It wasn’t your typical rainy and cold London evening tonight in Kings Cross. As desperate flower salesmen tried to push their remaining roses on the walk to Scarla, the combination of a jet setting support act, headliner birthday celebration, new album premiere and ever-expensive Valentines Day eve promised an eternally interesting evening.
There is something to be said for a top notch support act. Sick of the days of seeing any whaling sap with a broken heart and a guitar as a warm up, you can imagine my excitement when the cult hero that is Tim Kasher hit the stage.
Stepping off the plane onto the vibrantly coloured Scarla stage Kasher, complete with underwear full of weed, tried his best to silence the already huge crowd. With a sizeable segment of the crowd reciting every word of songs off his new record “______” and tracks from his more notable works with Cursive, standing stark and alone he warmed the room with his harmless life stories.
It was painfully obvious however that although interesting in his own right, Kasher’s flowing and tuneful narratives seemed only a lighter sandbox version of what is to come. With the entrance of the Kashers band, everything became louder and easier to jig to but lost the intimacy which made the start of the gig so special.
The long wait between acts saw one girl faint and a few others resort to Facebook but with the mutterings of a large sounding black man over the PA, those sneaky punters who already had the new album knew it was time for Bright Eyes to stumbling onto stage.
With an exceedingly excitable response to new material, Conor forwarded through a handful of tracks off the day old release “The Peoples Key”. It wasn’t long however before the requests began (sigh) as the crowd seemingly recited every song off the 2006 opus “I’m wide awake its morning” and the 2009 popularity builder “cassadega”.
A beefed up version of the crowd pleaser Four Winds provided an early highlight for the night and didn’t suffer as badly as “We Are Nowhere and It's Now” from the stupid loud girl sing-a-long plague on any softer number. Why don’t girls get it.... I didn’t pay to hear your attempt and Sony invented sing star for this exact purpose so stay the fuck at home.
With some impressive twirls and flirts with the crowd Conor and his typically awkward crowd banter kept our attention much in the same way the 30 minutes leading up to the encore where new tracks were played back to back did not.
The inclusion and impending cracking version of Road to Joy answered many ticket holders’ prayers as a sweet rendition of ‘happy birthday’ to Conor prompted his return for a massive encore. Returning with Valentines roses for the girls in the first few rows (swoon) the 25 year-old won a few more hearts before closing on some much needed older material and a lively tribute to the turmoil in Egypt.
The incredibly tricky task of promoting a new album whilst a very vocal crowd shouts requests for the classics like Digital Ash and Wide Awake its Morning placed somewhat of a dampener on tonight.
Whilst new material sounded great it was not what people came to see tonight, making that perfect Bright Eyes set list unobtainable for most. Conor revealed that he will tour with Bright Eyes in summer in the U.K and hopefully by then people have fallen for “The Peoples Key” to stem the constant cries for Lua.
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