MAPSADAISICAL’S TOP LIVE EVENTS OF 2010

 

 

 

I went to just under a hundred gigs or festivals last year. You may well have seen me, the scruffy bearded fella down the front with notebook and camera. Quite a number of those hundred, as you can probably remember, were at London’s Cafe Oto. The impact that Cafe Oto has had on London’s live music scene continues to be immense – it has become a home from home for me, to the extent that they even finally gave in and let me put on a couple of nights there with the rest of the Otobahn posse (sadly for the likes of Konntinent and Regolith, I’m disqualifying those events on the grounds of possible, indeed likely, bias). If there was an award for venue of the year, I’d clearly be handing it to Hamish, John and the rest of the Cafe Oto team, along with my huge thanks for the efforts they have put in to the programming and running of those events. Inevitably, they also figure in the list below, a list which was actually as hard to pull together as the albums list was last week. These truly are great times for live music in London (and, although it is hard to imagine that these places exist, beyond). I’ll see you in the front row some time in 2011, no doubt.

1. Godspeed’s Nightmare Before Christmas, Butlins Minehead: Finally, an ATP that did justice to the titular legacy of the Velvet Underground, with a mixture of song, drone, noise, free jazz, and modern composition. Performances by Francisco Lopez, Daniel Menche, Philip Jeck, and Godspeed themselves will live long in the memory. Full review

2. Ben Frost at the Luminaire: Ah, the soon-to-be-no-more Luminaire, most likely a casualty of the eastward drift of London’s live music scene. And it will be missed: the sound there was often exceptional, despite the efforts of Ben Frost who blew up one of his monitors in an unsettling, menacing and above all, incredibly loud performance. Full review

3. The Necks at The Barbican Theatre: Every year I do this, compiling a list of my top ten live events. And pretty much every year The Necks feature in that list. They are, without any doubt, my favourite live band, improvising these wonderfully patient sets that build from the most minimal of introductions to complex, tangled finales. Full review

4. Room40 Open Frame Festival at Cafe Oto: So this gig, featuring Chris Abrahams of the Necks, playing at Cafe Oto, was bound to score highly. Abrahams’s set, featuring ten absorbing minutes of him playing just one note, was indeed the highlight, but add to that the best Grouper set I’ve seen, and you have something very special. Full review

5. Moritz von Oswald, Carl Craig, Francisco Tristano and David Brutti at the Queen Elizabeth Hall: Live appearances by Moritz von Oswald are as rare as his albums are impressive. This time he wasn’t in his Trio, but in a quartet which built on his and Carl Craig’s magnificent Recomposed album, adding improvised jazz to the mix. Full review

6. Freedom Of The City at Conway Hall: Speaking of improvised jazz, it doesn’t get much better than that on offer at the annual Freedom Of The City event. Evan Parker shared curatorial duties with Spring Heel Jack’s John Coxon, assembling a bill which also included Okkyung Lee, Wadada Leo Smith, Eddie Prevost and John Butcher. Full review day 1 and day 2

7. Hyperrhythm/OK Computer at the North Sea Jazz festival: While the festival itself had its moments (Ornette! McCoy!), my favourite moments were all in the stages curated by Viral Radio. One day they had Hudson Mohawke and Dimlite; the next they had Machinefabriek and Philip Jeck. Far-sighted stuff. Full review

8. Mulatu Astatke with the Heliocentrics in the Barbican Hall: Following up their successful Inspiration Information album, Mulatu and the Heliocentrics recombined to tear through the greatest hits of the great Ethiopian jazz musician. They were – quite rightly – dancing in the aisles at the Barbican. An absolute joy. Full review

9. The Thing at the Vortex: I had seen Mats Gustafsson play earlier in the year at Cafe Oto (where else?) in combinations with violinist Philip Wachsmann and pianist Pat Thomas, but it was with his regular (if they can be called that) trio The Thing that he really blew my mind. A killer combination of power, experimentation and groove. Full review

10. Oneohtrix Point Never at The Grosvenor: Oh yes, the infamous “more seagulls!” gig, how could I forget this? This live performance by OPN’s Daniel Lopatin built from waves of vocals and wonky synth melodies to an ending which sounded like, well, a flock of seagulls were descending on this room in the back of a south London pub. Full review