The XX Birmingham 5/03/2010

After almost getting beaten up by an alcoholic homeless man on the bus, I was glad to finally get to this gig! Spirits were high, as one often finds at this time of year because it's nearly SPRING! It was nice to finally see The XX on a headline tour as opposed to a festival or a supporting tour, everyone around me was a true XX fan. This fact excited me greatly, it constrasts so much to Leeds Festival this year when I was standing there singing along wearing my free XX T shirt whilst everyone around me was like "Who the fuck are the XX?" Also for some reason when I saw them in Manchester supporting Florence and the Machine they didn't seem to go down too well generally, why this was, I do not understand! But last night at Birmingham Academy 2, was a sell out!

First up were a band called 'Glasser', they were rather like an American version of Fever Ray, but this didn't bother me, I love a good tribal rave! They were mysteriously dressed in white robes with hoods and did not speak the whole time! Nobody even knew their name until after the gig when people asked at the merchandise table! The irritating older gentleman behind me kept saying "I like the costumes, they remind me so much of Spinal Tap" this, of course is absolute bollocks! I think he was saying it to try and impress his date. Anyway, I enjoyed this band a lot, the female singer has a lovely voice!



Next were 'These New Puritans', another experimental band. I don't own the album but I was talking to some boys next to me and they were saying that they are much, much better live than on the record (which was released two years ago), and this seems to be true. They were very good live. Interesting, and for some reason, the singer freaks me out a bit, but I must admit they are a talented gang of people. Like 'Glasser' they did a lot of their performance on laptops but this didn't even decrease the value or quality of thier performance for me. They also had two drummers, one of them played 'the chains' too during their set, you wouldn't think that hitting chains with a drumstick would work so well! They write wonderful dark, experimental music, music that you can completely lose yourself in, intense music, my favourite kind of music.


Here's them at Scala, London, a couple of weeks ago:




And finally, it was time for The XX! I knew that people were even going to remain completely silent throughout their set or be singing along to every lyric, thankfully, it was the latter. As soon as 'Islands' kicked in I felt a rush of adoration, emotion and happiness and this carried on, I believe not only for me but for those around me, throughout the entire set. They pretty much just played the whole album but with 'Stars' as the encore and their cover of 'Teardrops' (originally by Womack and Womack) slotted in there too, which still went down well. This gig was one of those very special gigs where everyone walks away happy and singing the bands songs. The DJ played their version of 'You've got the Love' after their set and everyone hung around and sung and danced around gleefully. Basically this gig made me and everyone around me adore The XX even more than they already did and they made me realise that they are even more beautiful and special than I ever thought they were, despite having the album on repeat since the day it came out. It's nice to see that they have a strong cult following too, they deserve a lot of success, they have such epic and intense talent that deserves to be appreciated by many.


Katie x