Ed Sheeran, Thursday 30th October 2014



“One man and his loop pedal” are the words often thrown around when people describe the

experience of an Ed Sheeran concert. His unique selling point, if you like. There aren’t many other musicians who play to arenas of over 12,000 people with simply an acoustic guitar and their own voice.

 

The first time I saw him live was back in January 2012 in Aberdeen Music Hall, a modest venue with just 1500 capacity, and I was blown away by his sheer talent and incredible energy. When I next saw him at Glasgow Barrowlands, again a relatively small venue with a slightly bigger audience of 2000 he remained new and refreshing, he broke the rules and it worked. He managed to capture the attention of every person in the audience and held them in the palm of his hand… but how would that translate in an arena space? The gig’s intimacy was such a key feature, so wouldn’t that be lost on a much larger scale?

 

The show at the Glasgow SSE Hydro opens with the second track on his latest album X, I’m A Mess, and the crowd knows every word. Sheeran remains as he said he would, him alone with his guitar and loop pedal for accompaniment, plus a fair few giant screens. He then goes on to perform the singles Lego House and Drunk from his first album, actively encouraging people not just to sing but scream out the lyrics, saying “the deal is I want everyone to leave here without a voice”. He puts a twist on newer single Don’t by mixing it up with Loyal and No Diggity, carrying it off in such an effortlessly cool way that is his very own.

 

Though performed with stunning vocals, it feels as if there’s something missing from X tracks Bloodstream and Runaway, perhaps missing the extra accompaniment on the album or maybe that’s where the intimacy comes in. There’s a sense of emptiness and the “rapper bop” he asks the crowd to execute when the beat drops feels somewhat forced.

 

When he performs this week’s No.1 single Thinking Out Loud with an electric guitar, asking everyone to cuddle and dance with the person beside them, proving why he is and deserves to be one of the biggest British artists right now around the world. The A Team feels more personal as he stands back and allows the crowd to sing, a big school boyish grin on his face. He then almost silences the audience by sending round a universal “shh” during his performance of Give Me Love.

 

The encore features the extended live version of You Need Me, I Don’t Need You, I have to say, my own personal highlight. His slick and effortless transition from soft tones into rapper is sublime. Ending the night is Sing, his anthemic Pharrell collaboration, leaving fans singing long after the lights come on and even after leaving the arena.

 

It’s clear that Ed Sheeran can translate seamlessly from intimate venue to arena whilst still keeping his unique charm.

 

A Madrid Merienda with Ryan Keen

Before his slot supporting Tom Odell in Madrid, Ryan Keen and I have a chat over some tapas and sangria in a bar close to Joy Eslava. The Totnes born singer/songwriter released his début album 'Room For Light' in 2013 and has supported Ed Sheeran, Leona Lewis and Plan B on tour...

I ask who he'd one day like to open for him, "Hopefully it will be some friends. Fiona Bevan and Sam Brookes, both good friends of mine, are just about to release albums. It's a big deal getting the opportunity to play to bigger crowds, that's a real key part of music, the opportunity to play to more people, new people."

Ryan will be headlining his own European tour soon. "I'm really excited!" he smiles. "It's hard to know what to expect. My album's coming out in Germany, Switzerland and Austria on 21st March and then in different European countries over the next few months. It's all quite new so it depends how well we do with radio play and the new promoters. The Germany tour for May is already selling pretty well, I love Europe so to be out here gigging is cool. I've done quite a few laps of the UK so I'm quite familiar with it but this is new territory for me." I ask the most crucial question - will he be coming to Spain?! "I will be, at the minute I'm only doing Germany, Switzerland, Austria. Holland and Belgium but since touring with Tom [Odell] we're looking to try and put in other countries. I plan to venture out to as many countries as I can!"

His guitar playing has a strong influence from Flamenco, "I've seen the guitarists in Andalucia before and they're incredible, the genre that I'm classified in is called Percussive Finger Style Guitar which is using the whole body of the guitar to make as much sound from it as you can, hitting beats and lots of tapping and harmonics."

I ask him the the first gig he ever attended as a fan? "Do you remember a band called Reef? They had a song called 'Place Your Hands'," he begins to sing it as I look at him blankly and shake my head, perhaps before my time? "It's a good song, you should check it out!" he laughs. "I was probably early teens in Plymouth Pavilions in the South-West of England."

Ryan tells me he studied music management at Uni because he didn't really know what he wanted to do, and didn't have the confidence to sing at that point. It was after losing a friend five years ago who died very suddenly that he realised the fragility of life and decided might as well just go for it. 

"Having creative control is massively important to me, I'm working with some major labels now, I self-funded, made and released the album independently in the UK and I've licensed it to Warner Brothers in Australia so it's still the album that I wanted to make and I'm totally content with that.   If I can make the records I want to make then I'm happy to work with whoever wants to promote the music."

"It's still early days," Ryan tells me about his success on the other side of the world, "the radios have been spinning it a lot, the singles have just started charting over there." His album reached No.1 in the Australian singer/songwriter chart. "I want to be back out there in the next couple of months. Australia's massive, ." Not to mention the 24 hour flight from the UK to Oz.

“For me the top 3 venues that are milestones are Madison Square Gardens in New York, Sydney Opera House in Australia and the Royal Albert Hall in London. I've been very lucky in that I've played both the Opera House and the Royal Albert Hall but they haven't been my own gigs yet. The ultimate for me would be to headline the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury, that's crazy.”

Photo credit: Elle Hanratty

So how did supporting Tom Odell in Europe come about? “Really last minute, my booking agent put me forward originally. I was already doing another tour around Europe and four days before this tour started I got a phone call saying “Tom's listened to your songs and asked if you're up for it.” The tour I was on finished in Vienna on the Thursday, and I had to be in Bremen on the Saturday for his tour, it's a long drive!” On Tom Odell himself… “Tom is fantastic, an amazing musician and really cool. Seeing him sound check when working on some new songs, you can see how his mind works, the guy is a fantastic composer. He's like "I've got a baseline for it, I wrote this one already, it's arpeggio to this, these are the chords, GO" and he knows what he's doing.” 

When I ask who he’d one day love to collaborate he doesn't have to think for a second before he answers, “Chris Martin, as a writer he’s my favourite living composer. I've been lucky enough to work with artists I've always looked up to, Newton Faulkner was a massive inspiration so to work with him was a real pleasure and now we've become friends, it's quite surreal, really cool. We wrote this duet and then he asked me on tour with him. Someone else was Fink, he's one of my favourite artists and has been for a long time and I've worked with him, I feel pretty lucky so far. I'd love to work with other female singers, maybe Adele or Emeli Sande.”

What songs might we find on Ryan Keen’s iPod? “Quite a variety. Yesterday I downloaded John Hopkins’ album, he's a composer/producer, and apparently heavily influenced Chris Martin's stuff and has been working with Coldplay on their latest album Ghost Stories. Some James Blake, and Paca de Lucia, and I just downloaded some Ludovici Einaudi. I’m very up to date with music that’s in the charts too.” 

I discover he's straight off to France in the morning to stay in the Quiksilver house, a company who sponsor him. If he won £1,000 on a scratch card right now he would hire some jet skis, an obsession of his apparently. “I’ve only been on one once and it was AWESOME.”

Finally, I ask for 3 words to sum up his début album ‘Room For Light', “Positive, honest, and...” Music? “Hmm, I'm trying to think of the right words... traditional, old-school.” I'm pretty sure that’s more than 3 words, Ryan, “Okay, okay, ‘Room for Light’”

As the intense wailing Spanish music in the background gets even louder, we say goodbye before he dashes to the venue. Watching Ryan perform it’s clear he is something special and a genuine talent. He has the Madrid crowd so tightly in the palm of his hand that he’s able to perform an unplugged (no mic, no amps) rendition of ‘Orelia’.

Ryan Keen's debut album 'Room For Light' is out now on iTunes, Amazon, etc. 

Tickets for his mini-UK and Ireland tour at the end of April, and European tour, are on sale now.

Website: www.ryankeen.co.uk

YouTube: /ryankeenmusic

Facebook: /ryankeenmusic

Twitter: @ryankeen

Instagram: @ryankeen

See the full album of photos on my Facebook page

Tom Odell, Wednesday 12th March 2014

Since 3pm (5 hours before doors) a swarm of teenage girls had been waiting outside the theatre Joy Eslava in Madrid. With no name above the door nor a single poster plastered around the city, Tom Odell takes to the stage before a crowd of around 800 people.

Opening with 'Hold Me' followed by 'Can't Pretend' and 'Sirens' backed by slick harmonies from his 3-piece band, his passion is astounding. "Sorry, we've got technical problems, I usually manage to break the piano," he tells the adoring crowd. A rendition of 'Sense' accompanied solely by a piano has the theatre in complete silence until the roaring sound of applause. After a couple of new tracks giving insight of how album number 2 is sounding, he sang 'Grow Old With Me' which resonated with the Spanish audience who sang along with every lyric.

The 23-year old's charisma goes hand in hand with his on-stage persona, he manages to stay effortlessly cool whilst being utterly charming. He even dared a few phrases in Spanish to which was well received by the Madrid audience.

After performing his highest charting hit 'Another Love', he disappeared off stage for a moment before the whole band returned into perform a 35 minute encore. 'See If I Care' is my personal favourite, the engaging sultriness is much less obvious than his cover of Etta James' 'I Just Want to Make Love to You' yet still incredibly intense. Every song is a high-energy performance from him and his band, guitarist Max Clilverd, drummer Dan McDougall, both amazing, and bassist Max Goff playing electric bass and double bass, vivid pyrotechnics accompany his frenzied piano bashing. The audience were reluctant to let him go demanding more encores until he wrote an on the spot song about Madrid (which he definitely doesn't sing in every city of the tour...) It's not hard to see why music legends such as Billy Joel and Elton John wanted him to open for them at their own live shows.

I was fortunate enough to chat to Tom before the gig. He had just been doing some radio interviews for Spanish press as this was his first time in the country performing and was also feeling a little under the weather (although you wouldn't have known it from his over an hour long sound check). He also took time to pose for photographs with fans on his way in.

If you didn't catch Tom on this tour make sure you get tickets for the next, you won't be disappointed. Also if you haven't already purchased his No.1 début album Long Way Down then I suggest you do so right now, available from iTunes etc.

Website: www.tomodell.com
Facebook: /TomOdellmusic
Twitter: @tompeterodell
Instagram: @tompeterodell

(all photos my own)

Check out the full album on my brand new Facebook page (and please Like!)

Sun, Sea, Sand and a 3 Day Music Festival

2013 saw the 5th Anniversary of one of Spain's biggest music festivals, Low Cost Festival in Benidorm. Over 20,000 people attended each night and it has just been confirmed that Benidorm will remain the host city until at least 2020. Three nights of amazing music, scrummy food and not a rain poncho to be seen.

If your idea of a festival is being knee-deep in mud, soaking wet and having to take practically every item of warm clothing you own and if, like me, that doesn't sound all that appealing then Low Fest definitely will. Held in a sports stadium/fields at the end of July (with temps of around 35°), you can camp in a wooded shaded area or if that's too much like roughing it then you can book into one of the many nearby hotels.

Though Low Festival, yes they've dropped the 'cost' this year, might not have the biggest names in music headlining, you will already be familiar with some and can rock out to others. It does have a VIP Olympic sized swimming pool, as opposed to an unintentional mud bath, and a separate VIP area.

Last year's line up included Two Door Cinema Club, Glasvegas, Portishead, Belle and Sabastian, Crystal Castles and TOY and some cool indie Spanish bands I can guarantee you definitely won't have heard of. Unlike most British festivals, weirdly Low doesn't even start each night until 6pm and most people don't rock up until after 9, the headliners usually play around midnight, and bands play until around 5am. This leaves all day to be spent chilling on the beach or eating delicious tapas in the Old Town, both only a 15 minute walk from the festival.

Last year's festival featured, for the first time ever in Spain, #ElChipProdigiosoDelLow which means "the prodigious chip". This chip was inside the wristbands and allowed anyone attending to post instant updates and photos to Facebook from Like/Check Points and Photo Stations inside the festival by registering their unique ticket number online beforehand. Certainly enough to make mother's head explode at the technological awesomeness.

So far The Hives and Editors are amongst a lot of random Spanish acts confirmed for Low Festival 2014, however most bands won't be announced until the beginning of May.

So glampers, put your wellies away, book your flight, grab your swimmy and pack some factor 30+. Three day tickets are currently 50€ but act fast as the longer you wait, the higher the price (you know the drill). VIP Pool tickets which include an unlimited free supply of Budweiser (curiously I'm feeling they may be the sponsors again this year) are 125€, if you're a fangirl then this is definitely the ticket for you as most acts lounge around the pool during the day.

Read my interviews from Low Cost 2013 with Two Door Cinema Club here and Glasvegas here.

Purchase tickets from www.lowfestival.es

                   

My Low Cost Festival 2013 (all my own photos)

Are New Year's Resolutions a thing of the past?

For the third year in a row my New Year's resolution is to lose weight. The last sentence would suggest that for the past two years I haven't stuck to my resolution, that would be correct. "This year will be different" I tell myself, raising an eyebrow questioning my own commitment. I am indeed writing this surrounded by piles of Christmas chocolate, I mean it's not my fault that I was given so much chocolate and not eating it would just be rude, right? Besides, I can start next week or the following...

That's the first mistake, the minute you put off your New Year's resolution it's no longer a new-year thing and with my procrastination skills it can easily become a middle-of-the-year thing which then turns into a never thing. As December comes to an end the pointless and untrue 'New year, new me♥' Facebook statuses are always there for no reason other than my amusement. However, this year I've seen more statuses saying 'Stop with the new year, new me posts as you're not going to change'. Ooh, snappy.

I'm not hugely overweight but I know I really should have a healthier diet and exercise more. I would also love to have the confidence to wear a bikini knowing I look great. It's just difficult to find the motivation to stick to my convictions when the only person who is affected by the outcome is myself. Of course, I know all of the best angles to take a fabulous 'loving life' selfie but there would be nothing better than wearing being able to wear exactly what I want without having to disguise my worst bits.

Perhaps to make our resolutions worthwhile we need to tell the whole world about them. An "It's 2014 and I'm going to quit smoking!" tweet would be embarrassing if one of your followers saw you with a cheeky cigarette outside the office. A before Instagram picture in a bikini would be a disaster if there was never an after, or if the after was actually worse. If all of your Facebook friends knew your resolution was to limit usage on the site it would be awkward if you were never offline.

Could it be possible that New Year's resolutions are just a thing of the past? Are we asking too much of ourselves unnecessarily? Anyway, who decided New Year's Resolutions had to be boring or something we don't want to do? If we made fun resolutions like wear high heels everywhere or eat more bacon then we would have no trouble at all sticking to them. The January Blues would be gone if we all had cool new things to try.

Whatever you're trying to change in 2014, take a look back and ask if you accomplish said task will it make you happy? If the answer is yes, then tell everybody what you're trying to do until you've done it. If the answer is no, then accomplishing it won't warrant your hard work so don't put yourself through it!

My Top 10 New Year's Resolutions:

1. Use more glitter
2. Wear red lipstick
3. DO NOT save it for a special occasion
4. Have more Girls' Nights
5. Give more compliments
6. Step outside your comfort zone
7. When something goes wrong yell "Plot twist!" and move on
8. Invest more time in others
9. Send more Thank You cards
10. Keep your standards as high as your expectations

P.S. I'd like to wish you all a very Happy New Year! I hope 2014 brings you happiness and new experiences.

P.P.S. My other New Year's resolution is to write an article once a fortnight and publish it on the blog. Eek! I've said it now so please hold me to it...