Paperjam

Broadcast, Bush Hall, London

Music // Steve // 31st July 2006

Friday night in an unbelievably sweaty and euphemistic sounding Bush Hall, and we're here to see Birmingham space-drone-pop types Broadcast, along with a thousand other blokes with man-bags. Look, it's useful - alright?

But first we've got to watch new Warp signings Gravenhurst, while the sweat runs down our backs.And they're not much cop, to be honest. There's a quiet bit, there's a loud bit - there's another quiet bit - and so on. The one track that we like was an instrumental that sounded like a theme to a TV programme.

Another song (cover of a Kinks track?) sounds completely different, and has lead singer Nick Talbot doing what sounded like a Morrissey impression, which is actually much better than his usual voice. All in all, rather thrashier than we were lead to believe.

Broadcast look hot and bothered. They start off with three new songs, which were dronier and more folky than ever before, including one with Trish using a small stringed instrument, played like a guitar. Check out the photos linked from the Broadcast forum post. Mostly it sounds as if they're not quite on it, tonight: seems like they've cut back on the live setup, and some of the instrumental cues are missing - although "I found the F", played as the set closer, is an absolute belter.

The opening fairground noises for "Hammer without a master" ring out in the encore - it's my favourite, so I'm all excited - and what follows is a bit of a mess, missing the ebb and flow of previous versions. In the end, I'm slightly disappointed, but they're back in Autumn for some more dates.