Reviews

Iko

The Cedar aka Neil Gay and co opened up this evening. I reviewed Neil last week so I won't go into any deep analysis of the songs. I really enjoyed their set this evening. Neil was joined by Beth on cello as well as a keyboardist. He swopped between acoustic guitar and banjo as he did last week. The atmosphere was very relaxed in Porter which was perfect for Neils heartfelt songs. The tracks where Neil plays the banjo have a very childlike quality to them, almost magical, which are strengthened even more with the inclusion of the cello. They played for about 45 minutes and ended their set with a great song containing the opening lyrics "I'm causing accidents left right and center".

Iko were the headlining band consisting of drums, bass, keys and vocalist who also played acoustic. They really cemented the magical atmosphere begun by The Cedar. The vocalist was dressed all in black and had a beautiful voice. Very light, gentle and feminine sounding. In fact a lot of the people around me who weren't watching the stage thought it was a woman singing. It reminded me a lot of artists such as Arcade Fire and Mercury Rev who also have that light, feminine sounding vocal style as well as the magical element.

The vocalist also had a slight mid-western accent when he sang although I believe he is English. He also slightly reminded me of Brian Molko from Placebo. Iko were more commercial based though. All of their songs were delicate ballads and one could imagine them gracing a large stage along with bands like Coldplay.

They dimmed the lights in Porter for their set and had a bunch of tea lights on the stage which again created a 'magical christmas' kind of vibe.!  The frontman gently sang lyrics such as "life is a graveyard" and "tell me again exactly how we get ourselves out of this one" as the rest of the band created a really tight backing unit. Again the inclusion of keys really formulated a magical sound. Beth joined them on cello for a couple of songs one of which contained a very grand build up as the frontman sang "don't leave me on my own". The following song was about September 11th. "Where are we now? How did we get here?"

The final track of the set contained another great climax and a repeated vocal line of "dress yourself for a change". For an encore the frontman played a brilliant solo acoustic version of Like A Prayer by Madonna. His high falsetto on this track completely made it his own without taking anything away from the quality of the song. Very enjoyable set and I look forward to seeing them again.

Ed hutchinson