A night at the O2

Nowadays, in order to be able to see the lead singer in a live concert, people as short as me not only needs to avoid tall guys and people with big heads, but also silly people's smartphones that are recording something that will probably never be played due to its poor quality in both sound and image.

A friend of mine had a spare ticket to go to the O2 Academy last night and he asked me if I wanted to join him. Boyce Avenue was playing, a group I have never heard of. Immediately, I tried to catch up with the youngsters and fill the gap of my scarce modern music knowledge by turning Spotify on and listening all their songs. And I must admit that I liked their music.

Doors opened at 7pm although we personally arrived around 7.30pm. No queues to enter, no queues to order beers; everything was perfect. Even the place was as busy as I wanted; not too busy, not too quiet. By the time we found a good spot where no heads or smartphones where interfering my vision, Ebony Day started playing. She must be 20 years old now, and according to what I have read, she won the MTV Brand New title last year after triumphing in a public vote (read here). She played her own songs, some good covers and took pictures of the audience for her Instagram/Twitter account. She and her colleague Adam sounded very nice: powerful voice accompanied by a guitar.

Nick Howard came later, around 8pm, a singer and songwriter from Brighton, who by the way had won the second season of the German version of "The Voice". His music has been featured on TV series such as Pretty Little Liars, Jersey Shore and Cougar Town. His music, (I would say) more covered compared to Ebony Day thanks to the drums, fully conquered the audience. He also performed many covers as well as his own songs and joined Ebony Day in the social media fever by taking a "selfie" with the audience at the background.

The main focus was however on Boyce Avenue, the headline of the night, the Puerto Rican-American band composed by three brothers: Alejandro, Daniel and Fabian. The name of the band comes from the combination of two streets the brothers live on when they were young. 

They were the headline of the gig... and well deserved. I have to say that they sound live even better than how they sound on Youtube or Spotify. Very impressive. Again, a combination of songs of their own with widely known covers, engaging the audience who even shouted "I love you!" to the lead singer more than oncer.

Overall, I had a wonderful time at the O2 Academy last night. Three magnific music bands that left a good taste in my mouth and the desire to see them all again another time soon... as long as it's me the winner of the autographed cajón that Boyce Avenue was drawing. ;)

Parisian mischievousness

I know my brother will be green with envy after reading this post. He once introduced me to this electro-swing band, and now I am totally in love with them: Caravan Palace. The parisian group is playing in Bristol on Friday and I am proud to say that right now, I am holding my very own ticket.

They released two studio albums. The first one in 2008 called Caravan Palace and the second one Panic in 2012. The band has been playing electro-swing gypsy jazz based music since 2005. At the outset, I've heard that the band composed a soundtracks to silent pornographic films. The band became popular on the MySpace after releasing a number of demos and singles. They found a niche in some European album charts with their first studio album and remained on the French albums chart for 68 consecutive weeks.

This event is part of the VegFest happening this weekend and the concert in the Amphitheatre (BS1 5LL) does look very promising. There are still some tickets left which you can buy here (£17.85 including all fees). If you haven't heard the band before, I suggest you go on Youtube and check it out. They are simply amazing! I just hope their live performance is at least as good as the recorded one... I will let you know! :)