Gig at paulcarvill.com, the home of Paul Carvill on the web

Has Jenny Lewis of LA power-pop and chugging-rock 4-piece Rilo Kiley got a belter of a voice that belies her frail and tiny frame? Hell yeah!

Their gig at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire last night goes straight into my gigs of the year 2007 (see also Arcade Fire’s St. John’s/Porchester Hall appearance in Jan/Feb). The harmonies soar, the riffs chug and they’ve got the funk, which normally spells doom for any band but here really should propel them into the mainstream. It’s slick and sheeny, and they look like they’re enjoying themselves, which is halfway to everyone else enjoying themselves anyway.

All this and a ukelele interlude. Sweet.

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Khoi Vinh of Subtraction.com thinks “this band are so boring I almost fell asleep typing out their name“

Dooes KT Tunstall know how to rock? Yes. Does she rock even better with her new backing singers? Yes again.

I saw her at the Roundhouse last week, and those singers add a depth and finesse to every song. Far more than an embellishment, they’re inherent to the sound, and they make the band sound more like a band than ever before. Previously there was a tendency for Tunstall’s gigs to be her and a motley collection of gadgets, echo pedals and kazoos. The kazoo’s are still there, as is the drummer playing dustbin lids with maracas. But the band function as a tight unit now, emphasised by the mid-set acoustic bit where they all gather front of stage, and the encore of Stopping The Love, with an excellent free-jazz cello solo, amongst other things.

The set is long, over two hours, borne out of the necessity of squeezing in songs from 3 albums, and keeping both old and new fans happy. If anything, she panders to newer fans a bit too much, asking them if they want to hear new songs or the hits, but set is swelled full of great stuff anyway so it’s not really a problem. Her infamous between-song banter is still there, too.

Apparently KT and her singers recently flew out to Japan to do a girls-only gig, which sounds cool. Maybe she should try this here sometime.