Alabama Shakes/Dylan LeBlanc - Barrowlands - 13/11/12 (Glasgow)

In May Alabama Shakes provided me with one of the best gigs that I have ever attended.

A show that pretty much set the benchmark for live shows in 2012.

Now here we are as the year eases ever closer to ending and the band are back in Glasgow, only this time they have nothing to prove.

Between then and now they have taken over the world, and virtually everyone has fallen in love with them.

Anyone who has been following their ascendency is well aware that they have been leaving a trail of ecstatic reviews in their wake as they have move from one country to the next, and the chances of a stumble now will not be on the cards.

However prior to them taking to the stage of the legendary Barrowlands Ballroom we were to be entertained by Dylan LeBlanc, a singer songwriter who similar to Alabama Shakes, The Secret Sisters and a whole fistful of other talented musicians, comes to us from Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

Sadly his performance fell far short of emulating the successes of those who have preceded him to these shores.

Dogged by a shockingly poor sound he was lost to the majority of the audience.

The reverb on his vocals made it virtually impossible to make out a single word that he enunciated, and it looked like Melvin Duffy couldn't hear anything from the monitors and was trying to play along by watching what Dylan was doing.

Even Ben Tanners (Alabama Shakes) guesting on keyboards was pretty much a redundant exercise as virtually nothing could be heard of him.

I don't recall the last time I have seen a support battle on through such a horrible sound.

Hints of just how good Dylan LeBlanc actually is were on show during his heartfelt rendition of the Rev Al Green's 'Let's stay together', but I suspect for many it was too little too late.

I happily went and bought his latest CD, but I will have to wait until he returns to hopefully see him perform a set that will show him in the best possible light.

I could say that it was hugely disappointing, but my disappointment wasn't rooted in the performance, but rather the issues that surrounded it.

I sincerely hope that others in the audience were picking up on that instead of writing Dylan off.

A great shame really.

The sound issues failed to make the leap from the end of Dylan's performance to the beginning of Alabama Shakes though.

Once Brittany and her boys came on it was all systems go.

Or was it?

For me the rawness of the show earlier in the year was gone, and was replaced with a slicker, and probably more assured performance.

It's as if the band have become more comfortable with the world they exist in after initially being thrown in at the deep end, and that comfort has served to eat away slightly at the passion.

Then when you add on the repetitious nature of being on the road for so long the result seems to be that all the gloriously organic and explosive delivery of the songs has been tamed to an extent.

Not a lot, but just enough for the show to feel quite different from what I had expected.

Brittany still sounds stunning of course, and the band are exceptionally tight, but even the new songs - which bode well for the next album - sound pretty polished.

Maybe too polished.

It's strange to say, but while I really enjoyed myself at the time all I have done is pick at it in the cold light of day.

I'm not sure if it is the familiarity with the material that has had a bit of an impact on my enjoyment, or that having experienced the King Tuts show this outing suffered in comparison, but it would be fair to say that the buzz I felt earlier in the year that lasted for days was already fading as I was leaving the venue.

Then again it is possible that it was the size of the venue that took some of the enjoyment away, and what the band deal in is best allowed to push at the walls of smaller clubs.

If that is the case then there's not a lot that the band can do about it.

Possibly I'm just feeling that they are victims of their own success.

A great gig in reality, but one that had just too much to live up to.

Alabama Shakes - King Tuts - 09/05/12 (Glasgow)

Sometimes music can virtually transcend reality.

It can take you from your immediate surroundings and provide you with a high that no chemical concoction every could.

Your eyes dilate, the hairs rise on your arms, and for a moment in time the sounds created by a band, or a single artist, manages to become the centre of your universe.

A connection is made between those who are creating the music and those who are listening to it.

It can feel like a spiritual experience, and an argument could be made that the path to nirvana is an aural one.

Imagine the band performing as Michelangelo's God, and the audience as his Adam, while the gap between crackles with the electricity of life.

That's what it was like witnessing Alabama Shakes on their first visit to Glasgow.

In over thirty years of attending gigs I can count on one hand the occasions that I have felt that primal connection, and I count myself lucky that I have participated in as many as that.

While there are great gigs and phantasmagorical shows that live on in your memory, it is also true that some performances exist as a singularly breathtaking experience.

They go beyond what it is to simply participate in listening to music live.

It's not every artist or band that can provide that moment, and often when they do it isn't something that can be repeated on cue.

Instead it would seem that it has to organically come to life. 

A certain balance between performer and audience has to be reached, and then maintained.

It doesn't even seem to be something that needs a physical connection, as when I have been privileged to be in the right place at the right time I would say that the main performer isn't actually trying to entertain, but instead they have become lost in what they are doing, and that intensely personal evocation of their art is quite possibly where the magic lies.

The connection with the listener is real, but it is also voyeuristic.

I stood stage front, and slightly to the side of Brittany Howard, and was transfixed as she sang.

Every single word, every single syllable, every grunt and yelp was emotionally charged.

What Alabama Shakes did isn't something that can be captured in a studio or on a television appearance.

No matter how good anyone considers their album to be, or how impressed they are with the live footage that is available, it is still a diluted facsimile of the real deal.

The phrase 'you had to be there' has never been more apt.

Previously I have spoken about the similarities in her tone to Janis Joplin, but live there is so much more going on.

There's the soul of Stax and Muscle Shoals, there's James Brown, Aretha Franklin, the desperate rawness of Joplin and some emotive Tina Turner all fighting for the upper hand.

None can manage it though as there is only one Brittany Howard.

A singularly inspirational talent who deservedly garners hyperbolic superlatives from critics everywhere she goes

The band themselves are rock solid in support.

Someone said to me that they seemed quite static.

That's not how I would describe them.

Instead they are the skeleton that provides the framework that everything else hangs on.

They don't have to pander to show business flourishes.

Instead they simply let their skills as musicians do the talking.

If any of them started throwing rock star shapes then it would demean the performance and Alabama Shakes aren't about that.

They are all about the music.

It really was a privilege to have been there.

I've ran out of things to say that will convey how good the whole show was.

Similar to how some claim to speak in tongues as they are receiving Gods own words straight to them, and that their puny human bodies cannot articulate the message I may just start babbling here.

It really was that good.

If you can't accept my word on it then go and see them, and I sincerely hope that they are firing on all cylinders and you get turned inside out like I did.

Band Website     Rough Trade Records        Alabama Shakes on Facebook

Alabama Shakes - Boys & Girls

There's little doubt that I'll not be the only person mentioning Janis Joplin during her Holding Company days in an Alabama Shakes review.
There's just no getting away from it.
The ghost of Janis looms large through the sound-alike vocals of Brittany Howard, but while the same rawness in the delivery is there, it also has a great deal of sweet soul in it that's wholly Brittany's own, and it's that southern soul that gives the band their own persona.
It's little wonder that the music industry is in a lather about this band.
It's not based on pr stunts, or the deep pockets of a backer, but instead the excitement is rooted in the awareness that this band can write a mean song, and with that ability paired with a vocal delivery that could either raise the hair on the back of your neck. or strip the paint from a wall at hundred paces is something that they will see as a sure fire money spinner.
Similar to how the world fell in love with The White Stripes, and then latterly The Kings of Leon, with both bands bucking the mainstream trend, I could see Alabama Shake doing the same.
Once the album is out in April then watch for a Jools Holland appearance and a single nestling between a couple of mindless empty pop ditties in the charts.
It just seems so inevitable.
Global success must be on the horizon.
If it doesn't happen then I think we should spearhead a revolution that will allow us to put in power people who will ensure that bands like Alabama Shakes get the credit they deserve.
So am I saying that this band are actually worth turning the world upside down for?
Well I suppose I am.
Pre-order it now and be forever happy.