Tom Vek - The Bodega, Nottingham 14/10/14

17 October 2014, 09:00 | Written by John Bell

(Live)

(Tom Vek)

Slickly coiffed, cult-hero Tom Vek has remained an enigmatic figure in the realm of indie-rock music since his inception almost a decade ago with the debut We Have Sound. For his most recent album, Luck, fans were grateful to have not been made to wait half a decade as they did for his second album in 2011. Blending his simple branding-style graphic design work with his characteristically dark, angular rock music that dips in and out electronic genres, Luck is surprising and rewarding, and tonight Tom Vek plays Nottingham's Bodega as part of the album's tour.

The first half of Vek’s rather comprehensive set is dominated by songs off the new record. Beginning with the record’s opener “How Am I Meant To Know”, which uses this titled question as a vocal refrain, it’s clear the translation of a self-recorded album into a live performance is fluent and well thought out. Joined by a drummer and guitarist/bassist/synth player, the trio are as tight as the sharp, hard-hitting tracks like “Let’s Pray” and “Pushing Your Luck” demand. For the latter, the outro is medlied with Salt-N-Pepa’s “Push It’, which although a live novelty, goes together surprisingly well.

There seems to be a technical difficulty for “Ton Of Bricks”, but unfortunately this is only noticeable from Vek’s reaction to it. It’s an unwritten rule in live performance that when something goes wrong, poker face it to the max. But with a reverberated "sorrrrrry", the band stop and take a while to get going again, and their visible frustration is awkward and hinders slightly the enjoyment of the next few songs.

Luckily, though, the band put technical difficulties aside, and a return to tracks from 2011’s Leisure Seizure is all the better for it. Although hecklers call for “Aroused”, they have to wait; tracks like “Someone Loves You” with its deep synths and syncopated rhythms, and the glitches of “A Chore” carry great weight and build a climax perfectly. But the peak of the set comes in the form of “I Aint Saying My Goodbyes”, which is from that era of scratchy and dark guitars perhaps most attributed to early Bloc Party and Metronomy, and which Vek performed on The OC almost a decade ago. It’s groovy and it’s wild, and it makes the Bodega feel ten years younger.

Bringing it back to the present, the band finish on the last single, “Sherman (Animals In The Jungle), which is cutting, angular and mysterious. To put it simply, it’s very Tom Vek, and thus a suitable end to a career-spanning set.

Set List:

How Am I Meant To Know
Let's Pray
C-C
Pushing Your Luck / Push it
A Little Word In Your Ear
Ton Of Bricks
Trying To Do Better
Nothgin But Green Lights
Someone Loves You
A Chore
Broke
I Aint Saying My Goodbyes
The Girl
A Mistake
Aroused
You'll Stay
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Seizemic
Sherman (Animals In The Jungle)