Kayo Dot, Birmingham Hare and Hounds, 16/02/2011

 

I was expecting this to be an all Toby Driver affair with the opening act being Jeremiah Cymerman (apologies if I spelt the name wrong) playing clarinet, followed by Tartar Lamb II then Kayo Dot headlining. I should have checked the venues website before going as you can imagine my surprise when Bilbao Society took to the stage to open the show. After the initial suprise of having a metelcore group open up, I began to listen to them much more closely. Best described as a mix of Between the Buried and Me, Sikth and Protest the Hero I quickly found that I really liked these guys and their adventerous music and the look of wearing all white with UV lights being the only lighting on stage. Though the singerss performance was a little over done and the keyboards where largely irelavent on the first couple of songs it didnt take them long to get into their stride and I can safely say that I'll be buying their debut album when it they release it later this year.  

 

Next up was Jeremiah's solo performance. What his music consists of is slow, ambient electronic soundscapes with his clarinet being played over the top. Jeremiah has a very interesting style of playing where he seems to "feather" the sound, playing very fast notes and he has two mics set up, one with lots of reverb on, to give him extra controle of the sound. For the first 5 minutes it was very interesting but after 20 minutes of the same thing I was rather board with it, its just not my kind of thing.

 

Now it was time for Kayo Dot. Being my undisputed favourite band, I was rather worried that I'd been expecting too much from them, can their live performance match up to my demands. The goosbumps I felt during the opening song, Calaniction Girl, told me that they very much could meet my expectations. Driver and co where fully able to render the bleak atmospher and complexity of Kayo Dot's music live perfectly, even given their propensity for improvisation. In fact, I'd say this went a long way to making some pieces they performed bettter than their studio counterparts. Whisper Ineffable really comes alive on stage and Johannes Doepping performance on drums was fantastic, taking centre stage, so to speak, for the chaotic part in the middle of WI. He's probably one of the most musical drummers I've ever heard. The set consisted mainly of Coyote and a couple of songs off of KD first two albums, Choir of the Eye and Dowsing Anamone with Copper Tongue and the result was that it was quite a short set. I'm not complaining though as they were brilliant and Ron Varod's guitar and keyboard work did a very good job of covering the gap in Mia Matsumiyas absence and the performance of The Antique was highly apreciated. Biggest surprise of the evening or me though was the closer, __On Limpid Form. I dont like the studio version of this track at all, and the live version that came on the bonus CD-r with Coyote last year wasnt much better for me, yet the performance of the ull 18 minutes of it had me rapt with Doeppings expressive drumming once again being largely responsible for holding my attention throughout the second half of the piece.

 

I think its safe to say that this was the best live performance I've ever seen.

 

Full set list:

 

Caloniction Girl

Whisper Ineffable

Abyss Hinge

The Antique

___On Limpid Form