Lights. Action! / A Silent Film

I like the Bar Academy. The size and shape has the effect of removing you from the band. Though this sounds like a bad thing it really isn't. Let me explain. The stage is very small, but very deep. The artists, therefore are pushed for space, so rather than stand in single file and take it in turns to be at the front they tend to gather amongst themselves. This gives the viewer a fly on the wall feeling, as though you were getting some kind of sneek-peek of the band as they are in the wild. Well, in the practice room anyway.

Though not intimate in terms of interacting directly with the artist, it is intimate in a kind of peeping tom perverse way that is almost more enjoyable. This is exactly the feeling that accompanied A Silent Film. With a stand up piano stood up (obviously) perpendicular to the front of the stage, the crowd one side of it and the drummer to the other; and the guitars before and behind it, the players were in what appeared a more casual set up. They weren't performing; we were invited to watch them play.

Quiet, introspective vocal lead verses gave way to explosive choruses that really benefited from the echoing chimes of the piano. The sheer size of the sound they made was so disproportionate to the size of the venue it gave the illusion that you were looking into a tardis-goldfish bowl, visually only containing a four piece band, but aurally filled with an ocean of beautiful noise. What topped off an already great set was a cover of Underworld's 'Born Slippy', replacing the intensity of the heavy bass with their own spacious sound.

There was quite a difference in feeling for Lights. Action!. The whole band was faced towards the audience and the singer, Patrick Currier, in particular bridged the distance I spoke of above. The emphasis was back on performing. This performing was good as well, on the whole. The song 'Signals to Radar' was well played and sounded rich; a laptop filling in the string section.

What was off putting, though, was Patrick Currier's voice, straining on some of the higher notes. He even brought the audience's attention to it, joking that Birmingham was cursed because he started to lose his voice every time he came. This, as well as not being funny, made it hard not to listen out for his straining vocal chords.

Another downer was the apparently 'different' approach they were giving to their set. I've never seen them before so I can't comment on the relative difference, but putting two slow songs into a set list is not what I would call deviating form the norm. Patrick said "I hate it when you go to see a band and they play exactly what you expect." Though we can all identify with this, they perhaps need to think about the subtle difference between the crowd expecting certain things, and the crowd hoping for certain things. Being that new comers to the bands fan base will have only heard the two songs from their myspace -the first being 'Signals to Radar', spoken of above- it would have been great to have heard their cover of Imogen Heape's 'Hide and Seek' which has been listened to almost fifteen times more.

Altogether disappointing. An average show from Lights Action made all the more so by the brilliant support from A Silent Film.

FUTURE GIGS

sorry, we currently have no gigs listed for this act.