Top Tip: Micah Hinson + Iron & Wine, Whelans, Nov 4

The things I do for this site. I have (or is that will-on-have-when?) travelled into the future to the Iron & Wine gig on the 4th and yea verily it is great, but not 'cos of Iron & Wine, I've heard almost nothing of theirs. Well ok, I haven't travelled into the future. And Iron & Wine might be great too. But — Listen! You Must Believe Me!

What I really did was go see The Earlies supported by Half Cousin and Micah P. Hinson in King Tut's Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow. This on the strength of MPH's album Micah P. Hinson & the Gospel of Progress, having not heard (of) either of the other bands.

Got there a little while before the gig started despite a delayed train; was queueing for drink when MPH came on stage, abandoned queue due to ongoing battle between all three bar staff and the (dismantled) cash register. MPH's stage presence was endearingly geeky with a vague hint of maybe not usually being in front of the lights, but once he got into his set he certainly gave it his all, cracked voice and paroxysmic jumpy-uppy-downy enthusiasm included. The Gospel of Progress, his backing band, are all (I think all) members of the Earlies, who seem to be something of a driving force behind getting him out to the world (in context of some fairly bleak history, detailed on Coda's web site). Played about half an hour, all but one song from the album. Perhaps I should mention that his album is absolutely top, one of the best things I've heard this year (with competition from cLOUDDEAD, Blonde Redhead, The Books, Fennesz). Sound is basically emotionally open folk-type stuff a la Will Oldham, but with (often but not always) more lush instrumentation (though the drum line was frequently deliciously stark). Audience was hugely enthusiastic, which was nice; I think perhaps quite a few of them had heard him before, but others hadn't & were running off to buy the album two songs in to the set.

Next act were Half Cousin, kind of experimental stuff, more angular sounds and odd rhythms. Could see that they are perhaps good but not my cup of tea - lead singer's voice, manner and hat particularly got on my nerves. Audience weren't quite so enthusiastic either.

Now the headliners: frequently (and not so inaccurately to judge from this performance) described as a mixture of psychedelia and Mercury Rev, The Earlies crammed eleven players onto King Tut's small stage, and duly proceeded to rock out. As well as a bit of the Mercury Rev, there was plenty of Oh Brother Where Art Thou? -type vocal stylings (What's the name of that stuff? Bluegrass or something? I am so ignorant. I am sorry.), and they grew from very sweet mulitlayered loveliness through to complete stomping power. Very good fun indeed, was extremely reluctant to leave to catch the last train, but these Glaswegians aren't big on advice about getting back to Embra after midnight — in fact, I'm not sure that the people I asked had ever even made the journey in daylight — and the last thing I knew I could get was a 23:30 train <sigh>.

So, a quality night out. King Tut's is a great intimate venue (won an award for being so great in fact), MPH kicks arse, and the Earlies rock. Those of you in Dublin can catch MPH with Iron & Wine, and I strongly recommend you do so. I'll certainly be at their Edinburgh gig on the 2nd if I can get in.