Monsters Of Folk @ The Troxy

Went to see Monsters Of Folk at The Troxy last night, and as live reviews go this won't be the most incisive you'll ever read.

So if anyone is actually still reading after that, then I'll start off by talking about the venue. I don't know when The Troxy became a gig venue, but I think it was only a few months ago. It's a 20's art deco hall, presumably formerly a cinema or cabaret venue, and it's a lovely place. Funny how the nicer the venue is the nicer people treat it. I didn't see any litter and you could actually still see the pattern on the carpet. My taxi driver home told me he'd been to a wedding there. 3000 people he said. Blimey I said. Yeah he said. Busy tonight, I said. And so on.

If you're not sure who Monsters Of Folk are, you can have a little look at them here, on The Monthly from August. The band came on at 8.30pm sharp, which caught me and My Wife out a little, so we missed the first number. I'd gone to the gig thinking it would be a relatively short one because they only have one album, but of course they also take turns doing tracks from their day job bands, so it was actually going to be a really long gig, which probably explains the early start. We have to leave not long after 10pm and I think they were set to go all the way to 11pm, so that's pretty good value for money.

I like Bright Eyes, M. Ward and My Morning Jacket, though I'm not an expert on their catalogues, so found myself a little lost during the set, and the actual Monsters tracks seem to come up pretty infrequently. Still, they're clearly masters in their fields and they way they all just rotated around the instruments was impressive.

I guess I was hoping for it to feel special in some way, a bit like a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of these great musicians (which is kind of what it was), but it didn't quite have that spark for me. Again, that was probably my own fault for not knowing their stuff as well as I could have done.

On the plus side though, there merch was great, so My Wife picked up the T-shirt above and I got the limited edition print below. Not quite what I'd intended to be the highlight of the night, but close enough.