Wild Nothing, Luminaire, London

You’ve got to love those people at Upset The Rhythm. Time and time again they manage to get some of the best new bands to London. This time round it’s Jack Tatum’s solo endeavour-gone-full-band Wild Nothing, who released their rather excellent LP ‘Gemini’ earlier this year. It takes a few turns, but then it really ear worms its way into your head – in a good way that is, we don’t want you thinking about the possibility of all sorts of creepy crawlers getting to your brains whilst listening to his music.

The task of warming up the audience is left to Weird Dreams, a London three-piece who seem to get their inspiration from the ‘60s when people just had started to accepts that rock & roll wasn’t just a fling. They’ve only just started out, but sound like they know exactly what they’re doing and provide for a rather enjoyable support act. If they were to play a bit later on the evening – giving people a better chance to get just a bit tipsy – there might even have been some dancing.

They are followed by a French band called Frank (Just Frank). And that’s not me trying to be funny, that is actually their name. As if to pull some more attention to their Frenchess, their (bass) guitarist – they do move around a lot with instruments during the gig – wears a beret. And lo! Their other (bass) guitarist even harbours a real French moustache (and I would have loved to show of my French there, and used the French word for moustache, but sacre blue, that would have been exactly the same). Their music brings acts like Memory Tapes and Crystal Stilts to mind, but then partly in French, c’est très amusant.

For Jack Tatum and the rest of the band, the Luminaire is the final hurdle of their European tour, and where would you rather end a tour then at a venue that kindly reminds its audience that they are there for the music and that there are plenty of other opportunities of catching up on last weekend’s events other then during a gig? During the first few songs you can tell that is actually is the last night of the tour. The band seem to be a bit tired and looking forward to catching up on some well deserved sleep and Jack Tatum misses out on some of the higher notes. Luckily, they’re just having some teething problems and soon get going like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill – only more environmentally friendly.

Jack Tatum even hits the high notes on ‘Confirmation’ when he’s properly warmed up his throat. On record his vocals often sound just a bit overshadowed by the rest of the instrumentation and a slight haze of noise, which might leave you to think they’ve done that on purpose to cover up for his marginal singing voice. In a live setting he proves none of that is true and that’s he’s perfectly capable of churning out dreamy and catchy songs like ‘Summer Holiday’ and personal favourite ‘Drifter’. By the end of the set, which by my count included their entire debut album, the band really seem to be enjoying themselves. And this excitement is mirrored by the audience who, at the end of the set, insist on one more song. As ‘Summer Holiday’ had been left out up that point, the band naturally oblige before really calling their European tour a day.