Venue:
The Bullingdon, Oxford
Date: 06/03/2017
You may have heard the Goldfrappy “Rushing Through My Mind” on 6 Music recently; that was my introduction to the Liberation. Actually that’s as close as they get to Alison and Will; JO & co are more guitar-heavy, and this is even more obvious live. What you get is a properly woozy wall of sound, psychedelic and mesmerizing with a projector show to match. There are shades not only of the late 60s, but also early 90s shoegazing; both guitarists use fuzzy single-coil Fenders drenched with delay, and there’s a lot of My Bloody Valentine-style vibrato-stroking (at the edge of feedback, natch) going on. The band themselves are understated; movement is limited but there’s barely enough room to accommodate all six of them on the stage anyway. Vocals are way down in the mix – no emoting here – and banter is minimal; we get “thank you” about five times with “Oxford” thrown in once for good measure. But leaving the last chord ringing such a long time that it was still audible as Josefin hit the merch table was a nice touch.
My only gripe would be that it was too short; with 2 full albums under their collective belt, to manage just under an hour is hardly Broooce territory. But for seven quid, I’m certainly not complaining. Recommended – but for the UK, unless you’re in Birmingham tomorrow night, it’ll have to wait until next time.
The audience:
A real mixture of ages – you’d expect students and there were plenty, but also many old enough be their tutors and/or parents. Very polite.
It made me think..
I can’t recall going to any other gig this good where a pint was nearly 60% of the ticket price.
Going tonight in Birmingham so comments will follow.
So – what did you think?
@malc well we liked them a lot. Saw them at Luna last summer, so a second time for us. Tickets were £10 in Birmingham, but the stage in the Hare and Hounds is pretty small too. They’re on the nu shoegaze money with the reverb, drones and grooves recalling no-one so much as Spaceman 3. Other reference points would be Slowdive, first album Lush, Death In Vegas and for the harder grooves Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Minimal banter, which is fine. Josefin is certainly charismatic onstage, though when she does her head down lost-in-the-music pose she reminds me of the woman who comes out of the television set at the end of The Ring. First band I’ve seen at the H and H who brought a proper psychedelic light show, straight out of the UFO Club. Excellent sound, and it didn’t really bother me they were gone just shy of the hour. The stage access meant Josefin herself got about 30s offstage before the encore, leaving the Liberation to mooch about onstage. If I had a caveat, it might be that world domination would require a few more memorable melodies to go with the riffs, textures and grooves – all of which are excellent.