A last minute call from a Mr Ian Duckworth informed me that I had been put on the guestlist for this sell out show. What a result I thought. Having got there 10 minutes before the penultimate band was on, I had time to get an extortionately priced piss weak Red Stripe. I was ready for Metronomy, a band that I had only read and heard about, but not actually listened to as of yet. Joseph Mount, the captain of this magical mystery frigate hails from the Devonshire Hills. His remix work is like reading a Who’s Who of music with artists including Franz Ferdinand, Roots Manuva, Klaxons, The Young Knives and the Infadels to name but a few. When not penning and performing his own charming music, he works with his live band The Food Groups, made up of Oscar Cash and Gabriel Stelling.
The set starts off with some real hardcore, fuck-off laddish beats, with the rhythm screeching over that can only be compared to that of an old computer game called Bombjack on the Commodore 64. From the swish drumming effects they slide into a Human League feel, a little deeper and far more dirtier, with some great systematic melodica and saxophone (ab)use on the way. Comparisons to the Indie Rave scene explodeing like a puss laden boil are unjust, this is more like fluid rock breakbeat.
When the birthday boy appears on the stage in a t-shirt, tank top and jeans, a pant wetting frenzy wavers through the crowd and my ghast is well and truly flabbered. Sam Duckworth (Get Cape.Wear Cape. Fly) has come along eons since I last watched him last year in his hometown of Southend-On-Sea.
Not content with writing and playing and performing with just a guitar and a laptop, he now has a live band, which includes a cornet, a trumpet and a drum kit. Wonderful free for all jazz and trip hop sounds whang out. The songs’ videos were being played on the backdrop with nearly all of it in sync, truly marvellous.
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Thanks to the contents of his lyrics, he has been given an unfair tag of a protest artist. In my opinion, this obscures the fact Sam is a young man doing what he believes in and singing about what he sees as right and just getting his point across by the wonderful medium of music. Some accuse him of preaching, but Sam does stop to tell us not to buy from the t-shirt pirates outside, (£5 a pop and not fair trade) and later tells us how bad Big Brother is. And that's common sense if ever I heard it.
The music changes from a lovely carnival feel to some deep soul searching delicacies, with a sprinkling of Air's Moon Safari. Mr Cape’s voice has got a lot more steel to it now. The whole set is a beautifully glazed and grit polished movement. The great leap over the pond to the US awaits and going by this performance he’ll have them eating out of his hand.
The crowd are reciprocal in showing their appreciation, belting out ‘Happy Birthday’ to Sam: headlining at the Astoria on your 21st birthday, it doesn’t come much cooler than that. I was lucky enough to say hello to him after the show and his family, lovely people indeed. Cheers once again Uncle Ian.
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