Hall One at The Sage, Gateshead, is a pretty enough venue, but it’s also pretty sterile. While the acoustics may be the finest in Europe, the atmosphere generally has a gaping hole in it. Sitting down at concerts equates to polite applause and a lack of spark. Grizzly Bear may have just been spared this fate by the inclusion of a small standing crowd, craning their necks towards the stage.

Someone needs to show the stuffy Sage how to put on a pop concert – usually all seated; no drinks in the hall; wait for a ‘suitable break’ in the performance before being allowed back in the hall. When Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor pulls out an old analogue radio to add the sound of radio distortion to the mix, it’s a wonder that a member of the Sage staff hadn’t already tuned it into Radio 3. Which is a huge shame because it could easily be the perfect place to see a band, especially one as sonically potent as Grizzly Bear. One can only begin to imagine what My Bloody Valentine might be able to achieve here.

It’s possible to view Grizzly Bear as an exercise in artistry. True, their songs are unusually crafted with sections which owe more to modern jazz than traditional rock in their construction but the presence of Rossen, who also writes and performs with the Department of Eagles, appears to rein in Droste’s more avant garde urges.

Tonight, Grizzly Bear put the Sage’s famous acoustics through their paces by piecing together an incredibly complex layering of sounds. Daniel Rossen’s crisp, staccato guitar; Ed Droste’s chiming Omnichord and Christopher Bear’s expansive drumming form the backbone while bassist Chris Taylor frantically scrabbles around the floor looping and adding effects to clarinet, flute and baritone saxophone.

It works like a dream; their habit of swelling their sound to a crescendo before stripping everything back to the very barest of bones bringing an ebb and flow the music. Harmony always essential, melody integral to even their most pulsating, noisy moments. Now let us have a beer while we watch them.

The Miserable Rich – The Cluny 2, Newcastle

Even with a sore throat, James de Malplaquet sings like Ella Fitzgerald. Hoarse and whispery in conversation between songs, The Miserable Rich singer’s voice never once falters while in full flight during this, the opening night of their current tour.

Despite the constant threat of vocal breakdown and the numbing cold of the venue, Cellist Will Calderbank and violinist Mike Siddell have to warm their hands against a radiator before taking to the stage, the band manage to give a run out to new single Somerhill and its b-side Bye, Bye Kitty, a cover of Iggy Pop’s Shades and a handful of old favourites from their 12 Ways To Count album including the sublime Boat Song.

What makes the Miserable Rich such an attractive proposition when playing live is that the strings aren’t there to simply augment their sound; they are the sound. Mostly, that’s a gorgeously lush sweeping sound, but Calderbank and Siddell aren’t afraid to ratchet up the sound. At times they are as close to a wall of sound as two instruments more at home in the orchestra pit can be.

Somerhill is available now through Humble Soul with an album to follow at the end of May.

Sore throat or no sore throat, James de Malplaquet has also croaked his way through the Suitcase Orchestra Q&A.

If I were to play just one of your songs to someone who hasn’t heard your music, which would it be and why?

That’s going to be pretty tricky as the track I’m thinking of, Oliver, is on the new album and thus net yet available. I think you can probably get a preview of it live on YouTube though.

I’m choosing this one because it encapsulates a lot of what the band is about now. It was written by the group as a whole, and we all had a hand in it. It’s in an unusual time signature, and has fairly strange subject matter – and yet it’s extremely catchy and immediate. It also has both the tender and the raw sides of our output.

You are being sent to the moon. You’re allowed to take 1 album. What is it?

It is You Forgot It In People by Broken Social Scene

What was the last album you bought?

Marissa Nadler – Bird On The Water, which I learned about on 6Music R.I.P. Fittingly sad.

Tell us an interesting fact.

All firefighters and rescue teams in Chile are unpaid volunteers.

Tell us about a band or singer we might not have heard of who should be featured on Suitcase Orchestra.

There’s this husband and wife/brother-sister duo from the states.

Wear a lot of red and white……..

Oh, alright then. We played with a band called Vadoinmessico in London. We like them.

What film would you be a character in?

Ok. Since we’re in fantasy land now, can we please please be the characters in Withnail and I?

Reckon there’d be stiff competition for the parts of Withnail and Danny.

Somewhat less for I and Uncle Monty.

Personally, I’d be happiest dressing up lots and playing all the bit parts.

Recommend a book.

Les Miserables, Victor Hugo.

But of course.

Which literary character would play you in the book of your life?

Wilkins Micawber.

“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”

What’s the worst record in your collection?

That would be one of Jim’s many Status Quo records.

Although I believe I have a copy of Love Is In The Air by a Spanish flamenco singer which really does need to be heard to be believed…….

What question should I always ask in a Q & A? And answer it please.

A lady at the student radio in Newcastle (hullo Laura!) asked us this question, so we’ll nick that.

Which band would YOU like to cover a song of YOURS, and which one?

Again, this is fantasy land, so let’s have the Pixies doing Pisshead please.

The Miserable Rich MySpace is here.

Simplicity is the key to success at the moment for First Aid Kit. On the face of it, there’s nothing especially remarkable on show here. Sisters Klara and Johanna Söderberg play a very straightforward folk music – simple melodies; glorious harmonies, it’s comfortingly familiar stuff. And yet, there’s something of an air of greatness about them.

Partly, that’s due to their charm on stage but mostly it’s down to Johanna Söderberg’s glorious, soaring voice. Her handling of Fleet Foxes’ Tiger Mountain Peasant Song is immaculate and seemingly effortless.

Much more than that though is the feeling that this is only the very beginning. The sisters are impossibly young (they are still chaperoned by their father who acts as soundman during their tours) and can only get better. Already, they are able to do the simple things stunningly well, once they begin to develop further and start to push the boundaries of their music, who knows what they will be capable of.

That autoharp which Klara is clutching might only be the start.

They are never going to tear the roof off a place or whip anyone up into a frenzy – the secret to success with Beach House is to submit to them. Hand over your senses for an hour and let them do what they will with them. Once you do, it feels like that split-second between normality and oblivion when you have just been given a general anaesthetic. About number 7 when they ask you to count down from 10. The precise moment when the room turns swimmy like the beginning of a dream sequence in a film.

Tonight,Baltimore’s Beach House glide effortlessly through the stand out moments from their mesmerising Teen Dream album. Zebra, Walk In The Park, Norway and Used To Be all translate perfectly to the live setting, with Victoria Legrand’s newly sonorous vocals providing a fine counterpoint to the woozy looping organ, lazy drum rhythms and reverb drenched guitar. The only notable absence tonight is Wedding Bell, the opener to their 2008 album Devotion, though that record isn’t completely left behind as evidenced by an excellent sprawling version of Gila.

Those who do submit to Beach House tonight find themselves in a dream like state, not unlike that which Galaxie 500 had the power to induce in their audience. The trouble is that not everybody makes that sensory leap and those who don’t find themselves discussing their favourite flavour of Monster Munch crisps – which is to miss the point rather and which is irritating in the extreme when it’s right down your lughole.

Beach House Myspace is here.

The Westgarth Social Club in Middlesbrough may be an unlikely setting but it’s building an impressive reputation for being one step ahead of the game. So far in 2009 promotors, The Kids Are Solid Gold, have brought, amongst others,  Canadians Woodpigeon, American whispering folksters Horse Feathers and probably most impressively, The Leisure Society who packed the venue out just weeks before landing an Ivor Novello nomination. Tonight the joint headline tour of First Aid Kit and Fanfarlo are at the venue. It is what is says it is on the label – a social club function room – but once the lights go down its as intimate a venue as you would want and a place where bands seem to love to play, with many citing their shows at the Westgarth as tour highlights. It is, in its own way, similar to the Band Room in North Yorkshire, only without the breathtaking scenery outside and having the advantage of having an inside toilet and a good pint of beer on tap.

First Aid Kit specialise in folky harmonising with a distinct Swedish accent, which isn’t surprising as they are from Sweden. They are also sisters and impossibly young to be producing music as well written and performed as this. A mixture of wistfulness and dry wit, their songs are melancholic without being overbearing. Most of their excellent Drunken Trees mini album gets an airing including their cover of Fleet Foxes Tiger Mountain Peasant Song. It’s a huge gamble and it pays off because their voices are strong enough to carry off both the harmonies and the soaring solo impeccably. They are a band that will only get better.

Fanfarlo however are already very much the finished product. Looking like the cast of a Cohen Brothers film, they are a strangely entrancing bunch. Comparisons to Arcade Fire may surprise some but their songs share a similar structure. Where Arcade Fire crank up the noise though, Fanfarlo create a wall of sound by layering strings, horns and keyboards over the guitar and mandolin. Also like Arcade Fire, their lyrics have a literary feel to them and every song becomes a novella read in a voice with more than an echo of David Byrne.

Three encores tell their own story and by the end you feel they have probably just about run out of songs, with their debut album Reservoir having formed the backbone of the set. The only mystery is how the almost overwhelmingly great Fire Escape, the highlight of the album, is almost overlooked. Called for by the audience the band concede that ‘Oh yeah, we could play that.’ What follows is about the most you can hope for from live music. The song is worthy of obsession, which is handy as that’s where I’m headed with it.

Already hailed by David Bowie, gaining increasing radio play and having just completed a sell out tour of America, there probably won’t be too many more opportunities to see Fanfarlo in a venue like this. That’s a shame, but as Fanfarlo move onwards and upwards, the Westgarth will be most probably be providing a home for next year’s next big thing.

To find out what’s up next at the Westgarth click here.

Fanfarlo live here.

First Aid Kit can be found here.

It’s in the middle of nowhere and difficult to find. It’s ridiculously small, only 100 people can squeeze inside. There are no acoustic elements to its design – it is a wooden hut. The stage is so tiny that some members of the band are unable to access it from the dressing room and have to clamber up from the audience side. There’s no bar and the toilets are outside. The seats are uncomfortable. The Band Room is easily the best venue I have ever been to.

It would appear from the way they play that it is one of better venues that Canadian folkestra Woodpigeon have played too.

It’s all too easy to dismiss Woodpigeon as wistful, romantic folkies (not that there’s anything wrong with that and singer Mark Hamilton’s opening solo set is equal parts wistful, romantic and folky) but tonight’s line up shows off their more muscular side with the songs bolstered by a full band and a sound which swells and rolls like the sea. Which is ideal as the centrepiece of the show is ‘And As The Ship Went Down You’d Never Looked Finer’, a song about drowning to death. It ends in a melee of looped vocals, distorted guitar, swirling keyboards and crashing cymbals. For five minutes or so, Woodpigeon are My Bloody Valentine. It’s their finest moment to date.

In fact, and I’m not sure if this is a reflection on me or Hamilton, but many of their best songs seem to dwell on the subject of death and loss. Either in powerfully emotive ways such as in ‘And As The Ship Went Down…’ or in the blackly comical murder ballads which they specialise in. Tonight we are treated to two songs detailing the disposal of a corpse. In such a small and intimate venue it is probably best not to catch the eye of Mark Hamilton as he sings these. It’s dark and remote outside!

Check out the Band Room HERE.

or Woodpigeon HERE.

Less than a week before tonight’s shimmering performance by Beth Jeans Haughton and her Hooves of Destiny, I watched her set fall apart in Stockton. Beset by technical problems she struggled through a faltering set while being repeatedly encouraged to ‘Fuck Off!’ by a couple of silver tongued charmers pressed up against the stage. On the plus side, the use of a battered old suitcase as a bass drum is something which obviously sits well with a website called Suitcase Orchestra. One day, all instruments will be made of discarded luggage.

Tonight’s set is a world away from all that, with Beth’s ethereal voice floating over her own sparkling brand of space-folk (imagine Joni Mitchell as a character in 2001 A Space Odyssey). Previous single ‘Golden’ gets the full band treatment and several songs from her forthcoming e.p. are previewed including ‘I Will Return, I Promise’ and there is a glorious soaring rendition of ‘Night Swimmer’, complete with looping live samples of Beth’s breathy vocals. There’s even some duet action with Mark Hamilton from Woodpigeon.

There’s a fragility and a prettiness to her music which belies the humour behind some of it. I doubt anyone has ever looked so glamorous, she’s wearing a blonde wig, a tasselled swimsuit and has huge Venus Flytrap eyelashes, while singing a song about running out of petrol and having to take a crap by the side of the motorway.

Beth Jeans Houghton is a superstar in waiting. Get on board early by getting her new single ‘I Will return, I Promise’ in early September. In the meantime, you can vote for it in Radcliffe and Maconies ‘Pick n Mix’ by clicking here but you’ll have to be quick sharp.

Otherwise, you can check out Beth’s cosmic-glam-folk at www.myspace.com/bethjeanshoughton

Woodpigeon - A Fiery Breeze

A huge thank you to Calgary’s Woodpigeon for dragging themselves out of bed and cabbing it over to our school to play for our wee four and five year olds in between scheduled performances in Stockton-on-Tees and Derby.

When Alan McGee released his Creation compilation album ‘Doing it for the Kids’ I doubt he quite had this in mind.

Armed with a guitar, a cello and a ukulele, the Canadian folkestra needed only a quick raid of the school’s music resources to enrich their sound with a xylophone, some maracas and a guiro before they were off.

This was the group’s first ever gig in a school and they played it perfectly. They taught the children about the instruments, encouraged them to take up music as a hobby and then played a thirty minute set including ‘The Book of Love’, ‘I Live a Lot of Places’ and a cover of Kris Ellestad’s ‘The Secret’. The Ellestad song is about as inappropriate as you can get for a primary school but by cunningly replacing the frequent references to body parts, fluids and functions with blanket use of the word ‘alphabet’ nobody on the staff needed to lose their job.

The end of the performance prompted one little boy to leap to his feet and shout ‘I just LOVED that’. As the band themselves would say: Awesome.

The secret it shot out in alphabet and alphabet alphabet.