Grizzly Bear Koko, London 18/8/09
4/5
By: Hayley Leaver
Earlier this year, a certain New York band fell foul of this web 2.0 society in which we live and found their album slapped across blogs and forums alike, months before its due release date. Luckily for them, said album, Veckatimest, was a glorious diamond in the internet rough even in its dirty, “bummer-quality” form, and said band, Grizzly Bear, have suffered little as a result of the leak.
It could be that a lot of Grizzly Bear fans tried to ease their illegal download guilt by spending some hard-earned cash on a ticket, or maybe it’s just that enough knew they wouldn’t be disappointed with the band’s performance; either way, the Brooklyn boys’ sold out Camden’s Koko even with their forthcoming November dates complete with the London Symphony Orchestra.
Taking to the stage perfectly on time, Ed Droste and co strike straight into album opener, ‘Southern Point’, bringing back those initial spine-tingling moments when the (totally legal) album first hit our mere mortal ears. Maybe it’s the creepy up-lighting, but the band stand ethereal amongst the blinding spotlights, simultaneously slamming eyelids shut whilst ripping ear drums apart with pitch-perfect vocals.
‘While You Wait For The Others’ showcases Dan Rossen’s stupendous voice in all its glory, not only one of the album highlights, but also one of tonight’s standouts. However, it is Yellow House’s ‘Knife’ that stands proud as the soul soothing lullaby you’d hoped it would be: haunting yet calming, and entirely breathtaking. In between these performance defining moments, it might be said that the band lose some of their ball-grabbing attraction with some duller portions, but that could also just be the extreme heat from being rammed by the bar for nigh on forty-five minutes.
Tonight solidified the belief that it’d be difficult to find many bands you’d rather hang out with for the night; and expressing their disbelief that “London would like us” only magnified Grizzly Bear’s likeability as well as the sheer elation felt by the audience for the most part of the performance. Roared back on for an encore cover of The Crystals’, ‘He Hit Me’, Droste, Rossen and Taylor beam sweatily from the front of the stage having capped off an hour and a half of flawless harmonies and soaring emotion.
They may require more patience than other folk bands around at the minute, but this is one band that certainly deserves the time. If there’s anything to be learnt after this evening, it’s that a ticket for their November dates should be treated with the same shameless hankering-after that a certain Mr Wonka’s did.
Artists in this article: Grizzly Bear
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