut LP. Definitely grab the tracks below and go here and here to see videos of Plan B’s acoustic live performance, and don’t forget to check out Everett’s post on B’s brilliant Paint It Blacker bootleg as well.

MP3s:
“Charmaine“ - Plan B
“Mama” - Plan B

Previously:
“Paint It Blacker” - Plan B
“Wild Horses” - Plan B
“Missing Links” - Plan B

METRONOMY W/ HOT CLUB DE PARIS @ MIDWAY

Plan B wrapped up around 8:30, so then we rolled over to Midway to catch Hot Club De Paris and Metronomy put on another unexpectedly fantastic show. Hot Club De Paris opened with a short a capella number before launching into the brilliantly-titled “Sometimesitsbetternottostickbitsofeachotherineachotherforeachother”. The band struck up a great rapport with the audience through inter-song zingers and humorous anecdotes, but they also seemed to know the majority of the people in attendance, to the point that I began to feel like I was actually the only non-Brit in attendance. That didn’t detract from my experience any though, and the rest of Hot Club De Paris’ set was great as well - especially single “Everyeveryeverything”, a self-described “song about everything” - though the highlight might have been when I glanced to my left and realized I was standing directly next to Mssrs. Ford and Shaw of Simian Mobile Disco. I chatted with them (read: lavished them with praise) for a bit and gave my compliments to Ford on his excellent production work on the new Arctic Monkeys single (see below), before moving on and getting ready for Metronomy’s set.

MP3s:
“Sometimesitsbetter…” - Hot Club De Paris
“Everyeveryeverything” - Hot Club De Paris

Now it’s well-documented that Metronomy’s remixes have vastly out shined his own productions to this point, but if his set last night was any indication, that should hopefully change in the near future. I was blown away by what proved to be an incredibly fun set, complete with endearing choreography and blinking lights affixed to all three of the band members chests. The set seemed to be comprised mostly of new material I’d not yet heard, but closer and single “You Could Easily Have Me” was a definite highlight, along with a new song that featured a chorus made by what sounded like an electronic reworking of that brilliant guitar solo from “Reptilia”. “Trick or Treatz” also got the crowd moving, but outside of that the rest of the highlights were mostly new tracks that managed to handily trump most of the songs found on the band’s debut LP, Pip Paine (Pay Back The £5000 You Owe). All in all, it was a surprisingly great set and got me very excited to hear the band’s new material, which will hopefully surface sooner rather than later if there’s any justice in this world. For now though, we’ll have to settle for Metronomy’s consistently-flawless remix output and the highlights off Pip Paine, like the tracks available below.

MP3s:
“You Could Easily Have Me” - Metronomy
“This Could Be Beautiful (It Is)” - Metronomy
“Atlantis To Interzone” (Metronomy Remix) - Klaxons ((highly recommended))
“The Treatment” (Metronomy Remix) - Dead Disco ((highly recommended))

ARCTIC MONKEYS ARE RELEVANT AGAIN!
It had been over a year since I listened to anything by the Arctic Monkeys, after the initial glory of “From The Ritz To The Rubble” finally wore off and Whatever People Say I Am failed to live up to my expectations. But hot damn, that’s all changed now, with the unveiling of their much-awaited new single, the James Ford-produced “Brainstorm”. I generally get excited by anything James Ford’s involved in (see: Simian, SMD, Dead Disco’s “Automatic”, the whole damn Klaxons record, et. al), but he just does a truly phenomenal job here. Fast and furious, the track is a bit darker than the band’s usual fare, but serves as a resounding reminder of just how talented a lyricist Alex Turner is. Dude just has a ridiculous way with words, to the point that you don’t really care if they mean anything at all (see: “See you later, elevator!”) just so long as you can revel in the brilliance of his rhyming schemes for just a little bit longer. Furthermore, Ford gives the track the production it deserves, giving it that dark, future-rock feel that SMD rock so well and even throwing in the backing vocal effects he first showed off in the SMD’s bangin’ edit of the Klaxons’ “Magick”. Color me very excited to see if the rest of Favourite Worst Nightmare lives up to the initial brilliance of the single.

MP3s:
“Brianstorm” - Arctic Monkeys ((highly recommended))
“Magick” (Simian Mobile Disco Mix) - Klaxons

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 14th, 2007 at 2:06 am and is filed under Live Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.