Within the cramped confines of the Kitchen Garden Café, a
little Space was created on this final Sunday night in April. Not that there
had been any changes to this intimate venue, just that Birds of Chicago managed to bring
to Birmingham some of the magic from their fabulous latest album LIVE FROM
SPACE recorded at an Illinois venue last year. Since that recording the band’s
heartbeat, Allison Russell and JT Nero have welcomed a new arrival into their
life and the four month old Ida has wasted little time in making her presence
felt on their overseas tours. The immense pride of the couple has certainly
filtered through to their onstage performance as we were treated to a blossoming
demonstration of how to merge a country/folk rock sound with some sublime
soulful blues.
It was a great privilege to give LIVE FROM SPACE a glowing recommendation
based on its exceptional crystal clear quality and a number of songs performed
on the record were re-visited during this short interim UK and Ireland tour.
From the opening notes of Alli bringing us the tub thumping ‘Barley’, the first set sprung
immediately to life with the momentum carrying through to the high quality
driving rocker ‘All The City Girls’
which earned the band a well-deserved break. This latter song probably tipped
the balance towards the evening’s highlight although it was ran close by the
catchy ‘Mountains/Forests’ and Alli
showcasing her beautiful bi-lingual vocals with the carefree French number ‘Sans Souci’.
Of course as you would expect from touring artists,
informative chat broke up the songs often giving them some background. We
learned of Alli’s complex family roots, love of seahorses, proud Canadian
heritage and of life in her adopted, and JT’S long term, hometown of unsurprisingly,
Chicago. This led into the appropriately named ‘Chicago
Song’. The first set also saw a couple of new numbers previewed and we were
promised a follow up album to their self-titled 2012 debut when they tour again
next year. ‘Remembering Wild Horses’
and ‘Slow Mo Daisy’ look set to
appear on this release.
Birds of Chicago are touring as a four piece band this year
with Joe Faulhaber providing some fine support on electric guitar and Will
Waghorn keeping time on percussion. The complementary vocal styles of the rough
edged rock tinged JT and the contrasting elegance of Alli’s sultry tones are a prime
band feature as well as the latter’s musical contribution of banjo, clarinet
and ukulele. Their prolific song writing skills were in evidence on all but one
of the evening’s tracks with the exception being the Elizabeth Cotten penned ‘Gone in Pawn’ which JT had been
enthralled by Alli’s old band Po Girl covering it.
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The second set saw a couple more new tunes aired, ‘Love Kills Shadows’ and ‘Good Dream’ both having family
inspiration. These were nestled amongst old favourites such as ‘Sugar Dumpling’, ‘Trampoline’ and the excellent ‘Cannonball’.
One interesting thought from the evening was how some of the band’s more up
tempo songs would have sounded on a bigger platform than the brick walled acoustic
haven known as the Kitchen Garden Café. Maybe if their career goes from
strength to strength opportunities to frequent larger stages may present
themselves. Set list: Barley. Firespitter. Remember Wild Horses. Chicago Song, Sans Souci. Slo Mo Daisy. Moutains/Forests. All The City Girls. Prairie Lullaby. Sugar Dumpling. Flying Dream. Cannonball. Tramplone. Good Dream. Gone in Pawn Encore: Love Kills Shadows
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