Paperjam

Gruff Rhys @ The Glee Club

Gigs // Jim // 19th March 2007

I’ve never been into the idea of being seated at gigs, seems a bit pointless really, plus my preference for generally noisy/shambolic/indie (punk?) music doesn’t lend itself to a nice sit down.

Gruff Rhys was playing at the Glee Club in Birmingham though and the cosy vibe of his new album, Candylion plus the fact that the venue is usually a comedy club led me to believe that jumping around like a fool probably wasn’t on the cards.

James and I turned up at about eight, full of noodles and getting directions from a homeless geezer, which is becoming the story of my life. There are no tickets at the Glee Club, you just say your surname and then they hit you with a suspicious “What’s the first name then?” to weed out potential blaggers and terrorists, cunning stuff.

We popped upstairs to find the place fairly busy, manoeuvred ourselves into some seats and then I manoeuvred myself straight back out in order to go for a cautionary slash. On the way back from the toilet my t-shirt was complimented by not one, but two, drunk foreign women, made a mental note to buy another one.

Sitting down with a fresh pint revealed something interesting. As a man generally pilloried (by myself as well, I’m not body dysmorphic – it’s just that I’m fat and ugly) for my strange physical dimensions, I was delighted to discover that the whole stumpy legs/long body/big arse thing meant that I got a really good view. Possibly even better that twelve foot tall James, who was already starting to complain of cramp, numbness and the creeping onset of deep vein thrombosis in his big long legs.

The first act turned out to be some depressing welsh folk songs performed acoustically by 9 Bach, all about women drowning themselves in wells or similar. Sounded as much fun as being put in the Ludovico institute and lid-locked wide open in front of every episode of Eastenders ever made. Fortunately it was all in welsh so we only got a hint of how shockingly depressing the songs really were from singer Lisa Jen. Each intro was a bit faltering and confused, but her singing was absolutely fucking amazing, not really my sort of thing but very mellow and they only did a few so not enough time to get bored.

Next up was acoustic fiddlyness and looping madness from Voice Of The Seven Woods, which was all very clever and skilful, but went well screechy at the end. It was like a particularly painful bit of Spiritualized droning repetition but with no bass at all. It may have been down to the speakers in the Glee Club but by the end it was like someone blowing a whistle in your ear. He fucked off pretty sharpish. DJ Andy Votel then played some quite unique sounding sort of foreign funk stuff, very cool indeed and quite welcome relief.

Speaking of relief, I went for another trip to the gents but didn’t get any t-shirt love. Oh well. Got back in time for Gruff Rhys taking to the stage with Lisa Jen, him in an airline jacket her dressed up as a shiny stewardess – James stopped moaning about his legs for a moment to murmur his approval.

Gruff Rhys: and, candylion

After some pre-flight checks they took their place behind a desk covered with all sorts of musical toys. Joined by a bit more of a band, the first track was a jaunty Candylion, very nice.

Most of the rest of the gig was just the ridiculously cool and hungover Rhys on his own, or joined by Lisa Jen to add some smooth backing vocals (such as on Cycle Of Violence) and have a go at some of the bits and pieces that littered the desk.

Initially we got a load of stuff from Candylion including a fantastic Court Of King Arthur and Beacon In The Darkness. Everything was stripped down to the core, Lonesome Words was pretty much accompanied by a metronome and not a lot else. This really worked especially in such a small setting and with so much spliff smoke floating about the place. After a while Gruff took us on a trip through some stuff on his first album before returning for a triumphant 20 minute version of Skylon! An encore that started with a drum machine, but ended up with the band back on stage for a big finale.

All in all a top night of entertainment. Gruff Rhys is charismatic beyond belief, the man walked on looking a bit fucked and engendered so much goodwill it probably broke a record or two. Despite “Enduring what killed Jimi Hendrix” the night before, he was awesome. The point at which he looped a load of vocals, clicking noises and strange instruments, then sat back to have a smoke while it played itself out, was worth the price of admission on its own.

There is a fairly good chance that my ongoing, deadly boring fear of flying, may well be conquered in order to see him again while he is touring Europe. For a gig that is certain to involve a very long song about bomb disposal on board a plane, there can be no higher endorsement.