NME Radar Tour (The Joy Formidable, Chapel Club, Flats) - Wedgewood Rooms, 13th October

A spot on any of the NME tours is pretty much guaranteed to give any band a massive boost into popularity, whether interesting or not. There’s usually a pretty standard formula for the line-ups when the magazine are picking them, but the openers this year make quite a change. Nutter-punk outfit, Flats start the night off by pissing all over the trend of hushed indie bands that the NME has been whoring out over the last couple of years. It’s only a momentary shock though, as the arrival of Chapel Club brings all the terrified trendy haircuts away from the back wall of the Wedge and up to the front of the stage. The young band, and drummer possess the rare quality of restraint, and resist any urge to speed their songs up live. For a band like Flats, the faster the songs are played the better, but Chapel Club’s impact comes from their steady, simple beats driving along an indecipherable whirl of guitars and synths. With soothing vocals and guitars concealed by a wall effects, the band join the list of new artists pointing towards a change in direction for indie music. The sharp, stabbing guitars of the ‘noughties’ (sorry) are gradually being replaced with a soft, but far from boring, new sound.

While Flats may have made Chapel Club appear tamer than usual, The Joy Formidable definitely kicked things up another notch as headliners. At a glance of the stage, you could easily underestimate the band, led by fairly meek looking frontwoman, Ritzy and surrounded by birdcages filled with fairy lights. However, the three-piece’s intentions are made clear not long after as more pounding drums fill the room, this time accompanied by similarly intense guitars and vocals, and any timidity vanishes from Ritzy’s demeanour. While it would be it would be slightly stereotypical to compare them to the only female fronted guitar bands I can think of at this point in time, Blood Red Shoes and The Subways do spring to mind. Even so, there’s something about The Joy Formidable that could see them faring a little better in the mainstream (if that kind of thing floats your boat). They combine interesting rhythms with uncomplicated riffs and hooky vocals in a way that’s easy to listen to too but still keeps you thinking and leaves you guessing. The Radar Tour has seen the likes of Friendly Fires, La Roux and Marina and The Diamonds into large-scale success, and there’s no reason why any of these bands shouldn’t have the same outcome. Except Flats, they might struggle on daytime Radio 1.

Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly - Wedgewood Rooms, 12 October

Since the days of strolling onto stage with an acoustic guitar, a laptop and a mass of hair threatening to engulf his entire head, Sam Duckworth’s stage presence has changed drastically. Instead of a one-man outfit, he now plays front-man of a full band that gives life and power to all of the ideas that used to be chirped out by his computer. The laptop may have been replaced by human equivalents, but the guitar and the continuous threat that his hair poses still remain integral to his live performances.

The quality of the songs on the twenty-four year old’s 2006 debut album come to light early in his set when the majority of the crowd wail the lyrics of ‘I Spy’ back at him before he has a chance to start them himself. When Duckworth and his band do kick in, the compositional intricacies are accentuated by a supremely talented line-up that fills out the sound with extra live percussion and backing-vocals. The full band adds a versatility to snap from full on choruses to quiet breakdowns, with the synthesisers supplying as many eerie sound effects as the laptop ever could have and occasional bursts of trumpet piercing through the soundscape.

After such an energetic opening to the set from an artist with acoustic roots, a few songs worth of bean-bag time were to be expected. However, with the band off stage and Duckworth left alone, the fidgeting from the crowd did become audible after two or three songs; though not enough to dampen his charm or likeability on stage. This quiet mid-section oddly acted as a segway into a political, anti-fascist rant, set to an oddly jazzy accompaniment. Despite any valid message, this could have come across as a Bono-esque display of arseholery if it had come from anyone else and not been delivered quite so articulately. In fact pretty much everything he said made sense. The set ended on a more energetic, cheerful note with a cover of Daft Punk’s ‘Digital Love’, which (unlike most attempts) did the original justice and a flourish of brass utilising ‘Call Me Ishmael’ and the whole group’s full potential.