20. Sufjan Stevens -- Illinois (2005)

Sufjan’s Prairie State

I wish he did all fifty

(Yes, I fell for it)

19. Jeffrey Lewis -- It’s the Ones Who’ve Cracked That The Light Shines Through (2003)

Anti-folk hero

Serves comic stripped down delight

Raw, honest and fun

18. PJ Harvey -- Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea (2000)

Poptastic Polly

Her most commercial album

That never sells out

17. Pulp -- We Love Life (2001)

Leafy perfection

From kitchen sink troubadours

Sad, Sheffield swansong

16. TV on the Radio -- Dear Science (2008)

Arse-shaking anger

As Sitek and crew unleash

Brooklyn funky stuff

15. Bruce Springsteen -- Working on a Dream (2009)

My favourite Boss

Is reconciled with E Street

Glory Days again!

14. Midlake -- The Trials of Van Occupanther (2006)

Lush, pastoral grooves

Et in arcadia they go

I think I’ll head home!

13. The Strokes -- Is This It (2001)

New York storybook

A soundtrack of the decade

This, it seems, is it

12. Johnny Cash -- American III: Solitary Man (2000)

Departed legend

Au revoir, L’homme en noir

No one sounds like you

11. Brian Wilson -- Smile (2004)

Infamous Beached Boy

Went back to sea triumphant

And served up Surf’s Up

10. Grinderman -- Grinderman (2007)

Black Crow Kingdom reigns

As Bad Seeds bear twisted fruit

(See what I did there?)

9. The White Stripes -- White Blood Cells (2001)

Third from Jack and Meg

With incandescent gee-tars

And Awesome Welles riff

7. Lift to Experience -- The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads (2001)

A Lone Star Statement

They burnt fast but -- by God! -- burnt bright

“Don’t mess with Texas”

8. Wilco -- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)

Tupelo’s Tweedy

Overcame Warner Bother

To create this gem

6. The National -- Alligator (2005)

Late night, low-rent wit

Don’t compare to Tindersticks

They’re better than that

5. Arcade Fire -- Funeral (2005)

Mournful joie de vivre

Joyous momento mori

(Inadequate praise)

4. Tom Waits -- Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards (2006)

Gravel voiced Bardfly

Serves up three courses of treats

We hunger for more!

3. Warren Zevon -- Life’ll Kill Ya (2000)

Sardonic singer

Enjoyed every sandwich

Then left us a feast

2. Lambchop -- Nixon (2000)

Funky slide guitars

Where country and Curtis meet

Mayfield, not Stigers!

1. The Flaming Lips -- Yoshima Battles The Pink Robots (2002)

Fearless freaks, rejoice!

Perfect bubblepop classic

Don’t you realize??

During Thom Yorke’s rare solo performance on Sunday afternoon at the Latitude Festival’s Obelisk Arena, some misanthropic wag in the crowd said loudly:  “I wish they’d put the big screens on so we can see how bad his hair looks.”   I’m happy to say it wasn’t me.

I had mixed feelings about seeing Thom Yorke at Latitude, but it had nothing to do with the state of his hair or even the redundant ‘h’ in his forename.  It had been twelve years since I’d seen Radiohead for the first -- and, as it turned out, the last -- time.  That was at Glastonbury 1997, and their set was a moment of sublime and transcendent perfection for me.  I never saw them live again, in no small part because it was one of my all-time favourite live music experiences and I wanted it to stay that way.   I was also acutely aware that I still hadn’t found the money or time to buy or listen to his 2006 Radioheadless offering, The Eraser, and felt rather guilty about it.  I hear it’s very good, but as I haven’t heard it yet I can’t possibly comment.

I wasn’t planning to slip out early as the gig overlapped with the Jeffrey Lewis and the Junkyard set at the Music and Film Arena.  As it happened, Clare, Lily & I were so entranced by Thom Yorke’s performance -- which, yes, included Radiohead tracks like Everything in it’s Right Place, There There and Weird Fishes/Arpeggi -  that we decided to stay until the end.

After all, it had been twelve years since I last saw Radiohead.  It had only been twelve hours since I last saw Jeffrey Lewis.

_______________________________
Here’s some Thom Yorke at Latitude YouTubery courtesy of various public-spirited (and better-positioned) festival-goers:

And here’s some more Jeffrey Lewis (and the Junkyard) courtesy of me:

Standing behind a clear perspex podium, sporting some fresh facial hair and holding one of the most battered-looking gee-tars in the business, lo-fi ‘anti-folk‘ hero Jeffrey Lewis apologised to a packed crowd in the Latitude Festival’s Poetry Arena for the last-minute cancellation of  his eagerly-awaited lecture on the seminal comic-book, Watchmen.  It was scheduled to take place earlier that day and -- after providing a grim, poignant and sometimes harrowing account of why he couldn’t make it -- Lewis offered to make up for his regrettable no-show by doing something rather special after the gig:

He’d sit under a tree and “blabber on” about Watchmen to anyone who might want to listen.

Which, of course, is just the sort of thing you’d expect Jeffrey Lewis to do.   Lewis, in case you don’t know, is a singer-songwriter and comic-book artist from New York who combines the two disciplines to great effect.  His songs and spoken word pieces are delivered in an idiosyncratic, fast-talking style and many of them feature his comic-strips as an accompaniment (he calls them “low-budget videos”).  The bulk of his late-night acoustic set consisted of brand-new, straight-out-of-the-oven songs that had yet to be field-tested in front of a live audience.   The fresh material dealt with grim, poignant and sometimes harrowing stuff, but -- thanks to his endearing awkwardness, fiendishly-clever wordplay and self-deprecating humour -- the gig was anything but a downer.

New converts were won over with a cover of Pink Floyd’s Sheep and a painfully-funny gangsta rap about killing mosquitoes, subject matters that were bound to strike a chord with the Latitude set.  Old fans, meanwhile, were treated to his poignant back-catalogue favourite,  When I Was 4, which reduced many of them to blubbering wrecks.  By the time this wonderful little gig was over, most of us had forgotten about the promise Lewis made at the beginning of the set.  After a long and exhausting day -- with another Latitude set lined up for Sunday afternoon -- no reasonable person could expect him to waste time searching for a vacant tree so he could sit under it and “blabber on” about his favourite comic book.

So he held an impromptu post-gig Watchmen Q&A outside the Poetry Arena, instead.

Here’s the wonderful Jeffrey Lewis performing at the Latitude Festival’s Poetry Arena in the wee small hours of 19th July 2009.

Review to follow.

Low-Budget Detective Film:

Whistle Past The Graveyard:

Birthday Party Song:

There’s more where this came from.

Don’t you just hate those end of year countdown shows? Cheap, schedule-padding fodder consisting of cobbled together clips and witless pundits pontificating witlessly. I even wrote about me intense dislike for this pernicious genre here. Oh, how I hate them.

Here’s a countdown of my favourite gigs of 2007:

10. Jeffrey Lewis & The Jitters, Birmingham Hare & Hounds, 20th October

My third Jeffrey Lewis gig and the best so far. I wrote a lengthy review of it here. In that review I forgot to mention that in addition to Jeffrey’s uncle – Professor Louis – there was also support from local ska hipsters Dexter. Let me remedy that now: I thought they were fab. This belated endorsement is a little pointless, however, as Dexter have since imploded-slash-morphed into a new popular beat combo called walk.don’t.walk. Oh, well – it’s the thought that counts.

9. CSS, Latitude Festival, 14th July

A guilty pleasure, and we’re all allowed those. CSS’s vibrant set encapsulated the wonderful Latitude Festival for me, and their track “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above” was this year’s feelgood Summer song of choice with my tinny-but-temperamental car stereo.

The Latitude weekend was one of my highlights of this year for me, and this is the first of several mentions it gets on this list. I’ve already booked my ticket for next year’s. You should, too.

8. Damo Suzuki and his Assortment of Sound-Carrying Biatches : Birmingham Hare & Hounds, August 16th

A mad, mad night of madness and the madness does not diminish with the passage of time. I wrote about it here. Did I mention it was mad?

Here’s a pic wot Pete took:

Former Can-man Suzuki played what was possibly the same song repeatedly (it was hard to tell) with a rotating lineup of “sound carrying” local bands including The Courtesy Group, Mills and Boon and the mighty Modified Toy Orchestra (whose gig at the Birmingham Town Hall in October very almost nearly got into this Top 10).

Here some YouTubery featuring Damo at a Courtesy Group event from 2005:

7. Tony Bennett, Birmingham Town Hall, 8th May

The next best thing to seeing Sinatra live. As Stan Lee would say, “‘Nuff Said.”

6. Jarvis Cocker: Latitude Festival, 15th July

He is Jarvis: that is reason enough.

As an encore he played Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger”.

Need I say more?

5. Jim White & Jenny Owen Youngs, Birmingham Barfly, 18th October

A headliner and his support. Is that allowed? Shouldn’t that be two separate entries?

It’s my list. They’re my rules. Deal with it.

Here’s Jenny Owen Youngs on the night in question, courtesy of YouTube and a public-minded citizen:

And here’s Jim White at a different Barfly on the same tour singing the wonderfully-titled “A Bar Is Just A Church Where They Serve Beer”:

4. The Pogues: Birmingham Academy, 16th December

Tough call. I was very tempted to place them higher as they played an absolute blinder of a gig, even by the legendary standards of a Pogues’ gig. But it was only a fortnight ago (and I only wrote about it two blog entries ago) and I like to give my perceptions space to breathe, so I’ll exercise some restraint.

But, Goddamnit – that was one helluva night…

Here’s a taster from the night, courtesy of yet another public-spirited soul & YouTube:

3. The National: Latitude Festival, 15th July; Birmingham Irish Centre, 6th November

So good I saw them twice this year. That should say it all.

This is them quiet:

This is them loud:

2. Devo: Birmingham Symphony Hall, 22nd June

At the beginning of the year, Devo – they of the yellow boiler suits, red plastic hats and New Wave bequirkery – weren’t really on my Gigs I Must Really Go To This Year list. But my friends Pete and Jez – two self-confessed Devo spuds – were so excited at the prospect of their first UK tour in 17-odd years that it would have been churlish of me to decline the invite. So I went.

Let’s just say that their set lit me up, fused my synapses and left me smiling like a simple-minded child. I’d never thought that such hard-rocking euphoria could be produced within the ornate surroundings of Birmingham Symphony Hall. I wasn’t alone: the venue’s security staff looked positively bewildered.

I am convinced. I am converted. I am Devolved.

1. Arcade Fire: Latitude Festival, 15th July

I mentioned before that the Latitude Festival was one of the highlights of my year. Well, this was the highlight of Latitude.

Arcade Fire concerts are legendary, so my expectations were high. That can be a kiss of death, but thankfully they delivered. It was everything I’d hoped for and more.

Sublime, awe-inducing, breathtaking. Up there with Radiohead at Glastonbury ‘97. Really: that’s how good it was.

Honourable mention should go to the following who didn’t quite make the list: The Modified Toy Orchestra at Birmingham Town Hall [15th October]; Misty’s Big Adventure & The Destroyers at Brum’s Rootsville Festival [30th June]; Wilco [who I heard but couldn't see so can't include], Rodrigo Y Gabriela [disqualified as I only caught the last 15 minutes of their set, which seemed pretty fucking awesome], The Good The Bad & The Queen, Bat For Lashes and Joan as Policewoman at Latitude; Bearsuit at the Sunflower Lounge [September 7th].

Also, despite the cruel and resentful things I said in a previous post, I quite enjoyed The Police at the NIA, too. Begrudgingly.

It’s only now that I realise that 2007 was the year I became a fully fledged gig tart.

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