Black Nielson

After the brouhaha caused by Six Continents’ decision to shut down the Point, you could be forgiven for thinking that there was never a dull night to be had in the place. With just three more nights to go, however, we were served a timely reminder of exactly what it is such small venues provide more often than not: unspectacular mediocrity.

First up were Southampton’s Black Nielson, peddling the kind of semi-acoustic melancholia most people stopped getting excited about several months ago. They are capable of the odd moment of beauty, but this is undermined by the songs’ very titles, almost acknowledging that it’s all been done before: ‘Lasoo The Moon’ (Elbow, anyone?) and ‘Calm Down, It’s All A Dream’ (Mercury Rev, of course), for example. The latter track (almost a re-write of Grandaddy’s ‘Summer’s Here Kids’) aside, the songs are uniform in their inability to surprise and by the end, for all of his sincerity, no-one’s really listening to singer Michael Gale pouring his heart out.

Better things were expected of French Kicks, however. Not that many people present appear to have actually heard anything by them before tonight’s performance, but they come from New York and these days that’s enough. Enough to pull a pretty decent crowd, at least. Entertaining them, however, requires something more – something French Kicks sadly appear to lack. Perhaps it’s just the shock that (apart from on the jaunty ‘Right on Time’) they actually sound very little like the Strokes. They certainly have none of their over-hyped contemporaries’ energy. Whatever, the set doesn’t really get going until the third song (‘So Many Cakes’), when, significantly, vocal duties are removed from drumming frontman Nick Stumpf. By then, one senses it may be too late.

Stumpf is by no means a bad vocalist, probably the best of the band’s three singers, yet when his voice combines with his percussion at the heart of the songs, the music lacks the drive found elsewhere. Unfortunately, he sings the majority. When he steps aside, however, the band show just what they are capable of. Check out the riotous recent single, ‘Young Lawyer’, for example: All three singers play with and against each other, while simultaneously battling the kind of guitar you’d more expect to find in, say, Queens of the Stone Age. A most welcome surprise. Unfortunately it somewhat overshadowed all that went before and all that came after. The predominance of the piano on the closing tracks, culminating in the imaginatively titled Prince pastiche ‘Prince’, does little to cover the cracks. The encore, ‘Piano’ turned out to be one of the highlights, but seemed more scheduled than deserved.

Midway through the set, guitarist Matt Stinchcomb announced ‘We’ve got t-shirts and records for sale over there if anyone’s interested’. Nobody batted an eyelid. Meanwhile, Arsenal were trouncing Mallorca 3-1. Perhaps this place may work better as a sports bar after all…