Hype is a funny thing. It can make you famous with everyone even before they’ve had a chance to hear you, and this can be such a curse. So much is now expected of Yeasayer, I’m not sure if anything they do will ever be good enough. Though they’ve done their best to quell all the chat or to follow on others coat-tails, there’s no stopping their meteoric rise. The gig is billed as a Reading/Leeds warm-up, but they are first to put right that this is a serious gig for them.
Clock Opera take the stage of a pretty much full house and couldn’t have been more impressive. This
Clock Opera
unsigned (!) band out of London totally owned the room with a solid set of emotionally engaging songs. It was vocally and musically enthralling. They didn’t have to resort to using the synth as a playful gimmick, but with subtlety and purpose. Their final song, Lesson No.7, is an absolute belter, releasing devastating bursts of fierce guitar with between the subtle troughs.
Yeasayer now have even more to live up to. There had obviously been a lot of thought put into the setup of the show. Each had their own coloured podium and the strobe light belted out with nearly every song. Thankfully this did go some way into papering over the cracks. I can appreciate that what they’re doing is different, it is intelligent but most of the time it’s simply not entertaining. The best way I can put it is that it’s like watching Mulholland Drive. The funky, more tribal aspect of their music did create a nice mood, but over the less than hour long set, there’s a lot of filler or heavy synthed diversions. Despite all of its depth, it lacks any connection, you simply don’t care about it. O.N.E received the warmest welcome, but even this seemed to drag on too long.
Whether I like many others simply expected too much or, I guess as they would have wanted, we take them on their merits, either way, heavy is the head that wears the crown.