Finally, the (slightly short) 3rd part of this mini-festival review. Only about 3 weeks since the event. Oh well.
The Leaf Library were on first, playing some nice piano-based indiepop tunes. They were pretty good, but I found they were a bit 'wall-of-sound'-y - there really wasn't that much space to think or even breathe in their songs. They could do with introducing a few rests into their repertoire. They've had an album out since the gig, which is available for whatever you want to pay over at their Bandcamp, and it's worth a listen if you're into melodic indiepop. I've downloaded it, and have only listened fairly briefly, but it seems to play to their strengths more than the live show did.
I hadn't seen The Wave Pictures live as a full band before, and they weren't really like I expected. The focus was definitely on David Tattersall's virtuoso guitar playing and plaintive lyrics, but the rest of the band were great too, both instrumentally and vocally. They had a few sound problems but came through unscathed eventually, showing the experience they've built up over the past few years. They've been on the scene for a while now, and to be honest I think 2011 is a bit of a make-or-break year for them - they deserve a bigger audience, but whether they'll ever get one is starting to look doubtful.
Darren Hayman was on last, with his backing back the Secondary Modern, and they were brilliant as ever. Most of the songs he played were either the best songs from the (extremely good) new album or have been staples of his live set ever since I started seeing him live, which made for an incredibly good, tight set. Most of the songs were love songs with a bit of a twist (such as the song Darren introduced as being about a woman singing her love to a loyal dog as she was led off to the gallows). Again, there were a few sound problems, the most notable of which was the DJ booth taking on a mind of its own, but they didn't detract from the gig at all. The older songs, such as his lesser-known old band the French's 'hit' 'The Wu-Tang Clan', which I vastly prefer in its modern format, alternated (as ever) between harrowing and barnstorming, and the new songs such as 'Winter Makes You Want Me More' fitted in well. My personal highlights were probably the songs from 'Pram Town', my favourite Hayman album, with 'Big Fish' and 'Out Of My League' really showing just how good a songwriter he still is. He's currently doing a project where he tries to record a new song every day of January, which I recommend checking out. He played the new song written on the day of the gig as part of the encore, and it was great, but my favourite is the one he did with Elizabeth Morris of Allo Darlin'.
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