Laura Marling, Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms, 22/11/10

Considering the gig sold out well in advance, the Wedge is a surprising scene of calm, quiet, politeness tonight, with the huge capacity crowd completely entranced by a relatively tiny twenty year old and her acoustic guitar. The silence breaks in between songs for deserved applause but still every word of every crowd member can be heard. Shouts of ‘I love you Laura’ are so audible that they really do seem genuine, which leaves the young songstress in a predicament. ‘I never really know what to say when people …say things…just in life’ is the response to one such heckle, but despite confessing to having no ‘social awareness or comic timing’ she handles the banter with a reluctant yet charming sense of discomfort. Though she gets by with the chitchat, it’s obviously her music that stands out. For the majority of the set, she’s accompanied by drums, double-bass, cello, banjo and piano that fill out her sound enough to justify the sold out crowd. Above all the instrumentation however, Marling’s voice always dominates, cutting through the other instruments and powerfully covering a range that you wouldn’t expect if you were just to have a chat with her. The crowd knows most of the words but the sing-a-longs are almost whispered so as not to disturb what is emanating from the speakers. The only tracks that the audience may be unsure of are the three new songs, which still command the same perfect silence from the crowd, even when the band is reduced to just Marling and her guitar. Tracks like Failure and Ghosts stand out as much, if not more than full band numbers such as Devils Spoke.

Despite having had a Mercury nomination for each of her albums, she’s ambitious without any arrogannce. Before the penultimate song, What He Wrote, Laura claims that ‘for those who’d like an encore, this is our last song’. While it may sound tame the eerie calmness in the Wedge provided the perfect environment and neither the crowd, or Laura Marling would have had it any other way. For those who were happy to accept the end of a set without an encore, title track, I Speak Because I Can was the final song and was met by more rapturous applause and even some optimistic shouts of ‘encore’... She stuck to her word.

Local Natives - Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms, 17/11/10

On another gloomy night in Portsmouth, the only thing bigger, darker and thicker than the surrounding clouds is the moustache perched upon the upper lip of Local Natives’ guitarist and vocalist, Taylor Rice. Once you get over the initial resemblance to Mario (or maybe Luigi), the Californian bands’ live show leaves a lot more to think about than slightly ridiculous facial hair.

After releasing a debut as polished as Gorilla Manor, many bands would struggle to replicate such an accomplishment live, but Local Natives take it in their stride. The drums and rhythms come to into the foreground especially on Who Knows, Who Cares, while the basslines remain softly prominent throughout. Sparse percussive breakdowns rumble around the in the middle of songs laying a pathway for euphoric sing-a-long choruses like that of Wide Eyes. The vocal harmonies are consistently flawless making use of the voices of the whole band at times but even when just one voice can be heard, it still has considerable force and resonance in a fairly packed Wedgewood Rooms.

The songs are largely led by drums and guitars until Airplanes, which lets the piano take centre stage, and with the addition of mandolin shows yet another dimension to Local Natives style. At times there are elements vocally and elsewhere that seem like an American version of Wild Beasts, but as one of the front men, Kelcey says, they’re ‘not just crazy Americans’. Where Wild Beasts coax fans in with a similarly entrancing delicacy to their vocals and delivery, they’re never quite capable of delivering the final punch. Local Natives however, finish the job and cap off gentle builds with potent choruses and more aggressive instrumentation. The band has a clear, profound effect on their audience that others just aren’t capable of and it makes for a constantly captivating set that doesn’t take long to attract more focus and significance than the moustache, or the weather.

We Are Scientists - Portsmouth Pyramids 15/11/10

Morrisey has been known to ask his crowd not to sing along in the past, so as not to spoil it, and it’s somehow ok for him, because underneath all that pompous titting around, he’s a genius. However, very few others could get away with it. Except perhaps, for We Are Scientists.

When bassist, Chris Cain pleads to the crowd not to sing along as ‘this one has quite a sensitive harmony, and if even just one of you fuckers hits a bum not, the whole thing will turn to shit’, he could easily come across as a complete arse, but there isn’t a hint of pomposity about it. Chris and Keith’s tongues stay firmly in their cheeks between songs, with comparisons to Lord Byron and a dedication to Lord Nelson, but as always they keep the music serious. Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt makes an early appearance in the set, as well as a surprising proportion of songs from their debut, With Love and Squalor, which receive the best response. The crowd has to warm up pretty quickly for the headliner though, as the support didn’t quite manage it. First support, Rewards didn’t provide any more than a lesser version of The XX, about eighteen months late to catch the band wagon. Goldheart Assembly showed a lot more potential and the intensity picked up towards the end of their set, but it wasn’t quite enough to prepare the crowd for the energy of the main act.

While We Are Scientists showed that they can put on a good show, regardless of whether they have a permanent drummer (or whether they borrow one from Razorlight), the crowd did struggle to keep up after a while. The first half of the set had both the kids and the obligatory balding middle-aged men of Portsmouth moshing together, to tracks from Barbara, as well as older songs and even History Repeats, a B-side from 2005. However, as the set draws on you can’t help thinking that they could quite easily have got away with playing a few less songs and kept the crowd going. It’s not that the quality of the songs declined, and they still played them with just as much vigour, the problem is that the crowd just can’t keep up with it for such a long set. Saying that, it’d be hard to pick any song to take out of the setlist, and when they leave stage following After Hours, the crowd are still hungry for an encore, and Cash Cow makes for a fittingly lively conclusion.

Foals - Southampton Guildhall, 7/11/10

Set against a hazy backdrop of smoke and soft lighting, Foals look as though they’re playing to the Guildhall from somewhere inside the screensaver of a Macbook, without being anywhere near as pretentious. Proclaimed as ‘Math-Rock’ in their early days, they’ve since matured into something more refined and less nonsensical. The bleeping, chirping lead guitar parts are still there, along with the insanely tight, complex drum rhythms, but now they’re all set to an underlying, atmospheric whirring that floats around, filtering in and out of prominence. This progression was hinted at in the transition from demos to the first album, and has been finalized by Total Life Forever. It’s not to say it’s a better or worse record; in fact it makes for a pleasingly varied set. Recent single, Blue Blood features elements from old and new and leaves some of the crowd in two minds as to what to do with themselves. With the age restriction of fourteen plus, you’re left with a crowd of teenagers half trying to look like they’re ‘going mental’ and half making sure they don’t break they’re glasses as it’s the last pair they get on free prescription.

Those in the crowd who have got the jist of what Foals do, choose to avoid the unnecessary, yet massive attempt at a moshpit, and are happy to stand back and appreciate the quieter bits and let their bodies do what they like in the dancier bits. It seems almost rude to talk during Spanish Sahara, so as not to disturb the eerie, encapsulating effect it has on anyone listening to it. Yannis’ vocals on this and many of the other newer songs embody the change to a softer sound, but the addition of Two Steps Twice as an encore shows that neither the band or Yannis have lost their balls. He explores every corner of the stage, physically as well as sonically, from the front of the crowd to the top of the speaker stacks. They’ve become experts in changes of intensity, to an extent that surprises even long term fans into not quite knowing what to expect. It becomes apparent that their earlier material was clearly not written for a big room with a big crowd; even the colossal Cassius comes across as lacking slightly, but only when compared to the immensity of the likes of Miami and Total Life Forever. Foals are a band that are by no means afraid of outdoing themselves.