BETTER THAN OXYGEN

OH WOW.


Last night I bore witness to one of the best gigs I have been to in a very very long time.
The Glee club is good for two reasons:
    ONE] The disco ball is incredibly impressive. I was literally like a dazed moth transfixed on its sparkl..sorry.
             Yeah the disco ball is nice, and
    TWO] It boasts a real intimacy that most venues in Birmingham can't re-create.  Although sometimes
              it feels nothing short of bizarre to be sitting down whilst watching  artists such as Noah and the
              Whale or Patrick Wolf, most of the time Glee get it oh so right.

SO at around half past eight a timid looking Marcus Foster picks up his mother's now-battered-and-not-the-tasty kind guitar, places it on his lap and addresses the silently intimidating audience. Strumming and tapping the guitar with a dominating fluidity, he instantly captivates every pair of eyes/ears in the room.  When he started to sing I couldn't quite get out of my mind that he sounded a bit like the lovechild of Paolo Nutini and Robin [with an 'n'] Williams.  I'll admit, although it doesn't sound like a blissful marriage of characteristics, it somehow works, and Marcus Foster leaves everyone desparately trying to remember his name so they can scurry home and carve his name into their lever arch files.  Here's a helping hand from Myspace.

I could have put a  clearer photo but I quite like this one which he has aptly named 'Pizza Face'.

By now, one glass of red wine down, eagerly waiting, there's a distinct buzz in this lounge-like room.
Asessing the crowd in the dark, Mason decides that it's OK to come out, and does so with a little grin on his face.
Finally! I couldn't tell you what he opened with because I was genuinely amazed at how much control he had over his voice, and how much better he sounds live.  I was transfixed!  Song upon song about dear old troubled America, entwined with incredibly perfect chord progressions and a lightness and sincerity in his voice were a recipe for true escapism. Some captivating new gems were tried out on us such as 'Baby Shoes', set to be released soon on his forthcoming EP, worth a Youtube [yes I did just turn that into a verb], but the real electricity came in the encore which was ultimately what seemed like half an hour of the best intimate houseparty of requests. And a joke about crabs.  True highlights had to be Oxygen, a video of which I have posted onto my facebook page, and my favourite, The World That I Wanted which I am excited to share here.

Those of you in Brighton, Manchester, Bristol, London and York [York? Really?] have absolutely no excuse.But enough waffling.


Breakfast is over.
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