The Twilight Sad, Stealth, Nottingham

Supported by Childhood

It was supposed to be a three band performance tonight but Let’s Wrestle cancelled last night’s London show due to illness and they don't make tonight's either. Their loss is Childhood’s gain who are promoted to main support and a later slot.

They are, I believe, Nottingham based Londoners. It doesn’t start too well for them, the sound is muddy, but it’s soon sorted. At first, I think, typical indie. Could have been anyone. Probably were. Then they get a bit of a jangle going. Hmmm, quite nice. Catchy. Pleasant. Very clever at times. They steadily win me and everyone else over. In the end we're all sad to see them finish.

Play.com are refusing to send me The Twilight Sad’s new album 'No One Can Ever Know'. It only came out last Monday, yet they are saying it is out of stock. How can that be? Amazon already hate me and it seems perhaps now that Play do too. A few months ago, they refused to give me three downloads that I’d ordered. They never did say why, although they did refund me, presumably downloads can’t be ‘out of stock’?

So I’m ‘unrehearsed’ for tonight’s gig at Stealth, which as Nottingham’s ‘musical Mecca for dance fans’ is again an unlikely place to see them. It’s almost as if someone is trying to keep them under the radar.

Learning from past experience I opt to stand well back, in what, I hope, is a more acoustically advantageous position. Beeston. That’s a suburb about three miles outside Nottingham for those that don’t know. The Saddos (may I call them that?) are well known for making an ear reshaping but poetic racket and I may need the use of my eardrums in the next fortnight.

The band take to the smoke encased stage fashionably late and set the tone with the thumping bass and heavy synths of ‘Kill It In The Morning’. Rumour is they’ve gone all Cabaret Voltaire and yes I can see that, with a side dish of industrial phase Depeche Mode perhaps.

The formula is repeated on ‘Don’t Move’, which is almost a pop song. Almost. They’re still loud of course but I think they’ve turned it down a notch or two, or is it just my new position?

With the musicians in the band frequently disappearing into the fog of smoke it’s difficult not to centre your attention on the fascinating individual that is singer James Graham. He stands there, at the centre of it all, delivering his vocals as passionately as ever, eyes closed, seemingly lost in it all. In fact I don’t think it’s until three songs in that he actually opens his eyes and realises we're there. Hello! At which point he explains they’re from up in Scotland, there’s nothing like keeping it general, and thanks us for coming before he submerges himself back into his own little world.

So far the ears are fine but the big test is going to be when they play one of their oldies. Enter ‘That Summer, at Home I Had Become the Invisible Boy’. Which is again glorious but have they toned it down? A little. Enough. Tonight, amidst perhaps a more considered approach, Graham’s voice soars above absolutely everything that the rest of the band can throw at him and you can hear practically every word of the song. The band’s trademark guitar feedback is still there but it seems to occur increasingly at the end of songs and less in the middle.

Then it’s back to the new album, from which they play all but two. Among which there’s the faster pace of ‘Dead City’ and the almost soulful ‘Alphabet’. Sandwiched in between is ‘Reflection of the Television’, which is just so massive tonight. All the old ones, maybe just because they are more familiar, are absolutely epic. The cheery ‘I Became a Prostitute’ is intense. Graham makes it so emotional but then he could probably make having a cup of tea seem emotional.

There’s recent single ‘Sick’ which I haven’t quite got to grips with yet but then there’s also ‘Cold Days From The Birdhouse’, which eases its way in gently and then explodes, taking Stealth with it.

As we head towards the end of a mesmerising hour long set, Graham once more opens his eyes and thanks us again for coming before the band wind the guitars up again for ‘And She Would Darken the Memory’ and finally ‘At The Burnside’. An oldie that I’ve not heard them play before.

With a final fading squall of guitar noise it’s all over. Absolutely brilliant and as a bonus, the ears are fine, still attached. The band may continue to fall under the radar but they don’t seem too bothered, me neither, let’s keep it to ourselves shall we.

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Twilight Sad & Errors, Stealth

Tonight's gig could be a difficult one to blog. The Twilight Sad appear to have no website, no forum, no recent setlist.fm listings and no live reviews of their current tour. Add to this the fact that, although they have a great line in song titles, the titles bear little or no relation to the song, so much so that the band themselves can’t even remember them and resort to cryptic codes on their own set lists. Then throw in instrumental band Errors as support and you can see I’m going to be in for a tough evening set list wise. Even if the bands were to introduce everything, what with them both coming from in and around Glasgow, it probably wouldn't help as I won’t be able to understand the accents.

So first, Errors, last seen at Summer Sundae wedged between The Besnard Lakes and Los Campesinos. They are billed as co-headliners, which means they get fifty minutes on stage and I suppose theoretically even an encore.

Well, honestly I haven't a clue what they played but it was good and the small crowd at Stealth approved. There was nodding aplenty from a crowd desperate to sing along to their infectious blend of electronics mixed with traditional guitars and drums, but with nothing to sing along to, a good old nod had to do instead. Sorry... I just don’t really go for instrumental bands. I'm not sure of the point but presumably they are. Perhaps, to get their music used as backing tracks by the BBC. Which these days seems to be the ultimate endorsement for any slightly obscure band and in this case the BBC don’t even have to strip the vocals off. How convenient is that?



Errors like everything just so. Their lead man Simon Ward seems a bit of a perfectionist, often signalling instructions to the sound desk and then smiling to himself when it all goes to plan. The Twilight Sad on the other hand are much more rough and ready, brash even. They start loud with the lead track from their new EP ‘The Wrong Car’ and get louder.

By track two, ‘That Birthday Present’, I had already realised that in my eagerness to get a look at their set list I have made a tactical error. I am standing far too close to guitarist’s Andy MacFarlane’s amp because the wall of guitar noise that he is producing is now swallowing me whole. So much so that most of the time I can’t hear James Graham’s vocals at all or the keyboards. I know there are some keyboards in there somewhere.



I consider moving across to the other side of the stage to see if I can hear the keyboards or perhaps moving to the back in the hope that I can hear everything but then a) I wouldn’t be able to see and b) I fear the damage has already been done to my eardrums.

Their albums, particularly their first one ‘Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters’, are quite sombre affairs which did not quite prepare me for the intensity of the band live, where the cacophonous noise dominates everything, unlike on record, where the guitars are reigned in, letting the vocals shine.



More blistering guitars obscure their finest vinyl moment, set listed as ‘hit single’, more commonly known as ‘That Summer, at Home I Had Become the Invisible Boy’. Gripping his microphone in both hands, James Graham’s face is a mass of anguish as he delivers his impassioned vocals. Sometimes I can even make them out and at the moment he is informing us that his ‘kids are on fire in the bedroom’.

He frequently stands sideways to the crowd, appearing lost in his own world and I can see why he’s often compared to Ian Curtis, although isn’t everybody these days. Although this guy even sound-checked like I imagine Ian Curtis would.

‘I'm Taking the Train Home’ is equally piercing and far louder than its vinyl counterpart. The floor starts shaking. Did I mention that the Twilight Sad are loud? Very loud. Not just ear bleeding loud but nose bleeding loud and probably causing internal damage loud too. As I walked down to the gig tonight I had to thread my way through the hoards queuing to get in to see Mumford & Sons at Rock City, probably less than a hundred yards away as the crow flies and this lot are trying to drown them out.



Then a quiet moment. A slow burning start to ‘Cold Days From The Birdhouse’, sung pretty much guitar-less, until the song eventually bursts into life, well exploded if I’m honest and practically blasted the head off the front row. The song as a whole though worked well live and was undeniably the best bit tonight.

Then to close, the noisier but still slow building, ‘And She Would Darken The Memory’ driven again by MacFarlane’s guitar and the powerful drumming of Mark Devine.

Then James Graham thanks us all for coming and for not going to see Mumford & Sons. Wouldn’t have mattered, we’d have heard them from there anyway. I leave with my ears ringing. That was one incredibly loud gig. As an overall spectacle it was rather impressive. 10 out 10 for intensity but a lot less for audibility. I have to say overall the experience was a little underwhelming. I’d go again but next time, perhaps I’ll stand further back.

I’ve made a good stab at that setlist.

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