Oh Rapture! Oh Joy! Formidable!
The Joy Formidable ARE one of THE best live bands on the circuit. Of this, I have no doubt. They tour and they tour and they tour. What are they like? In one word: Magic! They have earned the right to so much more than headline the NME Radar Tour. Kudos to NME though. One gets the feeling that The Joy Formidable have been on the cusp of breaking through for a long time, but they're just too fond of small venues.
Just listen to The Joy Formidable's live album: First You Have to Get Mad. Live albums usually suck. First You Have to Get Mad does not suck. That's pretty big news. Recorded in September 2009 at The Garage in London Town, it sparkles, it inspires and it's like every TJF gig I've ever seen. One year on and they haven't lost the fervour. They love playing as much as I like watching – it's clear to see - and that's mind blowing.
Selfishly, I love the fact that The Joy Formidable can't fill a venue like Concorde2, even with Chapel Club double headlining. Concorde2 is a lovely venue when half full. It's a horrible sweaty hell hole when tickets sell well. I love being able to get down the front and grin straight into the eyes of my captor. I hate not being able to see their feet. One has to admit that as well as making a glorious racket, The Joy Formidable offer oodles of eye candy.
Okay, Ritzy Bryan (lead vocals, guitar), was right. Rhydian Dafydd's (bassist) lapels were a little pimp-ish, but I liked them. And to you rowdy boys that shouted 'gay' over Ritzy's coy offering of the term 'pimp-ish', me oh my, did she sweetly turn that one around for you? She undid your bad ways and didn't even point the finger.
My show highlights included:
- Ritzy's free range wig out. What a minx, entangling herself around her band mate's microphone stand and not giving a damn. Enter stage hands. The girl ain't gonna sort it out, she's too busy having fun.
- Ritzy provoking Rhydian with her axe woman guitar jives and hip to hip jostling, with Rhydian finally relenting to some joyous sparring at the final hurdle.
- The pedal board blowing and instead of leaving it to the stage hands, Ritzy dives straight in there. Her actions declared "This is my board, I know how it ticks."
- The tremendous drumming of Matt Thomas. This man is drumming his way into the earth's core. I think he might coerce the earth's polarity to swap prematurely while it attempts to dance.
- The band's pleasure that so many of us had downloaded their Christmas track last year (we must all be on their mailing list).
- The encore. Always please the audience and not the venue. Damn the curfew.
The Joy Formidable are charming, accessible, enthusiastic and amazingly talented. They charm, they smile and they banter. They create a sound, that while dark and brooding, is so intensely bright it melts my mind. They caress, they tease and they triumph. I would usually criticise any guitarist that masturbates with the strings on stage. Yes, the instrumental rock out. Yet – in my humble experience of their performances – Ritzy entered that zone more than ever. I forgive her. Why? She looked so damn good and so damn happy, and for the most part it was pretty pleasing on the ear.
As for Chapel Club, they've improved. Chapel Club's Lewis Bowman is a contradiction; perhaps quite genuinely so. This was more apparent at Glastonbury than during their 30minute NME Radar Tour set. On Tuesday, Jack-the-lad was Jack-in-the-box and a little more out of sight. Instead, of being a geezer, Lewis made middle class references to poetry. An outward character more at home with deep rich vocals and Morrissey-like posturising.
Judged against their tent in a field set, Chapel Club seem less like a wannabe broody cash cow, invented purely to claim the next dark alt.rock dollar and a tasty slice of stardom. While they appeared a little more genuine, I'm yet to be convinced. Bowman has the voice, but he doesn't appear to have the depth of character to back it. He's articulate, cocky and perhaps far too self-assured. Knowing words I can't pronounce, and enjoying a little Byron, doesn't mean his soul is deep or his lyrics poetic. But being cocksure will probably get him a long way.
Yes a bona fide geek, I picked up a The Joy Formidable set list! Here it is:
Spectrum
The Magnifying Glass
I Don't Want To See You Like This
The Greatest Light Is The Greatest Shade
Austere
Ostrich
Greyhounds In The Slips
My Beerdrunk Soul Is Sadder Than A Hundred Dead Christmas Trees
The Last Drop
Whirring
And for the encore, I believed they played:
Cradle
Anemone
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And we all sang along to this amazing track...
Download MP3: The Joy Formidable - Cradle (courtesy of theworldforgot.com)
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