NRV Promotion 5 Year anniversary party review!
Last week we were privileged to attend the 5th anniversary party of NRV Promotion over at the Petit Bain in Paris. The six bands under the NRV management wing would be performing a compact set each, which meant that as well as enjoying some of our favourite bands all under one roof we were about to make a discovery or two as well.
Six bands squeezed into one night at the Petit Bain was going to be tight – the set up was that each band had thirty minutes on stage, leaving fifteen minutes in between for limited gear changeover and a quick “I guess this will have to do” soundcheck. Given the accumulating run-over that was bound to happen for each band, part of the appeal for tonight was to see just how well it would work as a concept. There were bound to be nerves, especially for Angela Dufin, who is, essentially NRV Promotion. We were here to celebrate her years of hard work, the choices she has made regarding which artists to represent, and also, if you chose to look at it this way, to be inspired.
LIQUID BEAR
Liquid Bear are a band we had only just gotten around to checking out just over a week before the gig, so naturally this was the first time we had ever seen them live. Whether it was a case of timing – the band were on stage first – or if it was simply that there are a lot of people who won’t make the effort to go check out the ‘first band’ on a bill, we don’t know, but the Petit Bain was probably only about one quarter full by the time the band began their set. However, what we do know is this : Liquid Bear are incredible. There is just so much going on with their sound. Not only do they have one of the most charismatic frontmen we’ve seen in a while in Kostia Yordanoff, but next to him, Ilya Franciosi was, for at least some of the set (if not all, we hadn’t noticed to be truthful) playing fretless guitar in the most sublime manner, something that suddenly explained the dreaminess of their sound. Adrien Rouyer on drums and keyboard player Gaspard Kremer complete this faultless four-piece (interestingly the only band of the night with more than three members). The songs are progressive, deep and layered, but also memorable in the way that a lot of progressive music isn’t, and their sound, their look, it is all there as well. But these are early days, relatively speaking, for Liquid Bear and if they continue to evolve and progress on this path they have stepped onto then there are going to be some incredible things coming from this band in the future.
Some good news we discovered soon after their set was over is that Liquid Bear are soon to begin recording that first album … the one that, in the days following the gig we’re finding ourselves increasingly impatient to have in our hands. In the meantime we highly recommend that you go and check out their video Closer To The End and just lose yourself in the sound and visuals. In fact, just click here right now.
GURL
If anything, Gurl were the antithesis of what we had just seen. With the arrival of more of the ticket-buying public, the room was starting to fill up … just as the energy level was about to change. Gurl were also new to us, but we’d heard enough beforehand to get an idea of what to expect. A band that will for now remain very at-home in small, sweaty clubs packed with those of us to want to jump around to their own style of what you’d probably call pop/punk if it wasn’t for the fact that it was missing a touch of anger, they suited the venue well and clearly had their share of fans in the audience tonight. It was a set that worked well in the format of tonight’s show, compact, in-your-face. You know what your in for with bands of this style, and you know if you come to one of their gigs you’re going to have a great night … Great stuff!
STORM ORCHESTRA
Storm Orchestra are currently out there riding the wave of their “What A Time To Be Alive” album, and after seeing them live a few months ago at the album release party at Backstage By The Mill we were looking forward to seeing them again. Third on the stage, completing the “first half” of the night, they looked very relaxed at home in this environment … arrogant in the most positive sense of the word. Bands need this when they walk on stage, the best bands have it.
They definitely had their fans in here tonight, which was when we started to wonder how many people in here were fans of multiple bands, or if many of the crowd were making discoveries and just getting into the whole vibe of the thing. Either way, Storm Orchestra walked onstage to the biggest cheers … so far.
A good fun band in a different way to Gurl, Storm Orchestra are more polished, a little more accomplished, and definitely know how to bang out a good catchy chorus. Live, they also rock a whole lot more than you’d think if you had only listened to their recordings. They have their own style, and their audience love it. Probably the most commercial sounding band of the night, and as a result perhaps the least able to create a compact thirty minute set that really worked. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, more than likely a result of the elevation they will be experiencing as their album takes hold and they play more and more headline gigs.
Nonetheless, they did their thing and the audience loved it. We’re looking forward to catching them at one of their own shows as soon as possible.
DECASIA
The mighty Decasia blew us away instantly the first time we saw them, and this time was no different – except for the fact that it was different because this time around not only did we know their music (most of it, there were some awesome new songs on the set tonight) but we had a very high level of expectation.
Like Grandma’s Ashes, Decasia played on the Valley stage at Hellfest earlier this year, and whether or not the experience has caused them to up their game we wouldn’t know, but they did hit the stage with an energy that we weren’t expecting, even after that first gig we witnessed at Supersonic. There is a solidity to their music and it’s delivery. It is also at times utterly manic. Singer/guitarist Maxime Richard was on fire tonight, his playing style is becoming instantly recognisable … as if, at times, he is just hanging on to the sounds he produces by his fingernails, and it is almost impossible to take your eyes from him. It is countered of course by the bass of Fabien Proust and the drums of Geoffrey Riberry who form the epitome of what we refer to as a “solid rhythm section” … but they are much more than that. It is thanks to their style that Maxime can let rip in the way he does, but Fabien’s bass lines are essentially what we are listening to, and his stoic delivery is something to behold in itself.
It was around this part of the night that we were starting to find this thirty-minute set business a little unbearable! We needed more Decasia tonight, that was for sure.
HOWARD
If there was an award for “feel-good band of the night” then we would probably have given it to Howard – even before the show started. You can feel it in the crowd as they set their gear up and do the briefest of sound checks, a positivity and an excitement. This may have been partly heightened by the fact that for the entire night it was Howard’s branded theremins (built by Maxime from Decasia incidentally) which flanked every band that played, not letting anyone forget what we had to look forward to later on.
Hitting the stage with what appears to be their customary show-starter, I Hear A Sound, the energy in the room just went through the roof. Singer/guitarist JM Canoville has everyone in his hand instantly – he is an absolutely bombastic, screaming burst of energy, and I Hear A Sound is the perfect showcase for both him and Howard as a whole.
A couple of songs in, Void, from their debut album, was tonight, as usual, a high point of their set and a chance, if, impossibly you hadn’t already noticed, for “Hammond Organ / Synthesiser / Bass / Theremin player”, Raphäel Jeandenand to demonstrate exactly what he brings to the band. Whether it was the atmosphere, our imagination, or reality we’re not sure, but tonight his solo section in the second half of the song seemed to go on for an eternity, in the best possible way, just lifting, lifting, lifting the entire room. It felt historic. Tom Karren‘s drumming meanwhile has exactly the right combination of energy and groove to propel their music, his flute playing among the audience during Event Horizon becoming another anticipated moment of each show.
As ever, it’s the sense that these guys are just loving what they are doing, and love playing music with each other that just emanates from whatever stage you see them play on that makes their gigs what they are, a joyous celebration every time. No one here leaves disappointed.
GRANDMA’S ASHES
We are not sure what the criteria was for the order in which everyone played tonight, but it did feel like it made sense, the whole night gelling seamlessly (I guess if we were pushed it felt unfair that someone had to go on first, especially given that first band were so incredible). So when Grandma’s Ashes arrived on stage it felt appropriate that this was the last band of the night. There is a gravitas to their music that translates so well to a live environment, it fills every corner of the room. The level of musicianship, combined with the songwriting, and then of course the performance, is just on another level.
As ever, the completeness of their sound just takes us away to another place – like a Roadhouse scene in Twin Peaks where the music takes over as a sign that something is happening!, or simply a dream where sound and light take over, only for the often abrupt heaviness to snap us out of this moment and back into reality … it’s a very real sensation. The denouement of their set, the magnificent Borderlands, is a prime example of this, from its acoustic, airy beginnings, becoming almost unbearable in it’s weight, building and building until it seems impossible that it is ever going to end, pulling us down and down into wherever it plans to take us!
Drummer Edith Seguier‘s playing is something else, so perfectly placed within the music that it’s almost easy to overlook, but you simply cannot play music like this, with its varying tempos, time signatures and changes in energy, it’s complexity, without being exceptional at what you do. The same goes for guitarist Myriam El Moumni, clearly an educated and accomplished musician, her playing could easily fill the hands of two guitarists in any other band. Singer/bassist Eva Hägen arrives on the stage like such a badass that it’s impossible to not feel you are looking at another Siouxsie Sioux or Joan Jett at the beginning of their careers. There is no weak link in this band. They are all simply astonishing good at what they do, and they seem to gel together perfectly.
At the end of Grandma’s Ashes set, Eva invited NRV Promotion‘s founder Angela Dufin onto the stage after thanking her for her work and for the support she has given the bands. They were then joined onstage by the members of all six bands. It was a kind and warm tribute to the person who has brought all of this into being, and looking at everyone on that stage together was a quick awakening to an astonishing fact that NRV, Angie, has taken on six bands to manage … and they are all good, some of them exceptionally good. While we wondered about the future of these bands, and what heights they could potentially reach over the next decade it was impossible to not think the same thing about NRV itself, and what Angie herself will achieve in the music business in the coming years.
We can’t wait to see how everything progresses!
words and photos : Brian Downie
