Still Corners, Kraak Gallery, Manchester 03/02/12
(click to enlarge)
I like Kraak Gallery. I have also been known to like cinematic dream pop on occasion too. So seeing Still Corners at Kraak had all the hallmarks of being a good gig. Even if there was no Oranjeboom on sale that night.
The Steals (or two of The Steals anyway - Jayn Hanna and Daniel Land) warmed the crowd up nicely on this freezing February evening with some hauntingly beautiful songs. Daniel Land is a disgustingly talented musician, and those who only know him for his bass playing for The Engineers should definitely check out his work with the Modern Painters, Riverrun and The Steals. It was a shame that there was only a smattering of people there to see them.For Still Corners I was right near the front, something that doesn’t happen for me too often at gigs anymore. You’d think that the people who make the effort to force there way down there might either be the smallest or the ones who really want to hear the band, right?Not tonight.I was stood in front of the tallest man in the known universe. He was about 15ft 2 inches tall. I thought he’d found himself an equally freakish tall girlfriend as well until I realised she’d had to stack 4 chairs one on top of each other and clamber up them to even get close to him.And then they talked. They talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked over every song. And it wasn’t like they were talking about anything important. At one point girlfriend asked 17 foot boyfriend what his favourite Beatles song is. Well, not so much asked as bellowed it out so that anyone within a 2 mile radius of Stevenson Square would have heard her.What. Is. Your. Favourite. Beatles. Song.FUCK OFF.Still Corners endeared themselves to the crowd by revealing that Manchester is Texan Greg Hughes favourite city. It is not Still Corners singer Tessa Murray’s favourite city, but then again it’s not my favourite city either and I live here, so I’ll let her off.
They played most of their album ‘Creatures of an Hour’ in front of an light show of films that perfectly suited their sound. It was hard not to like it.Unless you’re a 19ft tall man and his girlfriend. Oh well.
The Steals websiteStill Corners websiteHobby’s photographs of Still Corners
