More bagel in the monitor, please. And less reverb for the A-Z.

Cafe Oto
16 September 2009

Dana from AU is brought to his knees by the revelation that he has developed a bumstick Photos: Anika

The Good Anna, unknown (and un-researched) by me, were presumably going to be a girl and a guitar - but by golly no. Some young men stepped up, and reading from left to right, they offered guitar, drums and violin, while a fourth, seated, contributor in front of the others read an A-Z. Opening with a shriek, he then ate a bagel at us, often whilst reading from the A-Z, sometimes whilst drinking orange juice too. The band busied themselves with semi-improvised skronkiness, melody clearly not central to their concerns, and after a while the front-man read jokes from a jazz mag, apparently purchased earlier at a service station. He claimed not to be too impressed with the magazine, but it did appear to be tidied away with the rest of their kit at the end of the set....

Highlights included the vocalist hurling himself to the floor, to the evident discomfort of the neat young man seated nearby who, taking no chances with such potentially hazardous improvisational art, quickly gathered up his glass of wine in a rather fey protective manoeuvre; some fairly vigorous seated dancing; and the fact that they stopped after 15 minutes or so.

Best quote: "I tried some of that meze stuff; I quite liked it but I didn't understand it". Second best quote, reviewing an unclad female person in the magazine: "Look! This girl here is never 18! Fucking disgrace I call it!"

For any other performance artists who might ever happen to see these words, it should be noted that The Good Anna didn't pause between numbers, which was a good tactic as there would likely have been awkward silences.... happily some polite applause was offered at the conclusion of events, mainly from relief it seemed. The number of emptied seats in front of the stage offered some insight into the true feelings of the audience - Dalston not up for anything more challenging than a lopsided hair-cut, perhaps?

After this, Mr Monk (promoting) felt the need to regain control of the evening by personally introducing Twi The Humble Feather, the second band, an acoustic guitar trio playing rhythmic, layered and rather ambient tunes with hooting non-verbal singing, which was pleasing and quite absorbing but also quickly led to wondering whether there wasn't something else that needed adding, like a lead guitar line or focal vocal.

Happy-go-Luke-y

AU, headlining, have translated the ethereal and often floaty sound of Verbs into something altogether punchier and considerably more vigorous for their live shows, demonstrated by opener Ida Walked Away, which was written to reflect their current format as a duo, and which bodes well for the forthcoming EP. Something of the lightness of touch of the album is lost in performance as there simply aren't enough pairs of hands available, nor any female voices. All good energetic fun though, and some of the tracks lost less than others, particularly encore Are Animals, which had the crowd on their feet and screaming - albeit at Luke's request; we weren't quite moved to an artsy coffee-shop version of speaking in tongues.

Check out the loveliness:

AU - RR vs. D from Rainbow Dropshadow on Vimeo.