Friday, 7 December 2012

Live Review: James Blake @ the Manchester Gorilla

Pic: Maanik Chadda, James Blake
Manchester Gorilla, UK - 06/12/12



James Blake treated an intimate Manchester crowd to intriguing new material and highlights from his self-titled debut album.



The sell-out crowd saw a steady, balanced set with moments of sadness and joy through Blake's spine-tingling falsetto voice and majestic use of his synths and keys.



He opened with dubstep bass-heavy track Air And Lack Thereof with a slick, addictive snare drum beat.

The haunting repeated lyrics in I Never Learnt To Share work with the extremely distorted synths to combust in a mind-blowing explosion of musical ecstasy.



Popular Feist cover, Limit To Your Love, soon follows to put the audience in a head-nodding state of contentment.



The beautiful Lindisfarne duo gelled elegantly along with Blake's effortless vocals, repeated drum beat and distorted guitar riff.



All senses are go when a James Blake fan hears the opening notes to CMYK. The R&B dance favourite samples the simple lyrics 'look I found her red coat' to lift the crowd into a gentle dubstep sway.



Engaging new songs were well received but they failed to challenge his past masterpieces.



The encore began with a build up to a perfectly sustained garage-influenced dubstep mix.



The Londoner ended confidently with strongest album track The Wilhelm Scream to provide the ideal climax to a blissful evening.



Blake's warm-up act, Lone, was pleasant, relaxing and distinctly average throughout. Uplifting at times, Matt Cutler's repetitive blend of drum and bass, 90s new rave and 80s synths was suitable background music to prepare for the real thing.



Although Blake may not have met the incredibly high standards of his studio recordings live, he has still proved that he can captivate an enchanted crowd on a cold December night.

The set list is below:

Air And Lack Thereof
I Never Learnt To Share
Our Dog Comes Back
Limit To Your Love
Lindisfarne
Over-Come
CMYK
Everyday I Ran Around The Park
(We're Going) To The Pub
Klavierwerke
Retro Clothes Shop
The Wilhelm Scream

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