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The Raconteurs

They stand accused - The Raconteurs - of being too middle of the road and the place they choose to answer these criticisms is - marked and appropriate - Liverpool.

Jack White is a torrent of sometimes bizarre guitar noises and aural oddness - he dips massively into 1970s influences for the Consolers of the Lonely album just as he does in The White Stripes. Brendan Benson is in search of pop perfection as he approaches - in this writers humble opinion - on his solo albums.

They come together in a band and it is said drag each other to the mainstream. The City of McCartney and Lennon - who could have been accused of the same - cares not and reveals in the return of a band who made a first appearance on the stage they put ninety minutes into tonight.

The Raconteurs are Benson's band in truth - the dynamic seems to be that his cynical arrogance matches White's childlike exuberance - and the shift on Consolers is as much to do with the supposed junior partner's move away from Peter Buck style twanging towards a more bluesy sound that is fused with White's raffling through the decade of guitar excess. If The Raconteurs had released their second album in the 1970s as has been suggested it would have been an oddity.

Odd but they are proud of it and start the show with half an hour and five tunes from the newest record smashing each with passion and verve. Consolers of the Lonely opens and The Switch And The Spur - Gram Parsons fronting Wings - rings clear and stands out. Six songs in and they meld Intimate Secretary and Store Bought Bones into an assault on their first album. They will run through Steady, As She Goes and Together before the night is out to an appreciative support.

However it is in their newer work where the band seem most comfortable and Rich Kid Blues is wonderfully realised. White goes on guitar safari during Blue Veins ending the set, losing a string and staking a claim as the only modern hero of the ax in the process. The effect is strangely entrancing.

Encore of four and Carolina Drama finishes off the night with White turned storyteller - turned raconteur - and an hour and a half of sweat later they depart having pulled off a classic rock n' roll show probably familiar to anyone over fifty but fresh and new to most.

The Raconteurs are a curious act to categorise. Without White they may be no more notable than the support band - The See-Sees - who drift out of memory as soon as they are seen but to assume the more famous partner is liable to be removed is to assume that the relationship between the pair is not level.

Time, and a third release which could very well lurch into the same type of unpredicted alleys as this, will tell.

Jens Lekman and Jayman at The Cluny/TJ's Woodhouse Grove Liberal Club, Newcastle/Leeds

"If you have videoed tonight - which is fine with me," says Jens Lekman after an enthralling night at The Cluny in Newcastle "then do not put it on the Internet or on YouTube because I want this night to be between you and me."

Jens Lekman is an honest man in what is a dishonest industry.

Every night on stages across the world artists pour souls into the same unique displays that they give the night before and will give tomorrow. This suits some performers and but not others and Lekman - following his path of attempting to not play the same venue in the same town every time he visits - is uncomfortable with the four month touring fatigue he and his five musicians are trying to avoid. "If there is a button to press, a rope to pull, then do it" he tells his band.

He wants every night to be special, unique, individual and for two nights in Newcastle and Leeds - fulfilling a long time curious interest of mine - I will be watching both gigs.

The cluny on the banks of the Tyne on the way to Byker in Newcastle is a superb venue. The horseshoe shape of the bar that turns into split level stage and watching balcony not only affords a great area to watch bands but also has a decent place to eat and drink.

The effect of this is a location that - to the casual observer - does not have to make it's money through what is on stage and can survive as a pub. A look down the list of forthcoming events empathises this with a collection of the esoteric such as Lekman coming to the North East in the next few months.

New York songstress Jaymay is on first and as the bright evening is beginning to fade she takes to the waist high stage that is overlooked from the left and begins to storytell. Her guitar picks and strums a pattern behind her stories of love and loss in New York City.

She sings songs with rich textures, each is distinctive and each pushes back against the folk scene that would want to swallow up singer/songwriter girls who play guitar - she was dubbed "anti-folk" at one point - and it is not hard to see why Lekman is touring with her when she starts each song with an antidote or story about it's conception.

"Jens' audience is so polite" she comments before detailing the genus of Ill-Willed Person - her stand out song and the story of not wanting to be friends with the ex of an ex. "Love everything you always loved" is a charming sentiment and Jaymay has succeeded in charming those watching with an honest connection between song and singer. Between story and stage. It is warmth.

In Leeds the night that follows she has changed her top - I did but spilt coffee on the replacement so am back in a Pantone 292 t-shirt - and changed the set list.

The Leeds audience start in the far off drinking area of a Working Men's Club before approaching the stage slowly in a way that must be reminiscent of the zombies in Dawn of the Dead and while they crowd the stage they are more reserved and emotionally seem more distant.

The same set list Jaymay scribed while waiting near the bar at The Cluny sits next to her chair at the front of the stage but she soon begins to move from it and throws in The Tragedy Song which features a sing-a-long chorus and some audience foot stamping and I wonder if this is because she felt more connected to last night's people and could fore-go the gimmicks or if she felt closer tonight and thus could have more fun. Perhaps the groundhog day nature of touring demands that you change at least one thing a day.

The last time I saw Jens Lekman he was accompanied by a percussionist in a church in Leeds. In Newcastle now he stands on the stage with a laptop user/DJ type person as his small figure in the centre of the stage begins his most sombre song. I Am Leaving Because I Don't Love You sees the Swede push out two heartbreaking verses before he is attacked on stage with an array of chellists, violin players, drummers and bassists who are his band and it becomes clear that tonight will not be a repeat of Leeds 2007.

Curious hardly covers Lekman the performer. He has the same kind of magnetic charisma that a Morrissey or a Jarvis Cocker has which pushes a brittle confidence and a self-depreciation into his gigs. He tells us about Kortedala - the suburb of Stockholm he has lived in - where he was beaten up and mugged "constantly" and he seems pathetic but his eyes shine out as he plays honest and beautiful songs. The ode to his hairdresser from Kortedala Shirin has tears dwelling in eyes.

And there are works of power and majesty. Streamed from a cello and driven by a powerful bass Black Cab once again inspires awe and surpasses the original and new song New Directions shows an continued ebullience. Lekman at these points is as Jarvis is on Common People or the Morrissey of Death of a Disco Dancer as he takes a captious view at life putting himself above all and finding all wanting.

Last time he played the North East Jens Lekman was at The Sage in Gateshead. "Now I am in Newcastle, this is a difference that is important" he intones sweetly as he continues his set that concludes when his band depart the stage and he is left clicking his fingers in accompaniment of Pocketful of Money and the clicking leads to Lekman asking all assembled to whistle the hook which leads to deep voiced Geordies backing the singer in a moment of spontaneous, disarming, wonderful improvisation.

Lekman is moved. He asks us not to share, he goes for a walk by the Tyne. He is on stage in Leeds 22 hours later and things are different. The storming of the stage is gone and the beginning is moved to the centre of the set.

"The last time I was here I played in a church didn't I?" he asks to confirmations. "I thought it was here" he noodles as he continues. The depths of Woodhouse Liberal Club are far from full - a disappointing turn out - and the atmosphere slips away a little but still Lekman is the focus of all around him. Maple Leaves is received with rapture Leeds but I'm Leaving... seems to hang around the room more begging to be plucked from the air.

The repetitious nature of night on night performance is obvious. Postcard To Nina comes with a narrative which he uses to parody the repartition. "Tell that story again Jens. I've Told It So Many Times... Yeah but just once more..." "Tell it again Jens cause last time was in Gateshead and this is Newcastle..."

Perhaps a less honest performer can work this kind of enforced duplicity better but Lekman - as with Jarvis Cocker during his two date stay in Sheffield two years ago - is exposed for all and the soul of the performance comes from each carved, honest, beautiful song.

Wave Machines, Daybreakers, Laboratory Noise and Captain Jack and the King of Hearts. Granadaland at The Love Apple, Bradford

It is a hot night in Bradford and people would rather be on the roadside in the sun outside The Love Apple than inside watching Captain Jack and The King of Hearts and they are right to do so. Two kids singing grime, messing about, wasting time. They finish when one falls from the stage and the reaction of the five or six who are inside goes between bemused to amused. Back to the bedroom lads.

Laboratory Noise are an altogether different affair with polish and experience they are Bradford's finest exponents of post-rock soundtracking and perform well coming back from a six month hiatus. They sweep over the room and gain appreciation from the crowd they have pulled off the pavement into the bar.

Finding less apprciation are Daybreakers who seem a band out of place fitting in a little more soft rock than one might expect. They are a tight band and they make the sort of sounds that if you really like Van Morrison you would probably really enjoy but they fail to grab the distracted audience leaving Wave Machine - fourscousers in masks of themselves - to play to a fistful of people late on.

Drawing from Liverpool's pop tradition Wave Machine craft an entertaining tune with single I Go I Go I Go standing out. They look crestfallen when they finish having played to a couple of dozen but a mental note is made to check them out again.

Vampire Weekend at The Cockpit, Leeds

They are nice boys these Vampire Weekend lads - the sort of boys that you read about in book that end with families eating noodle salad in the Hamptons - but they will have problems convincing anyone that they are a proper band.

They are active boys - popping around the stage with a nervousness that is not quite energy but is appealing in a way. They say they are happy to be in Leeds for the first time - American bands are always impressed to be where The Who were Live At - and you believe them.

They are polite boys - these Vampire Weekend lads - but they will have problems convincing anyone that they are a proper band.

This is not to say that they are not interesting to watch - interesting rather than enthralling - and that they do not put out a curious tune. In these days where thrashing guitars has become ubiquitous and inane lyrics are only matched by cod-psychology in the outpourings of musicians they make a welcome change to both. The African rhythms have only experienced the continent via Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel and Paul Simon but those are interesting influences to have and certainly make Vampire Weekend stand out.

When they were first touted Vampire Weekend were dubbed as The Strokes playing Graceland and the latter half of that is true. The band lack the swagger of The Strokes though and all that goes with that swagger. Excitement is the word I'm talking around. Vampire Weekend are good to appreciate but they are not exciting.

They are a curio trying to carve out a sound for themselves as they are buffeted by a global media who descended on them before they were fully formed and took them from their scene to everybody's scene. They had their name on billboards in Times' Square when they should have still been gigging around building a sound and a following - Okkervil River and The National are on fourth albums and offer something more solid that Vampire Weekend do at the moment. One wonders how long an audience built on the quirkiness - the difference - of this sound can last. One wonders if were it not on heavy MTV rotation the members of Vampire Weekend might not got together and say "Well that was fun doing that Paul Simon stuff but let’s see where else we can go..." rather than carrying on as a covers band playing new material.

None of which is to criticise a good performance at a good gig. They played everything from the self-titled album with Mansard Roof opening, A-Punk standing out and Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa being a good finish but most revealing was the new as yet untitled song which showed little progression. The bands that Vampire Weekend draw from were all allowed to move on to and off of a sound onto another.

Where do Vampire Weekend - penned in by the thing that has broken them - go from here?

Le Tournoi, Pulled Apart By Horses, Fourteen Corners, The Sugars, Dinosaur Pile Up, The Debuts, Laura Groves Live At Leeds, Leeds

I'm Michael Wood and I'm late - this is why - and am stuck on a bus next to a woman who thinks you make Hummus with Yoghurt. Leeds is a traffic jam to get into and while I'm here I've missed Heads We Dance and the first half of Le Tournoi at The upstairs bit at Cockpit as the all day get in anywhere with your wrist band event begins.

Le Tournoi have dropped the old organised shambles approach to performance and put together a tighter, more focused set. The new guy Kez provides a focus - something that Bradford music gaffer Mark Husak noted as he booked them to support Lightspeed Champion in a few weeks - and everything about the band rumbles along more efficiently. They lag a few bands in the Bradford scene a little having shot out of the traps initially but they are never anything less than facinating to watch and they end this set strongly in the early heat of the under-roof in Leeds' leading venue.

A walk about downstairs for a pint and cut in front of someone at the bar. faces are familiar and a rush of people head off to Pulled Apart By Horses in the main room and I've heard good things so I head to the front only to be pushed back by the volume of a band who seem to have mistaken loud for melody, vocal acumen or even making sounds that don't sound like car crashes.

I feel disappointed cause I hoped for better and old because I'm at a gig complaining that the music is too loud and I remember hearing Nirvana in a pub in this City and they didn't have to turn everything up to eleven cause they could rock and write a bridge. I still feel old but am justified in being unimpressed.

I'm always impressed with Fourteen Corners who have a new bassist - Hi new guy - and the set of superb tunes that are a cut above almost everything else that will be heard in the City today. Josh tells us he is sweating and Luke offers the audience "It's getting hot in here", arching an impressive eyebrow, "so take off all your clothes."

The idea of Fourteen Corners master stage craft amuses me for a minute and I hear how the songs mix together better now than they did when I first saw them. I talk to Josh later and he says that he thinks Luke is ace on guitar. I like it when bands get on together and that reminds me how the Pixies used to hate each other really and how I got into a discussion with the bloke who I cut in front of at the bar about how The Pixies were not as good as Throwing Muses/Belly because they were not as honest. Fourteen Corners are honest.

The taxi driver who takes us to Brudenell Social Club is not honest and rips us off for a pound but we are just in time to see The Sugars who are a kind of throwback to a time when looking a bit like Elvis was just being fashionable and when singing "Do-Wop" into a microphone - and The Sugars use beauitful looking microphones - did not have you dubbed and dismissed as a do-wop band.

They are a smarter band than they are often given credit for and they have some tunes worth hearing - hear them at the Love Apple soon - and if you like Metric but thought they needed White Stripe levels of energy then get down to see them.

In the end the only gripe with The Sugars is that while the tall blondeness and the grease hair quiff at the front are individually good they lack chemistry in a serious way and they need to get along better.

Getting along - or rather getting - was the order of the day piling back to The Cockpit to see Dinosaur Pile Up who made a fiver taxi ride and a route march past an old work place (Lower Basinghall Street dontchaknow) worthwhile.

Dinosaur Pile Up are Matt Bigland - one time of Mother Vulpine - and a guy playing fuzzy bass and a fuzzy guy playing drums and they are brilliant. They have added three new songs to the set since last time and each one bristles brilliantly with intelligence, with guitar hum and with melody thudded between slabs of noise.

Unlike Pulled Apart By Horses The Pile Up have the control and the belief to bring vocals - My Rock n' Roll brings smiles to the face, I Get My Direction From is pure Pavement - up the mix and let the guitars thump with tunes. They are the best band on today and they show it.

They are the peak and Le Tournoi's drummer James and Tim of the Chiara L's (bloke of a work mate of mine - Hi Lisa) are equally enthused and for a minute the strands of my life push together. In a little while I will be introducing Laura Groves to a man called Greasy.

Next though are The Debuts who are a massive disappointment taking sombre to a place it should not go - disinterested - and missing the diffidence of shoegazing leaving the impression that they would rather the audience were not in the room and on that point I agreed with them.

They attempt a threaded vocal through a layer or two of guitar but fail and come over as neither interesting or energetic and no one really seems to be having much fun although the applause after each song suggests that my views are not universal. I hear myself mumble "All the songs sound the same" and remember hearing someone once say that about my favourite album.

My favourite album of this year could well be the whatever comes out of Laura Groves - and I mean that in a much nicer way that it sounds - and the Shipley singer is spellbinding tonight keeping a roomful of weary gig goers enchanted streaming lyrics around and about and pulling you into her world or trails and optimism.

She plays - in my opinion - her best ever version of Can't Sleep and pulls her soul out for Imaginary Flights. She signs one fan's single afterwards as I queue - with Greasy - to congratulate her on a great performance.

The night was not going to get any better than that so at eight I depart for Bradford happy that my Live at Leeds let me see a fist full of great acts.

The Nightflyers Dance Band, The Letter and The Analog Bombs May Day Mayhem - PCS Local Campaign at The Love Apple, Bradford

The evening kicked off in unusual style at the Love Apple with a 14 strong swing music band, The Nightflyers. With a generous 4 saxophone, 3 trombone and 3 trumpet brass sound enriched with a bass, percussion and organ, and occasional flute and clarinet, we were soon aurally transported back to a time when men were besuited cads and bounders and women in tea dresses were grateful for the silk stockings. Foot tapping away and eyes closed, it was easy to picture The Love Apple alive with twirling dresses and brylcreemed hair as people enthusiastically danced together to some of the classics of Swing played tonight.

The Nightflyers deftly worked though a range of material encompassing, but not exclusively, Rat Pack classics, Louis Prima, Glen Miller, Ella Fitzgerald and even Marvin Gaye. Each piece was announced and anecdoted on and this was appreciated by the audience who may not have been overly familiar with Swing music beyond the rehash of it by Westlife et al.

Their set passed quickly and the pleasure of the band performing together was apparent as they threw themselves fully into the music - most notably the trumpet trio - and none more during the penultimate piece, Mas Tequila. Finally, after about an hour, the nostalgic spell was broken and suddenly we back in the room, clad in denim and t-shirts, pints in hand.

After a rapid turn around of the stage area, The Letters arrived to provide a welcomed bridge between the swinging brass and a rather more raucous Analog Bombs later. This was about the fifth gig for the quartet, although singer Kelly admitted they were starting to lose count which I think shows how well they are into their stride, especially with their 8 track set which has become like meeting friends when heard by these reviewers now. They opened with the anthemically stirring Woke Up In The 80s which included Kelly purring names of 80s bands into the mic and giving a period Blondie a run for her money. She was ably abetted by her (mostly) ex-Green trio of men, livewire Rob - trademark beam in place - punishing the percussion, Kev nonchalantly working his black bass whilst Leon made well judged use of the various pedals at his disposal on lead guitar.

After an uplifting start to the set, things turned a little more melancholy as tracks Just Remember and Lemony lingered on weakness and misconceptions of people. Here Kelly’s voice showed it’s range from the more powerful 80s style of Blondie or perhaps Jane Wiedlin to the vulnerable and hurt which also rendered What Do I Do Now? with more despair and sadness than Louise Werner could ever had let herself show on the original version. On Barfly, What Do I Do Now? and These Thoughts, Kelly added some rhythm guitar to add extra depth to the sound yet without overcrowding the melody and vocals - frequently misjudged by many a band currently. It’s a rare commodity that The Letters possess to have confidence to keep things simple and understated and literally let the music speak for itself. No gimmicks, no grandiose arrangements, just versatile vocals over skilled instrumentation which shows the maturity both musically and personally of the collective. The set draws to a close with Flurry and then to lift the spirits and to mirror the opener, Drive is the final song to leave the audience humming as they head towards the bar.

So with Swing music from the 1940s and if The Letters are waking up in the 1980s, did this mean perhaps Analog Bombs might give us a glimpse of music from 2020s? Well if that was the case then, it’s all going to be back to as early as the 1960s through to the early 80s for post punk, 2 Tone and generally psychedelic inspired noises. Where The Letters may have a more experienced and professional sheen to their band that gives excellent cohesion, Analog Bombs are all about the entropy of alcohol and cobbling it together as it goes on stage.

They are the loveable rogues of the Bradford music scene and never less that totally entertaining as distinctive singer Ben lurched about with the mike stand on stage, Magners bottle a fixture in his hand, and nearly took out guitarist Lee and simultaneously quenched the thirst of a large amp with some Fosters. However, disaster was averted by the observations and snappy reflexes of the relative new comer to the band, bassist Rick. He has really come out of his shell since his debut and apart from ska-skipping as he played, he already seemed integral to the group as Ben pointed out at one stage, almost ruefully, that Rick knew the lyrics better than he. Into the third song, one of his bass strings went and Rick valiantly played on as a mate attempted a Formula 1 type string change.

That change took more work so, the rest of the band filled with a bass free interlude of a lighter track, and The Letters Kev lends his bass for another song until the problem was rectified. Analog Bombs ran through various songs that are well loved like Lola , Hancock and their ode to the infamous Tumblers and several people were up on their feet giving it some of the hoppy, skippy ska dancing and clearly loved this exuberant, scruffy and charismatically chaotic ending to an evening of music that crossed both genre and time.