I’d never been to the ICA before but I found it pretty easily from the bus. I got there and in and found Meryl then pretty much immediately Blind Pilot, the support, came on. I’d never heard of them before but they ha
d a guitar, double bass, banjo and drums which could hardly ever be a bad combination. I really really liked them, they were brilliant. They mentioned that the last time they had played was at “this festival called Wood” and I went “wooh” and so did the person next to me and we looked at each other and it was sweet. Anyway it meant that they had to tune quite a lot but it was not as bad as at Kimya. It’s annoying that I missed them, I think when they were playing Maud and I were napping or taking stupid pictures. Anyway they were brilliant and the double bassist had his double bass in a shoe which is ingenious.
Then after a short wait (MUCH better than Oxford) Akron/Family came on. They had exactly the same set up as when I saw them at The Luminaire last year and I was in the same place too, left of the stage at the front. So again right beneath the bassist. They were unbelievable. Seriously amazing, immediately taking over from Patrick Wolf as best of the year. They did their long extended thing and lots of clapping and at the beginning Meryl got to ring these bells which the bassist handed to her. They played Ed is a Portal of course which was brilliant. They also played some new ones and I was more familiar with them than I expected to be. I didn’t really know the titles but now I know that I loved River and since Wednesday I’ve listened it some stupid number of times. Just the last chorus where they do the “ooh”s over the tune ahhh amazing and the first chorus where they whistle. And then at the end they did Last Year and we all sang and it was beautiful. Then they came into the crowd and sang Woody Guthrie’s America with everyone joining in on the I wanna live bits. I couldn’t really see but still it was lovely. Anyway this was totally incredible and amazing and unbelievably exciting and beautiful. Oh yeah at the beginning they stood round one microphone and did a beautiful 3 part harmony bit which contrasts so amazingly with their crazy improvisey loud bits. Photo:
