Posts Tagged “the long blondes”

disclaimer: The Long Blondes album is currently my 2nd favorite album of 2007 (UK release be damnned!), second only to the fantastic New Pornographers album. It technically gets to keep #1 until the New Pornos album comes out, but since I’ve already streamed it, I know how fantastic it is, and no band can stand up to the New Pornographers when it’s all said and done. HOWEVER, It is with great relief that I can say I’m so thrilled that Britpop has fully returned. I haven’t been this excited about any UK band in at least 10 years. My former favorite import, was Sleeper. Finally, the torch has been passed on to a new band, completely worthy of praise in the highest amounts: The Long Blondes.

Needless to say, I’ve been completely excited for this show since the first minute I saw it announced on the Popscene website.

The show didn’t disappoint! Rather than play the expected sort of set for a band with only one album they managed to pack in a new (to me at least) song, as well as a couple of b-sides. My only complaints are somewhat petty, in that the set was fairly short (45 mins and a single song encore when I definitely could have gone for more), as well as the kinda weird vocals from Dorian on Once and Never Again. You can see what I mean when you listen to it, but it sounded kinda weird at the time and I’m not really sure what they were going for. As for the rest, it was a really good show. Very polished and definitely ahead of the curve for a band with one album at the end of their first US tour. I’ve seen plenty of UK bands that seemed overwhelmed and burned out by this point in attempting to break into the US in any means (Lily Allen? Lady Sovereign?) but without a doubt The Long Blondes came to conquer the US with a solid first effort. I hear they’ll be back in September. If it’s a support gig, I really really hope it’s for someone awesome (British Sea Power perhaps?), and if it’s headlining I just hope they play a bit longer set and manage to throw in “A Knife for the Girls” during the encore or something. That’s all I’m saying.

Enjoy the recording by Danielle, it’s fantastic.

setlist:

1. Lust in the Movies
2. Guilt
3. Weekend Without Makeup
4. Only Lovers Left Alive
5. Fulwood Babylon
6. Heaven Help the New Girl
7. Five Ways to End It
8. You Could Have Both
9. Giddy Stratospheres
10. Once and Never Again
11. encore break
12. Separated by Motorways

download the whole show as a .zip file

download lossless FLAC audio from Dimeadozen.org

Links:

• Official Site
• MySpace: The Long Blondes
• YouTube: Weekend Without Makeup (video)
• YouTube: Once and Never Again (video)