... featuring goldtrip, natalie mccool and many more.
you´ve never heard of "songs from the shed"? well, neither did i until six or seven weeks ago. goldtrip were about to play a little acoustic session at this precise shed in clevedon, north somerset. of course i was eager to find out what this shed business was all about.
jon earl turned his garden shed into one of the most special music venues i´ve ever seen / heard of. since 2009 over 1,000 musicians played an acoustic set in his shed that impresses with its unique charm. judging by the videos and pictures i have seen, it would take you days to inspect every little thing jon put up in his shed. i imagine most of us have some things lying around that you just get can´t rid off for some strange reason. for example, i still have a little light house figure that my ex-boyfriend´s mum gave to me before i went to the usa for a year. this shed is probably filled with tons of those tings that all have their own little story. that´s at least what i would expect...
the inside of the shed
since "songs from the shed" recently won shed of the year, jon has been busy with giving interviews for magazines, tv and radio. over 100 bands are currently waiting for an appointment to record their own little session at "songs from the shed". so we have lots of great music to look forward to for sure.
thanks to jon and his shed, i was introduced to quite a few amazing musicians over the past few weeks. so make sure you check out the great sessions on jon´s website
i would highly recommend the sessions by
* allie moss (especially "let it go") * sarabeth tucek ("smile for no one") * the magic lantern ("somebody told me") and * josh bray ("the finest chance").
but now i´d love to show you the two reasons why i wanted to put this blog post up in the first place. the regular readers of my blog are already familiar with those names which is why i´m not going to say too much but just let the videos speak for themselves this time. enjoy! xx
* goldtrip *shed session # 111
from left to right in the videos: dom little, alex brisland, samuel lloyed and joe rawnsley
who: stornoway (joined by the north sea radio orchestra) when: 9 july 2011 where: somerset house, london, uk support: cloud control (australia)
when people asked me why i´m going to london for the weekend, i refused to tell them the reason. why? because once i told anyone that i was going to london to see jamie cullum and stornoway, they all usually went like "what? who are they?" since this is the common response i get in germany, i was very much looking forward to those gigs in the uk. at least a few more people would know them over there.
my 3rd stornoway experience this year maybe requires some sort of background information for anyone who doesn´t know how and when they caught my attention. here we go:
quit my job at the hilton hotel in february. moved back in with my parents. looked for concerts going on in march and april before moving out again for uni in may. came across stornoway. knew nothing about them. ignored them. forgot about them. checked the webiste for gigs again, a few days later. didn´t find anything exciting. came across stornoway again (of course). thought i might as well check them out. watched the videos for "i saw you blink", "zorbing" and "watching birds" on youtube. wasn´t quite convinced. "i saw you blink" got me hooked nevertheless. tried to find some background info on them. saw that jon studied russian. i studied russian in high school for 4 years. first really good impression (as weird as that may sound). kept listening to those three songs on repeat. kinda liked what i heard over time. decided to get tickets to see them in berlin. ordered the album online. got the album about two weeks prior to the gig. actually really liked what i heard then. bought tickets to see them in cologne with my friend amy. she had no clue who stornoway were. finally saw them in berlin, not knowing many lyrics. was very impressed. thank god. knew all the lyrics for the cologne gig a few days later. decided to go to london in july.
good thing i didn´t say it would be a short summary...
after walking around town on our second day in london, we (again, my friend amy and i) got to the venue, somerset house, around 3 pm which was, of course, way too early but we didn´t really care. so we wandered around the venue a little and up and down the street before starting to queue - as the first people there. we saw the guys setting everything up on stage before the venue pretty much closed for the public and they could do their soundcheck (which already sounded promising except that the famous trumpet was missing during "zorbing"). by that time, there were already quite a few people in line with us. actually two british (!) girls tried to cut in front of us by just sitting around the corner as to where the queue was supposed to start (we actually asked one of the security guys before where the queue would start later; those girls obviously didn´t know or pretended that they didn´t know). when the security guys finally asked us all to step back a little, i kindly asked those two girls to get the hell behind us. sorry, but first of all i thought we were in the uk where people usually know how to queue properly (unlike the people in germany) and second of all, i´m not getting to the venue so early, just to let other people steal our first place in the queue. try that with someone else but not with me.
waiting in the queue
when the gates finally opened around 7.45 pm, amy and i made our way to the front, getting right to the spot where we wanted to be (after two previous stornoway gigs, i knew where i wanted us to be). opening for stornoway were cloud control, a band from australia who has supported stornoway before. as a support act, you don´t get to play too much but the stuff they actually played was rather good. didn´t know who they were or what kind of music they usually play, so their whole set was something new for me. of course they couldn´t play their set without at least one technical hitch (maybe that´s the curse of playing a gig with stornoway?). when the singer was trying to fix his guitar, the guy who plays bass for cloud control, tried to entertain the audience - with big success i guess. he told us that his view from the stage was beautiful. apparently it looked just like australia... except that everyone was better looking. not quite sure if he was serious about this but nobody cared. it made everyone laugh anyway. the guitar finally got fixed and they played the rest of their set. all in all, their sound is quite impressive, very easy to listen to. plus they all seemed to be really nice which is always good if you´re trying to get new fans.
cloud control
i honestly do not remember when stornoway actually came out but i do know that it seemed to take ages to get them up on stage (it´s always nerve-wracking to wait for the main act once the support act is done with their set). they eventually came on and kicked their show off with one of my favourites - "boats and trains". i´ve loved this song ever since i first listened to their album. it got even better when they continued with my all time favourite "i saw you blink". that´s simply the song that really got me hooked on them and that´s why it´ll always be the ultimate highlight for me. plus it was absolutely amazing to hear the audience sing along to this song. of course the audience was a lot bigger (3000 people) than the ones in berlin and cologne, so you couldn´t really compare them anyway, but it was just great that everyone knew the lyrics and sang along. awesome feeling, amazing moment.
3000 people waiting for stornoway
up next was "beachcomber´s windowsill", the title track of the first stornoway album, which actually didn´t even make it on the album in the end. it´s another up-beat number and really good to dance to. i like this song, so it´s always nice to hear it live. "beachcomber´s windowsill" was followed by the first new song of the night - "farewell appalachia!" they were joined by a lady from the north sea radio orchestra. she gave the song a nice twist since there´s usually no female voice. i expected it to sound great but they definitely exceeded my expectations. i certainly hope this song will make it on the next record.
"farewell appalachia!"
"we are the battery human" was up next - a song that they played unplugged in berlin and cologne. "battery human" always seems to be everyone´s favourite (maybe it´s simply because they´re all singing this song together?!), no matter where stornoway play a gig. obviously i´ve only heard it as an unplugged version before, so it was great to hear it live in "full" for the first time. "when you touch down from outer space" (the famous one about aliens in oxfordshire), another non-album track, has got to be my secret stornoway favourite. why? no idea. everytime i listen to the audio of that song from the berlin gig, it puts me in a good mood. brian ironically asked us to sing along in london and obviously people knew the lyrics, unlike the audience in germany.
jonathan quin
after "when you touch down from outer space" came the absolutely amazing "fuel up", a song that wasn´t on my "love"-list at the beginning but everyone on facebook seemed to worship this song, or more the lyrics actually. so i took a closer look at them. it´s one of the stornoway songs that´s on repeat ever since. another song that i began to love over time is "watching birds". not on my "love"-list at first either, every single time i listen to that song now, i have to think of the video - rob totally losing himself on the drums (gorgeous tie by the way) and jon as the announcer for the brian - oli fight. absolutely amazing. i´m sure the audio of this performance will be my most-played song on itunes very soon because it was definitely one of my highlights from somerset. and i´m sure adam and his trumpet are the most important reason why that will be the case soon.
"watching birds"
when everyone except brian left the stage, i expected him to sing "november song" (which is actually a great song that lets brian´s voice shine a lot). but he actually played a new song called "the bigger picture". i know he played it on their recent tour through north america a few weeks back, but i´m sure it was new for most of us. and judging by the response he got, everyone seemed to love it. afterwards stornoway were joined by the north sea radio orchestra again for "coldharbour road", the first song i fell in love with when i listened to their album. especially the ending makes this song so unique.
oli steadman
"here comes the blackout...!" is probably the most underrated song ever. i can´t really find any appropriate words to describe the brilliance of that song. it´s a shame that it´s so short. for all i care, they could play it ten times in a row and i wouldn´t lose interest in it at any point.
up next were "to the end of the movie" and "on the rocks" - two songs that sound absolutely stunning live. especially "on the rocks" is live so much better than on the record and i always thought it would be the other way around (that´s at least the case with so many other artists out there nowadays), but stornoway certainly proved me wrong.
rob steadman
"on the rocks" seemed to be their last song but of course everyone expected them to come back, especially since they didn´t play "zorbing" up until then.
now is probably the right time to mention brian´s outfit that night. i´m a 100% positive that every single person in the audience had a smile on their face when brian came on stage wearing this gorgeous suit that was obviously from another decade. maybe he stole it from his grandpa? who knows. i honestly didn´t even care. it was great. and thanks a lot to brian for not wearing those white pants again - spared me the act of screaming and embarrassing myself in the first row.
brian briggs
a lot of people who went to a stornoway gig before probably already noticed that it simply wouldn´t be a stornoway show without some sort of technical error (as mentioned before). after some ghosts in cologne, i actually expected something to go wrong in london as well. and there we were, waiting for the encore, the band ready on the side of the stage, oli already picking up his double bass and the sound failed. but the wait was definitely worth it. brian, jon, oli and rob all gathered around one single microphone with brian on guitar and oli on double bass, the north sea radio orchestra in the background. the song, "the ones we hurt the most", was (according to brian) especially arranged for the somerset house gig which made it even more special for us. brian began playing his guitar only to stop after a few seconds, saying "i am completely and solely guilty for that fuck-up!". no one cared, it sounded great nevertheless. so they started from the beginning and played probably the most touching and emotional song ever (nice co-incidence that my ipod just switched to that song). after hearing "battery human" for the first time, i was always waiting for them to sing another song together. i´m usually not that emotional in terms of crying when it comes to music but i have to admit, i had tears in my eyes that night and when i watched my recording of that song when i got back home on sunday, i actually started crying. getting goose bumps is just not enough with that song. their voices just go together so perfectly, it´s unbelievable (although i surely think jon should record a song by himself one day). like i said, i took a video of "the ones we hurt the most" but i´m keeping that to myself and won´t post it here. if you´re interested, i know there is another recording up on youtube.
stornoway during "the ones we hurt the most"
second to last was "long distance lullaby" with the famous church bell at the beginning. i especially like the chorus here. although you gotta admit that you can´t shake the feeling that something´s missing in that song. don´t know what it is but will let you know once i figured it out.
stornoway ended their gig with the anxiously awaited "zorbing". the most special thing about this song? adam´s trumpet for sure. i absolutely love it. once adam joined in with his trumpet and suzie and rahul with their violins, they definitely had the audience on their side. it was f**king amazing! the perfect song to end this gig with...
final song: "zorbing"
adam briggs
thank you stornoway, you made the second night in london a very special one! thanks to oli and brian for the chat afterwards, thanks to them all for signing our photos and special thanks to oli for taking the pics with us. we really appreciated it. hopefully see you again soon some time later this year...
who: jamie cullum when: 8 july 2011 where: kew gardens, london, uk support: natalie williams (uk) yes, for my 5th jamie cullum experience in 14 months, i happily decided to go to london. (thank god again that i live in europe.) even though london is not necessarily my favourite city and was never really on my must-see list, jamie cullum totally made me forget that i was actually in london.
after getting to the royal botanic gardens at kew at around 4 pm, we (yes, again, my friend amy and i) were in the queue for 2 hours before the gates opened. while we were waiting, a filming crew from kew interviewed people, asking them what their favourite landscape is. they asked us too if we wanted to be on the big screen with our answer later. but first of all we had no idea what our favourite landscape is (who the hell thought about that before?) and it seemed to be a little weird to mention something from our home countries (united states and germany), which is why we kindly declined the offer. the gates finally opened at 6 pm. the way to the stage seemed to be endless. halfway through the park, someone finally checked our tickets. i was actually wondering when and where they´d take a look at them since they didn´t do that at the entrance of the garden. my friend amy had a print-at-home ticket which they couldn´t really check. i expected them to have some sort of bar code scanner but no, they just kept the bar code and that was it. totally ridiculous. i could´ve just copied hat page and would´ve gotten in as well. so that was a little confusing but all the staff at kew were really nice.
when we finally got to the stage, we went straight for the dancing area, just like the other cullumholics did, so we made it to the front row, right in front of jamie. it took a while until the area in front of the stage filled, even though the reserved and unreserved picnic areas were filling up fast. i guess a lot of people just didn´t realize that they were allowed to be in the dancing area with their ticket. but thankfully as soon as natalie williams came on stage, it got quite crowded up at the front.
the opening act for jamie cullum was natalie williams (obviously). i haven´t heard of her before but it seemed like some of the other jamie fans actually have. (if you´re interested, apparently she was born and raised in berlin, so i guess she speaks german as well.) when she came on stage, i was honestly a little disappointed. her red hair, this pink shirt and those black leggings - she looked like a typical girl band member. and what do you usually expect from a girl band? exactly, ordinary voices and lots of stupid dancing. natalie williams definitely proved me wrong though. as i mentioned in previous blog posts, i´m no big fan of female voices but natalie definitely showed that she´s talented and a great singer. i enjoyed her set a lot and her mix of rnb and soul was quite impressive. she was fresh, talked to the audience, made jokes, improvised and made a huge impression on me. when i got back home i checked her out on youtube but i have to say that she was live much much better. the studio recordings don´t even come close to her live performance. not sure if i´ll buy one of her albums but i´d definitely go and see her live again.
natalie williams
around 8.15 pm, mr. talented himself finally came on stage, joined by his amazing band. if i remember correctly, one of the first things jamie said was "thanks for coming to see us tonight... and not take that!" (apparently they were playing the wembley stadium the same night). of course this little statement made the audience giggle, accompanied by lots of applause - a great way to start the show.
jamie opened his show with "i get a kick out of you", basically a classic, along lots of others. next up was "get your way", the opening track from his 2005 album "catching tales". this song is simply perfect to sing along and dance to. one of my favourites for sure.
jamie cullum
jamie used the first break to introduce his amazing band: brad webb on drums, chris hill on bass, rory simmons on guitar and trumpet and tom richards on saxophone and keyboards. jamie also revealed that it was actually tom´s 30th birthday, so the whole audience sang "happy birthday" especially for tom which was really nice.
the birthday boy: tom richards
chris hill (left) and rory simmons (right)
mr. cullum continued with "come together" (a cover) which was new for me. i think he played this song live before and lots of cullumholics already new it but since i´m usually not checking out youtube videos of live gigs i didn´t attend, i heard this song for the first time. very impressive.
jamie cullum - "come together"
next up was "i´m all over it", the first single from his current album "the pursuit". the video to this song is definitely worth checking out. it´s also one of the best live songs since it always puts a big smile on my face. when he plays that song, i just know it was more than worth coming to see him.
"i´m all over it" was followed by "all at sea" - my all time jamie cullum favourite. "all at sea" was the song that got me hooked on jamie. i saw the video by accident on one of our music channels in germany (deluxe music if you know it by any chance) and bought the album "twentysomething" the next day. i´ve loved his music ever since and "all at sea" is always a highlight for me at his live gigs.
after his opening line about take that, of course a little tt medley was about to come as well at some point in the show. jamie played a few lines from "pray" and "back for good". take that fan or not, those songs sound great sung by jamie.
jamie cullum
next up was "if i ruled the world". right after "music is through" this song has got to be my favourite from "the pursuit" although i gotta admit that i don´t listen to it too often because it always makes me cry. i may be a little too sentimental when it comes to such things but this song is just so absolutely perfect that you simply have to show some sort of emotion when you hear it (especially live).
"twentysomething", "just one of those things" and "what a difference a day makes" were played next before another highlight, for me that is, took place. jamie and his band were supported by jamie´s brother ben, who i haven´t seen live before, for "these are the days". (this song was written by ben cullum.) i´ve always heard these great things about ben but i´ve never listened to his music or heard him sing live (no idea why). i was really impressed. the whole performance of "these are the days" made the kew gig even more special.
ben cullum
after the amazing performance of "these are the days", jamie took it upon himself to give us a few minutes alone with him. without his band, he performed "gran torino" (yes, the soundtrack from the movie), "everyone´s lonely" and a cover of "you´ve got the love" (origianlly from florence and the machine). "gran torino" always sounds great - no question. "everyone´s lonely" is next to "all at sea" my favourite jamie song ever. it was only released as a bonus track on the "the pursuit" lp. since hearing it live for the first time last year in manchester, i´m totally in love with this song. one of my all time favourites.
the cover of "you´ve got the love" on the other hand was not necessarily my favourite moment of the show. don´t get me wrong, jamie cullum is probably the only musician who can make covers work if you ask me. i just don´t like the song. another cover jamie did was "don´t stop the music" by rihanna which is actually on his last album. i don´t quite remember when exactly he played this song but it was great as always.
jamie cullum - "everyone´s lonely"
when "high and dry" gets played, you usually know that the gig is coming to an end. but that´s not as bad as it sounds because "high and dry" always requires a huge choir and a massive effort from the audience. so this song is always very long which makes it so amazing. if you don´t get goose bumps when the whole audience is singing along to "high and dry", there´s definitely something wrong with you. all the other jamie gigs i´ve attented in the past were by far smaller than the kew gig. listening to 8000 people joining in when jamie sings "high and dry" was simply a new experience - an amazing one for sure.
second to last, jamie played "mixtape" - a classic for all the jamie cullum fans. awesome jumping and tons of singing. even natalie wiliams came back on stage to join us all in this huge and incredible moment. i thought it was great that she came back, made this whole performance even better. judging by the band´s expressions, they certainly enjoyed themselves as well, so did jamie of course.
after the traditional group hug, jamie + band left the stage, only to come back after minutes of applause and loud screaming, begging him to come back. the last song of the night was "wind cries mary" - always a great way to end the show. the fireworks set in right at the end of the song, the audience clapped their hands bloody for what seemed like hours, everyone felt like taking a bow in honour of this amazing show.
thank you jamie, rory, brad, tom and chris for an extraordinary show. i´ll see you guys in brussels in august!
from left to right: brad webb, chris hill, jamie cullum, rory simmons, tom richards
it was a special performance and a great first night in london. apparently my friend amy, who was no jamie fan before, enjoyed it as well. just like she told me afterwards, jamie is great on record but fantastic live. now if that´s not a compliment, i don´t know...
