Gabrielle Aplin @ HMV Institute

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I went to see Gabrielle Aplin on Thursday night and although they're (VERY) currently in the process of removing the HMV part from their name, The HMV Institute in Birmingham was actually quite refreshing for a change. (NB. I just took a look at this site, which was yesterday The HMV Institute but as of today has become The Institute. Bravo with the quick work!) There are very few venues in the heart of Birmingham that fit the purposes of artists like Gabrielle to be honest. We used to have the Carling Academy, which then became The O2 Academy but I'm pretttttttyyyy sure that's gone now, so this place made a nice change. It even has a coat check?! :O 

So anyway, besides the fact that I was actually quite ill (still am, hence the blog post at 3am; I cannot breathe) and also that I had to give up my prime spot in the centre of the room so that I could dash to the ladies in the far corner (I thought I was gonna blow chunks) and then stay in that corner, 1) just in case but 2) because that's where the air con was, BUT besides all that it was actually quite a great night! 

Gabrielle Aplin has a fantastic voice, both live and in recordings but live... Her voice live is superior to her recordings (I think that's actually quite rare these days). She was super sweet, and appropriately nervous at the beginning but then seemed super chilled with the audience, cracking jokes with the rowdy, hench, 40-year-old male hecklers by the end (yeah, I don't know what they were doing there either). 

She sang songs from her future release debut album English Rain (13th May), opening with Panic Cord, her next single from the album that has also been previously released on one of the two EPs that have seen the light of day on iTunes. 

My favourite songs from the night were obviously the ones that I knew, including her cover of The Power Of Love, Keep Pushing Me and her current single Please Don't Say You Love Me. The track of night, I think everyone agreed, which was also the closer, was Home. 


There was a brilliant moment when she was singing Home where, after realising that most of us knew it, she asked the audience to sing, stepping away from the mic, the band very quietly playing as everyone (mostly the females) in the audience sang the lyrics perfectly. It was the most harmonised sing along I've ever heard at a concert, I was quite blown away. 

You can preview all of her songs off her album here. The ones I'm really looking forward to are Keep On Walking, a song that Gabrielle announced was "about some dick" to a round of laughter. This was another sing-along-song on the night where even the rowdy old men joined in quite joyously. Also looking forward to Salvation and the rest of the album, basically.
Here's her cover of The Power Of Love, in case you were in doubt about whether to listen to her or not...


Anyway, it's been a while, I basically missed out the whole of February, but who likes that month anyway?! I'm hoping to blog about Paramore soon this weekend. I've been wanting to since the video for Now came out, but here we are with another single (Still Into You) preparing us for the album orgasm we're going to experience when the album comes out on 8th april (it best be on my door step since I've pre-ordered it!) 

I've also got some new tunes to blog about so I'll get on it!!! 

~HL

If there's a future, we want it NOW!

Tweet New year. New look.

Yes, I've finally managed to find time to change the blog. Now that I've figured it out a little, and as I learn more about HTML codes (man, are they a minefield), I'll hopefully update this to look a lot better over the next few months. 

As I was doing all this at 4am last night, I was randomly listening to songs on my iPod and found some that I wanted to share in this post. 

First up is a song by a band I think I may have already mentioned, Young The Giant. I heard there song Cough Syrup on the Fright Night soundtrack, which I posted about here. If you haven't heard of them, well get on board.

This is called My Body and is so energetic and verrrrry catchy. Love it. Now, it's in my Vampire Diaries playlist so..well...it must of been played on there. *shrugs*

They're definitely getting more recognition but this is one of my favourite tracks of theirs.

Now for some oldies but goodies. I've just finished re-watching all four seasons of The OC. Cause I'm cool and there's nothing on TV. But whatever you say about that show, you cannot deny the music. It was amazing and featured my all time favourite Music Supervisor, Alexandra Patsavas. 

Band Of Horses - The Ends Not Near

This song features on the 6th and final The OC soundtrack and was actually the title of the final episode of the series. I do love Band of Horses but only in small doses. I don't think I've ever been able to listen to one of their albums all the way through. Great band though!

I might just do a full on The OC music post next because there are a lot of songs I want to put up just from that show, so I'll leave those for next time.

Next up is a bit of Florence + The Machine. Gotta love Florence. I absolutely love Ceremonials and it's an album I come back to over and over again and find a new love for the songs I wasn't as into in the beginning. This is one of those cases. This one is called Bedroom Hymns and I found a completely new love for it when it was used on TV recently. I think it was used over an advertisement of upcoming programmes on one of the channels... Sky maybe or FX, I forget. This is a great song and far too short. 


The final instalment for today is, of course, Paramore. 

Yes, they finally released their first single off their self-titled album, which is out in April. The first listen of Now completely threw me but that was the same feeling I got with Renegade and Hello Cold World. It's so different to their older stuff but I love the direction this is going. Give it a couple of listens and be completely hooked! 

Lost the battle, win the war
I'm bringing my sinking ship back to the shore
Starting over, head back in
There's a time and a place to die but this ain't it!

Love the lyrics too, as always. It's definitely one of those songs that the more you listen to it, the more you like it. This has seriously been on repeat but it's so annoying that you can't download it from itunes until February 18th or something... You have to acquire it other ways, I'm afraid. Hopefully we'll get the video soon, very much looking forward to that!

That's all for now. Hope you like the new look.

~HL