LAURA GROVES/ HOT ROCKET/ TELLISON @NOTTING HILL ARTS CLUB 06/01/08

LAURA GROVES
Laura Groves is another singer-songwriter currently writing pretty little ditties with poetic lyrics and emotive musical accompaniment. Taking to the stage alone, her vocals are reminiscent of Joanna Newsom but less jarring and she starts off behind an organ before playing a few songs with an acoustic guitar and then going back to the organ. From that explanation, especially the second part, you’d be tempted to draw up Kate Nash comparisons but there are few similarities.

She manages to create an indie film ambience and, as I stop paying attention during the set and let the music wash over me, I summon up images of a boy with dark choppy hair sitting in the back seat of his car as his family drive down an American road flanked either side by trees and the boy is in his mid-teens and starring out of the window up at the sun and the light turning green as it moves through the leaves like a filter. And you can imagine the music that accompanies this. It is unassuming and sweet and soft.

But her main downfall is that she joins a long list of artists in the UK who do the same thing and an even longer one when you start adding similar acts from the US and the world. Currently I struggle to see enough in her performance to establish her as one of the leading lights in the UK, let alone further a field, but she is an enjoyable way to spend your afternoon and she has the promise to push further.

http://www.myspace.com/lauragroves

HOT ROCKET
This band are about to start when they manage to blow something up on stage and then spent an age fixing it. The fact that the majority of the people that had moved into the room were there to see Tellison, who were supposed to start before Hot Rocket had even managed to fix the problem, hardly made for an accommodating audience. By the time they fix the problem they would have had to have been an incredible live act to win the crowd over. Needless to say, they’re not.

They are polished though. They play like an act that have played together regularly for a long time. They play like the pop act that they are, but they were not particularly popular tonight. The crowd enjoy it a little but that baffles me. I’d have thought that the people of Notting Hill are relatively art school and I’d have thought that art school kids don’t particularly like The Fratellis (which is what the first song sounds like), Panic! At The Disco (which is basically the third song) and the idea of Maroon Five covering My Chemical Romance (the second song).

I never like mentioning a band’s look as I prefer to review music than fashion, but this band look like they sound; conceited. Their look is important to them as everything is fake and intentional, and it amazes me when I see a band that seems to be selling out before a label has even asked them to. They play a full set despite their problems at the beginning and yet the only person I can see dancing is wearing a suit, on a Sunday. That says it all for me.

http://www.myspace.com/wearehotrocket

TELLISON
It feels fitting for me to be reviewing the band that I saw twelve times last year as part of the first set of reviews that I do, especially seeing that this was the first venue that I ever saw them in almost two years ago to the day. I was mildly impressed that day but now I’m amazed when they manage to impress me more with every new song written or every time they rework the songs for their live performance. I’m willing to bet that I’ll end up reviewing this band at least another ten times this year and so I’ll have to start reading my thesaurus for synonyms of ‘incredible’.

Tonight they suffer from Hot Rocket’s mishap earlier which means that the band takes to the stage around 22:45, thirty minutes later than they were due to. This happening on a Sunday night means that some of the crowd have already had to leave and a fair few of those still there are gazing apprehensively at their watches. Stephen is struggling with his vocals too, popping a Strepsil before the band even start; his voice is struggling with the quieter parts and then is strained further when he screams through the pain barrier. But, while these things would be enough to put some bands off, it seems to barely hamper Tellison at all. For when Stephen’s voice falters, the crowd help him out by hollering the lyrics out, and when the band have as many handclaps as they do there is barely time in between for people to check their watches.

The late start is perfect reason for Tellison to only manage a shorter set, dropping regular songs like Ambulance, Disaster! Disaster! and Amory but they still manage to play new song, Wasps Nest and what a song it is. This shows that Tellison have a very bright future ahead of them and if any labels needed more reason to circle this band after the brilliance of Contact! Contact! then this should surely be it. Not Tellison’s finest performance but when their off days are as good as this then I can’t see how anyone could complain.

http://www.myspace.com/tellison