Brilliant news - Lucy Rose (Bombay Bicycle Club collaborator) has announced a string of 8 acoustic shows in intimate venues across the UK in January and February. Posting a week ago on her Facebook page, Lucy said that "I always want to play the songs you guys want at gigs so I felt bad in Oxford on the last tour when I heard someone shouting for Nightbus, Be Alright and Gamble. So I promised the audience I would come back in January and play a small solo acoustic gig where I could play those songs." And, true to her word, she's playing a show in Chipping Norton (just North of Oxford) and in a few other places around the country, culminating at Heath Street Church in London. I'd certainly recommend getting along to a show whilst the opportunity to see Lucy in this size of venue arises as she's certainly growing a loyal fanbase and her recent album, Work It Out, has been received to high acclaim!
Having been busy seeing various members of my family for christmas, I haven't posted in a while and was searching for a session to share when I stumbled across this video from the Secret Sessions. It's Big Sixes, who played alongside King Charles at the Secret Sessions show I saw him play back in November at The Hospital Club. Going to the show having no idea who the other band playing was, and not knowing the band by name when someone told me that they were playing, I did the typical thing and checked if any of my friends like their page on Facebook - and yes, some friends (whose taste in music I trust!) liked their page, and I was fairly impressed by their set and this video is a recording of their track Unless I'm Mistaken, filmed during the soundcheck.
I'm off home for Christmas today so gigs in London are a little less accessible (far more effort to get train from home than the coach from uni) but I'm hoping that I'll be able to make it to London for one of these shows. Fred Abbott, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and former guitarist/keys player for Noah & The Whale, recently released a solo record (read my review of it here), and is playing a residency at The Forge in Camden for three nights in January. Support at each show will come from Hollie Stephenson with special guests Tom Figgins, Moxie Kicks and The Villainy making appearances at one show each, on the 14th, 21st and 28th of January respectively. Guaranteed to be a fun show with cracking guitar solos aplenty, so get down to a gig if you can!
More info and a link to buy tickets for each of the shows here.
Half Moon Run have just released a new video for what I think is my favourite track from their latest record, Sun Leads Me On, which was released in October, and is certainly for me one of the best records of the year. The video, filmed in the place where the track was written, a place that 'has inspired a lot of the music on both of [their] albums' is, admittedly, kind of weird, but it comes with the territory and fits well with the title of the track - I Can't Figure Out What's Going On.
With an exam still to go (and no, of course I haven't done any Christmas shopping!) I refuse to feel festive yet, but can't resist sharing the new Christmas track from The Heathen and The Holy, aka the 'seasonal side project' of Fred Abbott and Tom Hobden from Noah & The Whale.
The follow up to last year's track Hey Merry Christmas (video featuring Fred, Tom and a bunch of their musician pals), On Christmas Day has just been released - and you can get it on iTunes here. Instantly feeling a little more festive...
As the end of semester draws near I've just submitted my last two essays and now have one more exam to revise for. So much to do and so little time so I haven't found a moment to post on here for a week or so, but I had to take a break to share this beautiful video.
Its King Charles performing his latest single, Gamble For A Rose, solo for the Secret Sessions. I saw him play a brilliant solo set that evening - as far as I can work out, they film a couple of sessions during the day and the bands play in an intimate location within London's The Hospital Club that night for a bunch of music fans, many of whom have no idea of the line-up in advance.
I saw the mighty Mumford & Sons play at the O2 Arena on Thursday and Charles was supporting with his band - who put on a superb set to the biggest crowd I've seen them play to. It was my 10th time seeing King Charles live, crazy to think the first time was in the (then) 100 capacity Portland Arms in Cambridge, now a 20, 000 capacity arena!
Here's to many more shows to come... a few of which fall in February as Charles is touring in support of his new album (of which the above track is the title track), all the details on the album and tour are here on his site.
I'm realising very quickly that I need to take a listen to Richard Walters solo back catalogue, having only listened to his work with Liu Bei. He's just had a new track featured on a Polish christmas advert so I watched the advert and searched out the full track, a cover of Peter Bjorn and John's Young Folks (previously a B&Q advert song...) Absolutely loving this cover and resisting the urge to try and whistle along to it! Take a listen...
A little overwhelmed with uni work at the minute but I've somehow found time to get to a few shows this week (arguably my priorities aren't in the right place exactly but the shows have all been pretty great!)
First up was Communion's New Faces tour on Monday at The Bullingdon, a venue I've been running the Twitter for for a couple of months - but I haven't got to a show at the venue since then, so I spent most of the evening chatting to the manager and missed all but Jack Watts' set (which I really enjoyed), but hearing (just not seeing) the rest they all sounded cool which is a given with them having the backing of Communion!
Second up was a Secret Sessions show on Tuesday at The Hospital Club in London, with Big Sixes and King Charles on the line-up. I hadn't listened to Big Sixes before and it struck me the set was a little more stripped back than they usually play but I really enjoyed it, the stage banter was great as were the beautiful harmonies! Likewise, as my sixth King Charles set of the year it was the first solo one, with Charles playing predominantly tracks from his upcoming record (out 22nd Jan!) Below is a snippet of Gamble For A Rose, the latest single - lovely to see this performed in this style!
A video posted by Megan Seekings (@meg_seekings) on
Skip to Thursday, and the lovely Oli from Stornoway got me a photo-pass for the second night of their two shows at St John the Evangelist Church in Oxford, just a 20 min walk from my flat. Opening up their set on the balcony to perform an unplugged version of Josephine, a track from their latest album Bonxie, they set the tone for what was to be a really beautiful evening.
Here's one of my photos from the evening, a few more are on my Flickr here.
Last up was the ever wonderful Mumford & Sons last night at Capital FM Arena Nottingham. Having only seen them once before at the same venue (but standing that time) it was a little bittersweet to be seated but we had quite a good view and a great view of the stunning light show put on by Mumford's lighting designer Ed Warren. This photo doesn't do the lights justice but there's a gallery of Ed's work on his site here.
Mumford & Sons.
Jack Garratt was in support, and it was clear that Mumford knew their luck in getting him along for the tour as he's certainly going places, having just been announced as the winner of the Brit Awards Critics Choice, for instance. The band invited him back onstage to play a cover of Eurythmics (which they played on Radio 2 earlier in the year) which I recorded a snippet of - watch that here.
Mumford are a favourite band of mine so it was great to see them play live again and to hear most of the tracks from the brilliant third album Wilder Mind, which were accepted by the crowd just as well as the more folk-y tracks of their first two records. An added bonus to their live show is the addition of Noah & The Whale's Tom Hobden, accompanying them with fiddle, guitar and keys for most of the set. His playing during Ghosts That We Knew (below) pretty much had me in tears - so stunning! Having met Tom a few times this year (at far smaller shows!), it was superb to be able to chat at side of stage for a part of Jack's set about the likes of Mumford, Noah and King Charles - he's a lovely guy and one of my favourite musicians, Mumford are lucky to have him playing alongside them!
What a wonderful week of gigs - sadly I don't have any (as of yet) planned for this week as I've got a couple of essays to write and an exam to start revising for. After last night's wonderful show however - I've been all but persuaded to try and get a ticket to Mumford & Sons' show at O2 Arena on 10th December as King Charles is supporting and it'd be incredible to see him play to such a huge crowd!
Best news... King Charles has just announced a tour in February to support the release of his upcoming second album, Gamble For A Rose. The tour will see him take in Manchester, Sheffield, Southampton, Brighton, Bristol, Reading, Leeds, finishing off at London's Oval Space on 18th Feb.
Having seen Charles live six times this year, I can tell you with confidence that the new tracks (the likes of Bright Thing, Loose Change For The Boatman and Choke) are sounding incredible and this tour isn't to be missed, Charles and his band put on such a fun live show. I was lucky enough to see Charles play a beautiful 7-track solo set for the Secret Sessions last night at London's The Hospital Club. The show had a great laid back atmosphere and it was great to hear some of the new tracks performed in this way - and lovely as ever to chat to Charles and his team - keep an eye out on the Secret Sessions page for the video sessions.
Tickets for the tour are on sale from the ticket links on the poster above from 5pm tomorrow, and you can pre-order Charles' new album through his site here.
Charles' next show is supporting the mighty Mumford & Sons at London's O2 Arena in a couple of weeks on 10th December.
I've posted a couple of sessions from imagesound in the past - particularly partial to their Sam Beetonand Jack Savoretti recordings. Here's a new video with Tom Figgins performing his latest single Giants Played In Woods Like These. I've been lucky to see Tom play solo sets a few times this year as well as seeing him play as part of Matt Owens' post-Noah & The Whale solo project, The Delusional Vanity Project. He's a wonderful live talent and his music is getting the recognition it deserves with a ton of live shows and radio play from the likes of Chris Evans on BBC Radio 2.
