If ever a band were dressed up for the occasion, Golden Fable were that band. Tim McIver walked on sporting a golden waistcoat, and bandmate Rebecca Palin had white feathered headgear reminiscent of PJ Harvey in her latest performances. This, I’m sure, was to keep her noticeable amongst the 3 walls of synths she was surrounded by.
If you read our preview of this gig, you’ll know that we were looking to see how they would achieve the expanse of sound in their live performances. With Palin’s voice filling up the top layer impeccably and McIver’s guitar filling in below, the rows of synths added to the elements and the whole effect was very pleasing to the listeners below.
Even when the synths were ditched altogether (more on that later) they still had their own sound, an important and difficult step to achieve. Their cover of Motorcycle Emptiness a brilliant example of this.
No performance is perfect and there were minor issues with the set up. The drum machine had no real depth and maybe would have been better with a live drummer, so some songs lost the kick they needed.
Regardless, their music and performance is still very good. Both of them seemed to be enjoying the stage time, giving glimpses of their dance moves when not busy concentrating on their instruments.
All dancing was put on hold for one of the highlights of the evening. Occurring towards the end of their set, McIver suggested that we all needed to be very quiet, “…we’re going to try something.”
The two made their way down from the stage to the front of crowd. Completely unmic’d, and only armed with an acoustic guitar and voices, they began to play. At once, those that had gathered hushed, and those not paying attention were quickly reminded to hold their tongues.
With the crowd now hooked, Palin’s voice floated beautifully high above the guitar. Sat at the back you couldn’t make out the words but you could make out the delicate sounds, worried that the slightest breeze might carry them away.
Golden Fable were very close to achieving live what their songs are at home. That said, we can be sure that the performances will get better with time. A silver performance, but we’ll keep coming back till it’s Golden.
words by Daniel Savage
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