Songs In The Key Of London
A couple of weeks ago on Twitter there was a hashtag that caught my eye, #ldnsongs. People were listing all their favourite songs about London, which is the kind of game I love, so I joined in.
After a little while, I discovered it was for a competition and that the song deemed the most obscure would win tickets to a concert at the Barbican called Songs In The Key of London, part of this year's East Festival. There was also a thread on Facebook, so I posted there too, and won a pair of tickets with my suggestion of Concrete Lullaby by Canteen, a love song to the vagaries of south London, which features one of my favourite lyrics about London: "we'll never know/salvation on the Walworth Road".
I wasn't sure what to expect, all I knew was that it was organised by Chris Difford of Squeeze, compered by Phil Daniels, and that a there would be a bunch of London musicians singing songs about London. My friend Mr P and I both thought it could be one of those events that sounded better on paper than in reality, but it turned out to be good fun, marred only by Phil Daniels' lacklustre and half-absent approach, and a fuzzy sound mix that often left everyone's vocals muffled (which is to be expected when you put the sound engineer on one side of the stage instead of out in front of it, poor planning there). Except for a couple of dull performances (hello, to you, Mr. I Really Sound Like Van Morrison But More Boring, and a hello to you, Mr. I Will Suck Up All The Energy Until You Are All Looking At Meeeee), there was a really good atmosphere on stage, which translated well to a lively audience. When we got bored we just entertained ourselves by looking at the drummer's hair and singing Pavement at each other.
Although there were a few obvious musical choices - Suggs and Chas Smash singing Our House; a couple of The Blockheads doing My Old Man; the guys from Squeeze doing Up The Junction (all of which were good) - there were also lot of unexpected choices that worked really well. Seeing half of Tunng doing a cover of A Rainy Night In Soho, which they managed to make sound like it had always been their own, certainly bodes extremely well for their gig at the Garage next week (I can't wait!). There were also a few new discoveries for us, including Natty's bouncing Cold Town, Peggy Sue's stark shoegazey cover of Guns Of Brixton and Blaine Harrison's plaintive acoustic cover of Last Train To London; and the unexpected bonus of Elvis Costello performing the encore sent shivers up my spine. They rather spoiled the effect by having everyone back onstage for a shambolic (and obvious) cover of Waterloo Sunset, though. Ah well, it seems churlish to complain when it was free, and when most of the night was so good.
Oh, and everyone must go and see the guitar-playing finches. You must. (And look out for the ones nesting in the fire exit sign!)