She Keeps Bees / Sons of Adrian and Noel / Woodpigeon – The Borderline, London, 12/08/09

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On Wednesday the 12th of August, I headed down to the Borderline to see a trio of She Keeps Bees, Sons of Noel and Adrian and Woodpigeon, only just managing to get into the venue due to problems with the guest list. The Borderline is a small, and unpleasantly hot venue (until the noisy fans were turned on for Woodpigeon’s set), but has a great sound and atmosphere.

She Keeps Bees were the main band who had drawn me to the Borderline, having thoroughly enjoyed their recent record. Unfortunately they did not quite live up to my expectations, Jessica Larrabe’s vocals were as brilliant as ever, but the band for some reason lacked an amp. Their guitar sound was somewhat lacklustre, Jessica was somewhat disgruntled with this, repeating the fact that they were a “garage band without an amp”, and complaining that her guitar sounded like “farts”. Despite this they put up a valiant performance, despite playing barely a rushed 15 minuets, they left the crowd very definitely wanting more. Closing track Ribbon, which didn’t require the use of the guitar, was particularly excellent.

Instrumentally rich folk band, Sons of Noel and Adrian were the next band to take to the stage. There’s at least a thousand of them, so they took quite some time to set up, but once they got going they were great fun. The vocal harmonies were impressive, perfectly complementing the music. Occasionally stamping their feet at crescendos in the music, they seemed to be having a great time on stage and were immensely enjoyable to watch. Sons of Noel and Adrian are best when they are all playing together, their rich textured music almost making (the mostly static) crowd dance along. Their weaker songs were their slower, more harmonic songs but their set was packed with enough fast paced enjoyable folk songs to mark them out as an excellent live act.

Woodpigeon were the final band to arrive, Mark Hamilton explained that this was the first time in a while Woodpigeon had performed as a complete band (Foon Yap having flown over especially for the performance), and there was suitable buzz about them. Essentially Wood pigeon lived up to this buzz, and were largely excellent. Opening with the wonderful ‘Death by Ninja’, Woodpigeon hypnotised their audience with their rich, textured sound. Rarely played, but excellent song (performed here almost flawlessly for the first time in a year) ‘Home As A Romanticized Concept Where Everyone Loves You Always And Forever’ was a particular set highlight. The band are at their best when they were all playing together as a band, female harmonies, guitar and piano parts all combining to make beautiful music. The weaker songs tended to be when Mark played by himself, with Foon providing some backing vocals and violin. Still, Woodpigeon provided an excellent set, closing with ‘…And As The Ship Went Down’, which featured excellent use of loops on Mark and Foon’s voices, to create an atmospheric and beautiful sound, which rung throughout the room, mesmerising the audience.