"I used to be in a band called Guillemots," jokes tousled frontman FYFE DANGERFIELD at the start of this low-key solo show in Shepherds Bush. Though the rest of the group aren’t performing tonight, they’re cheering from the balcony in support and tittering at his in-jokes. As always with the Guillemots, you feel as though you’ve stumbled into a private children’s party where your presence is welcome but by no means a requirement.
Fortunately Dangerfield is in a generous mood this evening and though his songs are interspersed with meandering anecdotes and slapstick buffoonery he manages to stay just the right side of self-indulgence. The band’s most devoted fans are here en masse and during some of the quieter numbers there’s a reverential hush that you’d scarcely expect from an indie audience. But then everything about this man is out of the ordinary – his preposterous moniker, prodigious piano-playing, velvety lovelorn croon and knack for a lyric that’s achingly sincere without ever quite being twee.
2006 has seen the Guillemots nominated for the Mercury Music Prize and selling out steadily larger venues, but it’s in more intimate surroundings such as these that Dangerfield’s songwriting really shines. Several of the band’s chart singles get a reworking to ecstatic applause – a subdued, jazz-tinged Trains to Brazil (still the catchiest song about terrorism ever written), a joyous Made-Up Love Song #43 and a thunderous, foot-stomping Annie Let’s Not Wait.
But the real treats are the non-album tracks dished up – a melancholy ballad about an old photograph, the haunting Rising Tide recently performed for the BBC’s Electric Proms, and a just-finished ditty Don’t Be Shy that recalls the Smiths’ Ask, without that smirking aside about buck-toothed Luxembourgians. Months on the road have clearly not dimmed his creativity or enthusiasm for his craft.
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Support for the evening comes from Dangerfield’s own brother (with the equally unlikely name of Godfrey Salter), who braves the stage early on to read a selection of his own poetry, nervously checking his mobile phone throughout. Those not already queuing at the bar look politely bemused, though his poems’ adept wordplay and evocation of life in Birmingham suggest there’s plenty of talent in the family to go round.
Emmy the Great gets a warmer welcome, her lilting voice and gentle guitar-playing belied by a savage lyrical flair. Though portions of her songs are sung in Latin and Japanese she doesn’t hang around long enough for such quirks to get irritating. It’s only during her closing duet with Dangerfield, adding awkward harmonies to the lush Redwings, that she seems less sure of herself. That’s not a fault that could be attributed to Dangerfield himself, who outstays his welcome just a fraction with an unnecessary rendition of ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ to see us on our festive way.
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