LIVE REVIEW : THE JAYHAWKS AT SHEPHERDS BUSH EMPIRE 18/07/2014

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This short European tour of The Jayhawks could be subtitled "the second coming of the band's second incarnation". After reforming the band with founding member Mark Olson in 2008 for a rather glorious one off show at the Azkena Rock Festival festival in Spain (or more accurately in the Basque county) which led them to rekindle their writing partnership with an excellent Olson-Louris collaboration called Ready For The Food released in 2009 and a not so good Jayhawks album  : Mockingbird Time in 2011. After a the lengthy tour the band parted again in 2012 with Olson going back to his solo work. The bands two landmark albums : Hollywood Town Hall and Tomorrow The Green Grass were re-released in 2011 and this month sees expanded of their 3 post Olson LP's : Sound Of Lies, Smile and Rainy Day Music coming out on Universal Music. Although not as essential, they contain good songs and see the band trying to free themselves from the sound they were known for, although they ended up returning to it in the end.

The Shepherd's Bush Empire is the perfect sized venue for a band like The Jayhawks and after an excellent opening set by The Rockingbirds (a good match as they play a similar brand of Americana), the 1997 line-up (which means Kraig Johnson instead of Mark Olson) came on stage to a warm welcome from the audience. The Jayhawks post Olson despite several contributions from bass player Marc Perlman and drummer Tim O'Reagan was pretty much the Gary Louris show and the fact the best of the post Olson albums is the one where he wrote most of tunes (Rainy Day Music) confirms that. The band opened the show with Smile's lead single I'm Gonna Make You Love Me. They were remarkably tight for a band that had played less than 10 shows together after a two year break with Louris throwing some really inspired guitar solos. All the albums were given their share with a few tracks from the Olson days included for good measure (Blue, Waiting For The Sun, I'd Run Away). Highlights were the tunes from Rainy Day Music with an excellent version of Tampa To Tulsa (Tim O'Reagan on vocals on that one) but that album is an embarrassment of riches anyway (Angelyne, Stumbling Through The Dark, All The Right Reasons...). Kraig Johnson's presence give Louris the occasion to play a couple of numbers from their side project Golden Smog. Not a band known for their exuberance on stage, the last number of the night saw Louris stepping down from the stage and finishing his solo in the alley between the stage and the stalls. 

LIVE REVIEW : LLOYD COLE AND THE LEOPARDS AT SHEPHERDS BUSH EMPIRE 31/01/2013

Following the good reception of the recently released Standards and a sold out solo gig at Union Chapel last October, Lloyd Cole was back in the UK for a short tour with a 5 piece band (first band shows since the short tour he did with The Commotions to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of Rattlesnakes in 2004). The core of the band was Glasgow garage rock outfit The Leopards. I must admit I've had troubles finding anything about them on the web. Most of them seem to be veterans of the Glasgow music scene of the nineteen eighties. Lead guitar player Mick Slaven was a member of Del Amitri for a short while, bass player Campbell Owens played in Aztec Camera, drummer Jim Gash is Australian born but has played in Glasgow bands since the mid eighties, Douglas MacIntyre the second guitar player was the head honcho of the label Creeping Bent and Blair Cowan was the keyboard player in The Commotions and has been working on and off with Cole ever since.

The Band first appearance was on Later with Jools Holland last October performing Myrtle And Rose and Women Studies from Standards and Perfect Skin from Rattlesnakes. Considering the band had just had a couple of days to rehearse before appearing on the show the performance was pretty impressive. Friday night's show was however at a different level, instead of sounding like a bunch of hired hands assembled in a short period of time, the band displayed a cohesiveness betraying its recent formation and revealed itself to be the perfect match for Lloyd Cole's music.

Coming on stage at 9pm to the sound of Lloyd I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken by Camera Obscura, the band launched straight away into a note perfect rendition of Rattlesnakes with the three guitars adding a "rockier" to the song compared to the version on the Rattlesnakes LP. Great care was put in the elaboration of the set list with almost every album of Cole's career covered (I think only Bad Vibes and Antidepressant weren't covered). Almost one third of the Set list was devoted to Commotions songs with most of the well known ones getting an airing (Rattlesnakes, Perfect Skin, Lost Weekend, Jennifer She Said...). The songs from Standards blended seamlessly in the Set list, proving that the excellent reviews the new album received were well deserved. If I had to choose my favourites in the tunes played I would go for the excellent versions of What's Wrong With This Picture from The Negatives album and Like Lovers Do from Love Story, the later one featuring particularly nice guitar lines from Mick Slaven that differed quite a bit from the ones on the recorded version. Though clearly enjoying himself, Lloyd Cole seemed a bit self conscious fronting a rock band after ten years of touring in solo folk mode. He made quite a few references to ageing in between songs even joking at some point that we would be better off closing our eyes so we could all be in 1984 again. Lloyd said that this might be the last time we saw him with a band, let's hope it's an "au revoir" rather than an "adieu" as the French would say.