I’ve mentioned Witchita Records when I last saw Los Campesinos! in Koko back in April. They are one of the best indie labels here in London and I have discovered Los Campesinos! plus a bunch of other bands through them.
Two weeks ago, they celebrated their 10 year anniversary with 4 nights of their signed bands playing. I would have loved to be at every show but my schedule could only permit one and I choose to see Los Campesinos! since they canceled a show back in May which I was quite looking forward to.
When the event was announced, it already had a list of support bands. For this evening, one of them was Johnny Foreigner which is another new band I quite liked instantly. This made the anticipation of this evening doubly exciting. A third reason for excitement presented itself in the week before this show but we won’t go into it as this isn’t Livejournal.
The evening started early with the first support band, Johnny Foreigner, a 3-piece indie band which isn’t really signed by Witchita. I read somewhere that Clap Your Hands And Say Yeah! were supposed to play this evening but bowed out to let Johnny Foreigner. I’ve been listening to CYHASY! for a few years now and would have quite liked to see them as I haven’t seen them before and are on my checklist.
I would have been happy with either band since Johnny Foreigner is another one my new most-listened-to bands who has a very fresh, raw and powerful indie feel to their music. This translated quite well to their performance at The Garage which was full of energy was quite fun to watch. It was quite lovely to see Neil and Gareth of Los Campesions! on stage with them to jam with on a few songs.
Also, Kelly of Johnny Foreigner is quite a sight, then again, most girls who are in a band and play an instrument get loads of points in my book.
The next band was Frankie & The Heartstrings. Since I delayed this post for what seems to be like an eternity, I can barely remember how they sound like. I could check their music on Myspace or Last.fm page but I won’t. If I can’t remember them now, this simply means nothing about their set tickled my fancy. Mind you, they weren’t horrible but simply not my cup of tea.
The evening was for Los Campesinos! though who played a really nice set of songs from all their albums. On twitter, they mentioned performing songs which they don’t usually perform live. Most of the songs during their set were songs I heard during their performance in Koko. The rare songs came during their encore which made the night quite a bit special even if I was completely unfamiliar with one of those songs, International Tweecore.
Here’s the complete setlist from nirajp from the Last.fm event page.
- In Media Res
- Ways To Make It Through The Wall
- Death To Los Campesinos!
- Heart Swells/100-1
- i just sighed. i just sighed, just so you know
- Straight in at 101
- You! Me! Dancing!
- Knee Deep At ATP
- Miserabilia
- My Year In Lists
- Romance Is Boring
- There are Listed Buildings
- We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed
- The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future
- Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks
- International Tweecore (encore)
- We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives (encore)
I was hoping to hear Don’t Tell Me To Do The Math(s) or Frontwards, but I was slightly disappointed yet again. The set was still great nonetheless.
As for the experience, it was a bit different since I decided to stand a bit further back and enjoy the show from there. During the Koko, I was right in the middle of the people dancing and it got really insane.
Of all the members of Los Campesinos!, I love watching Kim the most. Sadly, a huge speaker was blocking my view of her. Then again, I other reasons to enjoy this evening.
In my experience, The Garage has been one of the hottest (and sweatiest) venues I’ve been to especially when I saw Bloc Party (then again, it was Bloc Party) so I was genuinely surprised by how pleasant this venue was during this evening. I guess, this could be attested to me not being in the center of it all and the venue not being as packed as before.
Nonetheless, this evening was great. I am still a bit disappointed about LC! canceling a show back in May for no publicly announced reason but this sort of made up for it. Still, I’d see them again as soon as they decide to play in London again.
