Thursday 22/07/10 Bombay Bicycle Club @ Union Chapel, London

It’s hard to believe it’s only a year ago that Bombay Bicycle Club released their debut album. The name, along with the recognition that this was an incredibly sophisticated work from a teenage band, seems to have been with us for an age. Tacked on the end of that album was ‘The Giantess’, a delightful acoustic number that seemed nonetheless incongruous on an indie boy band record. Little did we know that this was where Jack Steadman’s heart truly lay.

Second album ‘Flaws’ is as unexpected as it is brilliant. Acoustic throughout, it features eight specially written tracks, a song from the first album re-worked for acoustic instruments, and two covers, one of John Martyn, the other of Joanna Newsom, both of which are stunning.

The solemn intimacy of Islington’s Union Chapel could hardly be more appropriate as a setting in which to perform this work, as the band kick off with jaunty album opener ‘Rinse Me Down’. Additional musicians have been drafted in for these performances, including a violinist, banjo player, and support act Lucy Rose on backing vocals, but as each song passes and musicians, including those in the core band, enter and leave, it’s clear that it’s the ever-present Jack Steadman who is the hub around which everything revolves. Writer of all the material, looking for all the world like a young W.B. Yeats with his spectacles and foppish hair, Steadman is gifted with an ability to make music from his acoustic guitar that very few possess. Add to this his distinctively deep, velvety voice, and the packed out Union Chapel could happily sit and listen to him playing alone all night long.

Back to the set, and ‘Dust On The Ground’ and ‘Evening/Morning’, both re-worked from the first record, gain cheers of recognition, while ‘Leaving Blues’, with Lucy Rose on vocal harmonies and a gentle ebb and flow from the rhythm section, is as poignant a love song as any written in recent years.
There is a mini solo interlude, with Steadman giving us the lovely ‘Jewel’ and a cover of Loudon Wainwright’s ‘Motel Blues’ on his own, before Rose and a harpist come back on for ‘Flaws’, the album’s title track.

The record is only a shade over half an hour long, and so 45 minutes after they began, Steadman announces the end of the set and the band walk off stage. The roadie re-tuning the instruments is a dead giveaway, however, and a modicum of foot-stomping later, they are back out, this time with a choir in tow. They finish firstly with highlight of the last album ‘Always Like This’, which sounds more tropical than ever played acoustically, and finally with standout Joanna Newsom cover ‘Swansea’, the band disappearing one by one while the choir remain, the harmony of their vocal refrain echoing around the chapel.

Already sitting astride two musical genres, Bombay Bicycle Club appear to have the capability to make the sort of mark on music that few get the opportunity to make. For now, folkies too snotty to consider picking up an album by an indie band would benefit from a temporary suspension of their principles; this is as essential a work of folk as has been heard for some time.