Despite all the festivals going on in England over the month of August, there seems to be an absolute lack of decent gigs. The only one I can remember was Sleigh Bells at The Lexington on the 9th but only heard about it after tickets sold out completely.

On August 2, I did get the chance to start the month with Best Coast at Cargo in Shoreditch with Sky Larkin as support. One of the main reasons I booked a ticket for this show was that Sky Larkin was supporting. Minor reasons involved the ticket price being £10 and the gig being on a Monday.

I never even heard of Best Coast prior to finding this gig listed online and this proved to be a very bad thing.

The venue was at Cargo which is in Shoreditch and by now, you should know that it’s a favourite place of mine.

Not listening to the Twitter message from @weareskylarkin that the stage time will be 21:00 for Sky Larkin and 22:00 for Best Coast, I arrived early and had to sit down in their cozy bar area and nice sofa seats for at least an hour. When doors to the stage area opened, I decided to go in despite hardly anyone being there yet and sat on the stage, waiting.

This place proved to be the perfect spot since when Sky Larkin came up on stage, the lovely Katie Harkin was to play right in front of me.

At 9 in the evening, Sky Larkin marched back on stage and performed songs from their two albums starting with Still Windmills. Since it has now been 3 weeks since I saw them, I can’t remember their complete setlist but it was a mix of songs from their two albums.

This marked the first time I’ve seen Sky Larkin on stage excluding the bandstand busk since it wasn’t really a live gig and more of an acoustic set.

The band was simply amazing and I can’t wait to see them for the first time headlining their own show which is at The Lexington on September 20.

Did I mention that I was right in front of Katie? She was just incredible.

As for Best Coast, well, I was disappointed to say the least. In all fairness, I went to the gig halfheartedly, not really knowing who they were, not having listened to their songs, and mainly being their for Sky Larkin.

It was their album launch, Crazy For You, and they played tremendously fast. In 20 minutes, they already played around 10 songs and were wondering if they’ve been on stage that long. Granted, their songs are really short even on the record but when they played them onstage, it felt rushed. This would explaine why they started so late.

In short, I didn’t enjoy this gig too much mainly because I didn’t get to know Best Coast as much as I should have. They are a good band though and I would definitely need to listen to them quite a bit more.

Also, I had way too high expectations since this was the only gig in August which I’ve been to and am going to.

It’s incredible how a big festival month (V Festival and Reading/Leeds) have such few one-off shows in London during the week.

Oh well, September looks to be so much more promising. Wake me up when August ends.

I’ve lived in London for just a bit more than 3 years now and there is always something new to discover.

A few weeks ago, I stumbled across this website called Bandstand Busking. Buskers are a pretty common thing here in London and you can see them almost everywhere; in parks, the tube station, the sidewalk, etc.

This however mixes things up a bit and came up with one of the most brilliant ideas ever.

If you’ve been to London, you know how many parks we have in this fine city. In these parks are numerous bandstands which are hardly used for their intended purpose anymore, which is for bands playing music.

Gather 2-3 indie bands together and invite people (for free!) on a weekend at one of these bandstand, and you have the idea of a bandstand busk.

On July 25th, I went to my first bandstand busk since it was a Sunday (my dayoff) and I had nothing better to do. Despite this being my first, this was already the 100th Bandstand Busk which featured bands such as of Montreal, Asobi Seksu, Micachu and the Shapes, Slow Club, Frightened Rabbit, We Were Promised Jetpacks and a whole lot more.

Since this is a simple bandstand, gone are the massive amps and speakers associated with most bands. With these busks, instruments were stripped down to the bare minimum (think acoustic as some bands still use synths) and added a whole new dimension to the typical electric sounds you hear at gigs.

For this afternoon, there were 4 guest bands; Frightened Rabbit, The Hundred In The Hands, Sky Larkin and Vivian Girls.

I totally missed Frightened Rabbit, a band whom I have seen earlier this year at Koko, since I arrived late as they started at noon. It would have been nice to see them in an acoustic set. Now that I think of it, this wouldn’t be much different than their live gigs.

When I arrived at Arnold Circus bandstand in my favourite place in town, Shoreditch, people were scattered all around the circus sipping beer and waiting for the next band to start. There was quite a small crowd already which was a good mix of people who knew about the busk before hand and people passing by, surprised by what was going on.

After a few minutes of waiting, people were asked to gather round the bandstand for the next band, The Hundred In The Hands, a two piece band from New York who played an incredible set. If you’ve heard a few tracks from them before, you’d know they are quite techno and according to their MySpace page, psychedelic/disco house/pop but they translated marvelously into a semi-acoustic set which composed of a guitar and a tiny synth machine. Also, Eleanor is quite a sight and her voice was quite surreal which means lovely in my book.

Sadly, they only played 3 songs and their set was over so soon. They’d be a band to look out for when they do some London shows in the future.

Next up was Sky Larkin, a band I have started listening to and liking (who else) since last year but have not seen live. This be another band I discovered through Wichita Records email list, they aren’t all spam you know.

Their music was more easily translated to an acoustic set which sounded pretty good. Katie looked as cute as she was in the Antibodies video but her voice didn’t sound real perfect as on the record which was to be really but was still great and fresh. These imperfections make me love indie music compared to mainstream stuff. They played 4 songs including lovely renditions of Matador, Still Windmills and Fossil, I.

The finale for the afternoon were Vivian Girls from New York. They set up a bit early and sat down on one side of the bandstand and tried their instruments out. Fiona, the drummer, just tapped on the concrete and the wood as well as a pair of tambourines and was pretty much satisfied with the sound. It was quite a sight seeing her look for the right sound by tapping on the cement floor.

Once they were ready, they put on a very endearing and unprepared series of songs. They even asked the audience for requests since they didn’t really know what to play. If I can remember correctly, they played around 5-6 songs. It was quite the set.

As I mentioned, these Bandstand Busks are a tremendously great idea, making use of the numerous bandstands in this beautiful city and allowing bands to play their songs in a totally different environment with stripped down instruments. The atmosphere was also great and the audience simply loved every second of it.

I still can’t believe I didn’t know about this during their 99 busks before this but if the next one is on my day off, I am definitely not missing it.

I have probably mentioned this a million times before but I should really be writing these blogs about gigs a few days, not several weeks after.

However, this evening was quite unforgettable as it was a special farewell gig to one of Funeral For A Friend’s members, Darran Smith, who has now left the band. This is one of two farewell gigs with the other being in Wales.

To make it even more special, they played Casually Dressed And Deep In Conversation, their first studio album, in it’s entirety, one track after the other, like the several thousand times I played it back in the day.

The venue was Shepherd’s Bush Empire which I haven’t been to since seeing Cobra Starship in February. The seats however got a bit mixed up. I was a 100% sure I purchased a Stalls Standing ticket so queued up in the appropriate entrance. I was so confident I purchased stalls standing that I never checked my ticket. As soon as I showed my ticket for inspection, I was told I had a Level 1 Seating/Standing ticket.

Shocked, I walked over to the other queue and quickly checked my email. As confirmed, I did somehow manage to book Level 1 Seating/Standing. It still baffles me to this day.

When I finally got in, Young Guns was already up on stage. They were ok which is pretty much how I describe most things. It’s a neutral opinion.

Next up was The Automatic who I was quite looking forward to. Unfortunately, they disappointed me beyond belief. I didn’t really enjoy their set at all. Things finally got a tad better when they sung Steve McQueen but this was their last song. Surprisingly, their other fun song, Monsters, was not on their setlist.

Third support for the evening was The Blackout who put on another spectacular and powerful set. I am not a fan of their music but do enjoy watching them onstage as I did when I first saw them at Give It A Name 2008.

Three support acts for a gig is more than welcome, but it eventually had to come to and end. The band everyone came here to see came out on stage to massive cheers as expected.

They kicked off the evening with Rookie Of The Year, but you should already know that since this is their Casually Dressed And Deep In Conversation gig. It was great hearing old favorites from the album which I’ve heard before in previous Funeral For A Friend gigs such as Juneau, Red Is The New Black and Escape Artists Never Die.

The never heard before songs such as Bullet Theory, Waking Up and Novella also sounded so great live. It was such an experience to hear each song of the album live played in sequence.

After their Casually Dressed And Deep In Conversation set, they came back on stage and sang other favorites which included Streetcar, Into Oblivion (Reunion), Roses For The Dead, and History.

Here’s the full setlist.

• Rookie Of The Year
• Bullet Theory
• Juneau
• Bend Your Arms To Look Like Wings
• Escape Artists Never Die
• Storytelling
• Moments Forever Faded
• She Drove Me To Daytime Television
• Red Is The New Black
• Your Revolution Is A Joke
• Waking Up
• Novella

Second Set

• Into Oblivion (Reunion)
• The Art Of American Football
• Roses For The Dead
• Wrench
• Streetcar
• You Want Romance?
• History

This would have been an excellent gig to be downstairs, in the crowd and just letting myself loose. Sadly, I had to console myself with watching the gig from the relatively calm Level 1 area and just singing along to each song, occasionally pumping my hands in the air.

The evening was still something which will be remembered for a long time and there were a number of highlights.

The craziest of which was when someone from the Level 1 area jumped to the Standing area which was around 15 feet high in the middle of a song. Once the song was over, Matthew asked how the guy was doing and apparently, he was ok. Amazing.

The moment they played Your Revolution Is A Joke was another as well as The Art Of American Football when Sean Smith of The Blackout joined them on stage.

The most emotional though was during their last song, History, when everyone in their “family” came up on stage to join the band and sing along with the crowd. It was just one of those moments which get you.

I’ve seen Funeral For A Friend four times already (fifth if I got the day off for a show in Hatfield last year). If I had to start listening to them now, I don’t think I’d like them but considering I’ve listened to them from the start around a decade ago and during my formative years, I can say they are one of the bands I truly enjoy watching live and singing (screaming) along to in my car.

There is a new EP in the works and when they tour for that, I will surely be there. This time, I’ll make sure I have Stalls Standing tickets and let myself loose.