The Underground of Happiness

A former bullring. A handsome round red brick building with bars and restaurants at every orifice. 27 degrees. Shorts weather. Metro a dream. Burgers at the Pequeno. Beer 4 quid a pint in the venue. Where would you get it. The first of two nights in the bullring for the band. No repeats = Different set both nights. A stunningly beautiful venue. Intact enclosed boxes. A cauldron of sound. Some highlights from High violet . Conversation 16. I was afraid, I’d eat your brains Cause I’m evil Runaway. I don’t even think to make I don’t even think to make I don’t even think to make corrections We sing along like children. Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks to finish. Unplugged. Lisbon loves them. A wonderful night.

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of seeing The National again, in my hometown this time. They played in Cork before (see below) but I couldn’t make it to that gig. I did see them at The Olympia in Dublin in 2008 on the back of the Boxer album – that was great – but this time had four or five times that number of people, something not far off 5,000. Thinking back on it now, it was unusual, as gigs go, because it was almost as much a literary experience as a rock n roll one. It certainly was visceral but the show engaged the intellect at least as much as the melody receptors. Two sides of the brain in play then. That's the way with The National though. At a glance they seem to be a certain kind of band but let them seep in and they're revealed to be several types of band in one. I reviewed the gig for WeAreNoise , here’s the link with the full text. http://wearenoise.com/index.php/2013/07/review-the-national-w-tall-ships-the-marquee-cork-28-06-13/ All photos below...

We started the show with the story of two gigs - O Emperor , who play next week in Cork, on the back of their brilliant, classy second album Vitreous ; and The National , who played in Cork last weekend, promoting their brilliant, slowburning 6th Trouble will find me . The main event of the show was a piece of an interview with Brian from Dublin band Halves , whose 2nd album comes out this month - it's great too (full podcast of that interview on the way). What else? Some jaunty jazz from Krzysztof Komeda (pictured below) taken from the soundtrack to Roman Polanski's film Knife in the water (see Trunk Records for details on that); beautiful airy ambient electronica from Jumpel ; a knock-out falsetto with glitch beats combination from Baths ; soaring orch-pop from Screaming Maldini ; and shape-shifting math-pop from V.O. . And we finished with some boogie from Brother JT because there's always room for some boogie. July 2 2013 w/ O Emperor,The National,Halves...

Title track from the Oklahoma band's upcoming second album. Has a slow-building, epic quality which will be well familiar to fans of The National . Circling, Reichian piano figures and beautiful, ghostly backing vocals are just some of the joys of it. An anthem for people not comfortable with anthems. *Previous single For 12 is also available to download for free here. For 12 (like this page to download) by Other Lives The astronaut-adrift-in-a-post-nuclear-desert themed video for which is here. Love that string arrangement - it makes me think of telegraph wires. Other Lives play both the Green Man and End of the Road Festivals in the UK this summer