Thursday 17th February 2011
Despite a nine year history and the production of seven albums, this gig from one of the few remaining pioneers of “New folk” is the Manchester band’s first gig in Australia and boy are they vocally suffering from jetlag. Entering the East Brunswick Club you are immediately greeted, inundated and surrounded by sandalled Mancunians loudly complaining about the price of beer in Australia. It’s generally the case that those from the North of England are a loyal bunch and it’s hard to think of an Australian indie band that would inspire such loyalty from ex-pats overseas.
The band has been a favourite of critics for some time, especially with their latest offering, ‘Sky at Night’, produced by members of fellow Manchester band Elbow, being awarded the status of one of Barclay Mercury Prize albums of 2010. Let’s hope the mercury curse doesn’t strike the band and they vanish from view…
The gig is solid from beginning to end with delicious instrumentals and twisted, biting bitter sweet lyrics, but was marred by the band’s regular admission that they couldn’t play a lot of songs requested from the audience as they didn’t have ‘their orchestra’ with them due to the cost / legal wranglings of travel visas. It’s also odd to see an overseas act without any merchandise at all – I’m sure many in the room would have been keen to buy a T-Shirt or two (they could have paid for those visas…). However a lot of crowd pleasers were played with aplomb, including ‘Northern Sky’, ‘Morning Rain’, ‘86 TVs’ and ‘Strange Without You’. The music was enthusiastically received as the crowd drank their overpriced beers, singing along to John Branwell’s fervent lyrics, and it was particularly amusing to hear the crowd keenly singing the chorus of ‘Twist’, “there’s blood on your legs…I love you”. I Am Kloot do their schtick very well, evocative music and sardonic lyrics and it’s pleasantly satisfying to see that a band can get away with a set of melancholic music, play it all seated and yet still rouse an audience.
– Chris Chinchilla
