Now that winter’s over and the days are just beginning to get ever-so slightly longer, it’s apt that Mancunian wunderkind Jim Noir should bring his brand of sunshine pop to Cyprus Avenue and give us Cork-types a musical hint of the (hopefully) sunny days to come.
And if there’s one thing Mr. Noir isn’t, it’s black – for his album features some of the most joyfully, poppiest music this side of The Association or The Beach Boys you are ever likely to hear these days and is the perfect panacea for those seeking relief from the Winter blues. So expectations are high for this, his first tour on Irish shores.
I shouldn’t use the third-person singular ‘his’ in this case however as tonight, unlike on his acclaimed debut collection ‘Tower Of Love’ in which he played and sang everything, Jim Noir is a 5-piece band consisting of guitar, bass, drums, synth/samples and YES!, a ukulele. For only one song alas, but hey, some uke is always better than no uke I say (Yes folks - I like ukuleles).
Anyhow, the band members looked vaguely familiar to me for some reason, which isn’t surprising since afterwards I found them out to be ex-members of another fine Manchester act, Alfie, who I saw in this same venue around 6 months ago. It’s a shame that they have split up since then as I enjoyed them very much that night but Alfie’s loss is most certainly Jim Noir’s gain as they kick off the show with the infectious ‘Eany Meanie’ and quickly dispel any doubts that Noir’s pop stylings may not be translatable to the live stage.
On the recorded ‘Tower Of Love’ Noir’s double-tracked harmony vocals work perfectly well but there is nothing, and I repeat nothing, quite like the sound of hearing live 2 or more people singing perfect harmony in unison, and here Jim and the boys show themselves as highly adept at hitting those high notes at the right place and at the right time. Considering they can’t be playing together very long on these songs, which are quite different from Alfie’s, the overall cohesive sound is confident and assured, if at times slightly ragged but that’s only to be expected and arguably has a charm of its own. As does Noir’s slightly scally voice, which suits the little rascal material perfectly.
As the band moves through the albums highlights in a concise and faithful fashion, the stand outs for me are ‘Quiet Man’ – with its great double-time shifts, ‘How To Be So Real’ – which before it, Noir assured us has lovely harmonies and yes, it absolutely does, although the band makes their one harmony fuck-up of the night here and collapse laughing hysterically towards the end of the song. Thankfully the only effect on the crowd is one of amused endearment who sympathise with the guitarist’s subsequent excuse of, ‘sorry everyone, but… this stuff is hard to do!’ As my grandmother would say, ‘shur, God love him’.
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Also resplendent were the lovely ‘Computer Song’ where again the band impresses with their tight musicianship, ‘Tell Me What To Do’ a new tune I think, which displays a harder more garagey guitar sound than most of the album and sounds really good – more of that please, and the final tune, the celebratory ‘My Patch’ which should have audiences bopping up and down with glee, but here the sedate though entertained, seated crowd clap along and rattle their jewelry with great gusto (and it had the uke!). Even ‘Key of C’ which I kind-of dissed in my review of the record a few weeks ago goes down a treat with JN’s winning delivery ensuring the song comes across as charming rather than twee.
Some small criticisms – this was a very short gig although I understand that beyond the album probably no other material exists. However, I am firmly of the opinion that there’s nothing wrong with the odd, well-chosen cover (but not perhaps ‘Stairway To Heaven’ or ‘Smoke on the Water’ which feature tonight very briefly) and also why no ‘The Only Way’ – one of my fave tracks from ‘Tower Of Love’? But minor quibbles aside a grand night and one that I hope will be repeated in the future when Noir has a bit more material under his belt. Roll on the Summer.
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