dalliance.co.uk

Los Campesinos!, The Luvvers, UltCult BD1 Live at St George's Hall, Bradford

After blazing through Broken Heartbeats Sound Like Breakbeats the band introduce themselves. "We are Los Campesinos! and we are from Cardiff, which is near Bristol."

It is the type of comment which typifies the seven strong popster from South Wales and one is not sure if it is a flippant quip or a heartfelt claim on the heritage of that City.

UltCult look young enough to not have been at school when Sarah 100 came out but they resonate with the same DIY spiked joy that bands like Talulah Gosh, Even As We Speak and The Sea Urchins used to put through the Bristol record label with a sly mix of Kevin Shields edged on.

They are three girls, two guys and small glockenspiel - glockenspiels are the instrument de jour tonight - and they sound like the fastest relationships one could have started and ended in a single night.

Odious Emporium opens the set and is impressive. Five Bedrooms and Two Lounges closes and stands out and what passes in-between is far from dull. They depart to impressed noises.

Noises describes The Luvvers who are a musically tight four piece of lads - the very sort that will later be described as "saying nothing [to me] about [my] life" and they are fronted by a bleached blonde haircut who seems to ape style and lack substance.

Substances concern Los Campesinos! and Gareth Campesinos jokes that they are on crack but the band are more like the sound of a bunch of teenagers on sugar rush. They are a band to fall in love with mixing smartness - smugness even - of lyrics with an excess of energy in performance and ring in an ill fitted innocence that gives them charm. They credit Blank Generation's Adam Simons with giving them a first gig outside either capital and are genuine in doing so. "We would have had to get proper jobs..." Gareth comments.

This ebullient charm runs through the night. Drop It Doe Eyes - sung by Aleksandra Campesinos who swaps from side keyboard duties to the front - is a joy and the Pavement cover Frontwards sounds superb. Harriet Campesinos - see what they have done with the names? - draws a bow over her violin creating depth to what would be a sound of kids hitting tin and looking over the instrumentation the seven have one can see where the Arcade Fire comparisons come in. Had Arcade Fire gown up in Cardiff and listened to Heavenly they probably would sound like this.

Gareth retreats to the back of the stage and joins Ollie Campesinos drumming the famed start of You! Me! Dancing! and they go from good to great with the half full St George's Hall moving with a total joyous lack of unison. They finish on Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks after stand out version of We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives which exceeds the album and sees Gareth bounding around the stage. They are a band who are going interesting places and owe much of that to the start and support they got in Bradford.

Tonight they repaid us.

Art Brut BD1 Live at St George's Hall, Bradford

Art Brut are powering through a storming set at Bradford's St George's Hall and I get the same feeling I did returning to school aged nine after a couple of weeks off with chicken pox.

Led by the wonderfully haphazard Eddie Argos who charges onto the stage like the Disney friendly version of Jarvis Cocker Art Brut are twice the band live than they are from any of the two albums and umpteen singles that have totally passed me by leading to this sense of schoolyard confusion.

They pound through My Little Brother and Argos gees his band up for every gushing of guitars with a communal call - "Are you ready Art Brut?" It is entertaining, is the stirring and as the bouncing kids at the front attest to it is stimulating enough to set bodies moving. They have an anthem - it is called Emily Kane - and it sounds fantastic. It is about Argos's fifteen year old squeeze and I'm back in the schoolyard and with my two weeks off everyone else has a new word, a phrase, a thing. I feel like an outsider.

As they are welcomed back to the stage with a chorus call of "Art Brut Top Of The Pops" which references some line in some song they have but is also exceedingly singable I'm struck by how well the four lads and a lass on stage have won over the four hundred odd at BD1 Live night in St George's Hall - or perhaps they have just won over me - but either way they deserve the encore and, I would suggest, your attention.

British Sea Power, Hot Puppies and fourteencorners BD1 Live at St George's Hall and Brewery Arts Centre, Bradford and Kendal

British Sea Power - Live Review BD1 Live, St George's Hall Bradford with Hot Puppies & fourteencorners in September 2007 and Brewery Arts Centre Kendal in February 2008

British Sea Power are playing a fifteen minute guitar solo and I doubt I have ever been more bored in my entire band watching life.

The sort-of Brighton but not really four piece are running out the end of an uninspired set at Bradford's St George's Hall that has seen a magnificent support from Fourteencorners and some excellent work from Hot Puppies but Sea Power - despite the promises - are dull.

Those promises came from guys. Guy who had travelled. Guys had travelled from far and wide to see this band perform in this not on tour stop for BD1's November outing and specifically the promise came from a guy who had travelled from Ipswich just for the night.

"These," he tells me, "Are the only British band who can rival the Canadians." He goes into a wonderful dewy eye reminisce about seeing Arcade Fire live and prepares for the UK's answer to smart rock. Well he should do because British Sea Power while taking themselves rather seriously - The Brakes without the laughs - are a superb band on album but tonight they are simply dull.

They open with a few recognisable tunes but quickly bring confusion to even the most ardent listener with a range of hitherto unheard tracks and lengthy middle sections which are unwelcome. They play a few recognisable tunes and in doing so at least provide a frame of reference as we swim in a lost water of indigence, adrift in the chasms of space in Bradford's prestige venue.

"We only have two more..."

"We only have two more songs to play in Kendal and Larsen B isn't on of them" Hamilton tells the rapturous collective of men and women who have braved the freezing Lake District air to pack into the 250 or fewer capacity arts centre in BSP's other home town and they have played Remember Me and Fear of Drowning tonight but almost everything else has been from the newly released second best album of the year 2008 - behind The Magnetic Field's Distortion in case you are wondering what my humble opinion is - but familiarity has bred response.

British Sea Power - with added Brakes and Electric Soft Parade drummer Tom White, a violinist girl and some guy in a fantastic hat playing a fog horn - are thriving in the sort of venue that getting a top ten album - Do You Like Rock Music? is at ten in the album parade at time of writing - should preclude but having blasted out Lights Out For Darker Skies on entry to the eight foot highceiling-ed room so they smashed energetically, powerfully, wilfully through a collection which they obviously consider - perhaps with justification - the best songs they have done.

Canvey Island is epic, No Lucifer well received and Waving Flags anthemic and all are played with a confidence that borders on and might slip into arrogance but as the title suggests this is Rock Music and Rock Music should be presented with the confident sneer that Yan, Noble and especially Hamilton exude. Do you like Rock Music? they challenge, because if you so you are not going to hear better than this.

And there is atmosphere aplenty and there is Noble diving into the sea and powered by the arms of the audience walking inverted around the small room without every letting his stern poker face slip and returning the the stage to be fiercely thrown to the floor and standing a veteran of showmanship during the same fifteen minute guitar solo.