Midlake 6/11/10

I saw Midlake in February and whilst I enjoyed the gig I felt that they were a little reserved and precious, with a sound that was as close to studio as they could make it. Despite seeing them in a much worse environment I enjoyed this gig more as they seem to have chilled out a bit and the sound was looser and with more emotional content. But first things first; they had two support acts and I missed most of the first one as I arrived ten minutes after the doors were advertised as being open and they had obviously started early. In typical style, the venue who are part of the branded O2 Academy venues failed to give show times on their website even one hour before the gig. They also moved me from a comfortable standing area that was allegedly reserved for disabled people even though they were seated elsewhere and none turned up in that area. Prats. However I don't think I missed too much from what I heard. I enjoyed the second support act - it was John Grant who was apparently from a band called the Tzars and he sang confidently introspective songs and played a synthesizer and sometimes a keyboard assisted on instruments by the Midlake keyboardist. He was a bit ascerbic and a bit weird but in a good way.

Midlake were on by twenty past eight and they had a similar line up to last time including four guitars for most songs, drums, bass and keyboards/flute for a seven-man band. They included the guitarist I liked last time, Max Townsley. Nominally he is scond lead guitar but he takes the freeflowing solos and he makes a difference to their sound which may otherwise come across as a bit restrained. The first time he really got going was on the excellent 'The Courage of Others' and the best tracks for me were the ones he was let loose on. That included the final track of the three-track encore which was 'Branches'.

The first two tracks of the encore features the support acts so first they had John Grant to do a Tzars track which I'm guessing was called 'Without You' which was melodic and then Jason Lyttle came on to do a Grandaddy's track which I presume was called 'Whereever Together'which was less interesting and a bit staccato.

As ever the vocals and harmonies throughout the gig were impeccable. The set list was reasonably similar to last time and the arrangements similar but something had got better - a bit more soul perhaps.