Roger Quigley’s band outings around Manchester and Salford are usually free and played in good humour. Tonight’s outing is an open rehearsal for a gig that will take place the following night, at Moscow’s Open Book Festival. We are warned that there may be some starts and stops but, after a faulty speaker is put right during the first song, theMontgolfier Brothers run through tunes picked from their three albums.
The excellent opener, the title track to their first recorded offering ‘Seventeen Stars’, contains a familiar lyrical note of resignation. ‘Time to bring things down’ says Roger after another such lyrically themed song. The set is shorn of the instrumentals that sound like they could accompany a poignant social documentary about Salford. The tunes played, right up to 2005’s jaded 'love cheat’ themed selection from ‘All my Bad Thoughts’, are sometimes sparse and sometimes layered with new member cellist Sophia (which wouldn’t make them brothers any more I suppose) adding texture on songs such as on lushly orchestrated ‘Even if my mind can tell you’.
The gig was played in two parts with the backdrop of a black and white Italian film behind the band. The audience were seated at candle lit tables lit with only the odd actor punctuating things with a heckle. With not even a beer glass collection passed around for putting their thought out live show on, credit crunch culture doesn’t get better than this (you can forgive the Kings their beer prices).
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