The Twilight Singers at The Electric Ballroom

The Twilight Singers

The Bookhouse Boys

Alice Gold

Electric Ballroom, 18 March 2011

After the hugely positive Concrete experience last night I wondered if seeing The Twilights in the bigger and less atmospheric Electric Ballroom (not the greatest venue in London by any means) would pale in comparison. But happily I was proved wrong. 

At first it seemed as though the set list was going to be pretty much the same but things seemed to take a awesome left turn when suddenly Dulli starting singing Adele's Rolling In The Deep. I don't know how he does it but for such a macho guy he seems to have this amazing knack of being able to cover songs sung by women and giving them a whole new spin. But there was also a nice moment when the band began playing Pink Floyd's Another Brick In The Wall and the whole crowd instantly recognised it and sang "Hey, teacher! Leave those kids alone!" before going into one of their own songs instead. Unlike the recent acoustic shows or even Twilight Singers gigs from years ago, there were no Afghan Whigs songs but there was a surprise and welcom snippet of Milez Iz Ded that left me and all those around me grinning like the giddy fans we are.

The whole show was building to something great and it delivered it in the encore with a sublime and moving version of Esta Noche and a deeply groovy version of Too Tough To Die, where Dulli sounded like a preacher speaking in song to the converted masses. Ending on a far softer note a clearly thrilled Greg crooned "I get lucky sometimes" and the feeling was mutual, I definitely felt lucky to have been there.

A note on the support bands, although Concrete had no warm up acts there were two for the Electric Ballroom show. First a blonde rocker chick called Alice Gold. I didn't catch all of her set but blessed with a great, attitude-filled voice, an impressive mop of hair and a great single called Orbiter, which she ended with, she was a fun watch and was interesting at the very least, sort of in the Lissie school of singer-songwriter. I warmed less to The Bookhouse Boys, a London collective of guys who look like they had been stealing Mumford & Sons wardrobe and a girl singer who looked like she was about to host an 80s dinner party, mixing surf guitar with dark Nick Cave-esque gothic tunes. I'm sure that description will appeal to some but sadly they didn't do much for me.

Below is a surprisingly high quality clip of The Twilight Singers playing Candy Cane Crawl at the Electric Ballroom, which actually gave me chills on the night, it was that good.