Live Review: Morcheeba – 19th November 2013 – The Forum, London, UK

The Camden area has always been a hot-spot for arty types, with musicians busking on near every corner, and bohemian vibes positively oozing out of every space. This of course means that there are also a fair few music venues, one of being The Forum in Kentish Town – which was the location for the last night of Morcheeba’s UK tour.

The night opened up with Harley Blu and her band, who played a set of soulful and funky set to an already large audience in The Forum. The band were tight, and the songs were well written, with nice vocal harmonies and a generally pleasant musical vibe. Blu and her band were followed by The Old Silent, a very enjoyable band with a feeling that could be best described as a mixture of rock and folk. The mixture worked well, with the band taking complete advantage of their 3 singers different voices to pronounce what style it was they were playing.

After the two fantastic support bands played, were were left for quite a while before Morcheeba finally came on stage – by which point the audience were very restless. But, once Morcheeba finally hit the stage, the audience erupted. The band entered with a  pre-recorded opening song playing as the lights dimmed and they walked out from back stage and took their positions on stage. The band got straight into what they were best at, playing their song Make Believer – which compelled the audience with it’s nice grooves and funky (almost reggae like) feeling. All the way through this song and the rest of the set the kick drum and the bass-line could be physically felt in your chest, making it feel like you were getting hit in the chest with every beat.

For their next song they made a significant change, opening a song with slide guitar, and following that up with a song that best suited the description “blues rock.” This didn’t stick though, as the band went more classic sound with songs such as Never and Easy Way and The Sea. This had the audience swaying and singing along, in particular for The Sea, where Skye (the band’s singer) had the whole audience singing the line “down by the sea” as backing vocals for the track. This boosted up the atmosphere of the gig on a level that you could actually feel, with the audience being noticeably more into the gig after the sing-along.

One of my highlights for the night came in the form of their sixth song, Shoulder Holster, most recognisable for it’s almost Beatles like trippy rock vibes – and even the use of the electric sitar. The song was played perfectly, but came with a few subtle changes that brought the song up to whole other levels of enjoyable. Another highlight was when Morcheeba covered the David Bowie classic Let’s Dance – once again getting the audience singing along.

After these highlights the band went onto play some of their new and old songs, equally impressing the audience with both – getting the whole audience, including those on the balcony, dancing along for their last song. The night was very enjoyable, with every song getting you singing and swaying to the music by the second chorus (even if you didn’t know the song before!)

Set List:

Make Believer
Part of the Process
Never an Easy Way
The Sea
Gimme Your Love
Shoulder Holster
Otherwise
Let’s Dance
Crimson
Trigger Hippy
Blindfold
Release Me Now
I’ll Fall Apart
Rome
Face of Danger

Nick Roberts

::: covering the latest live events in London (UK) for RenownedForSound.com