Taken By Trees @ Mono 13/12/09

It’s twelve days before Christmas and everything in this small corner of Glasgow is adorably twee. Tonight Mono is packed full of rimmed speced, wooly jumper and cardigan wearing kids without so much as a checkered shirt in sight.

Mono is truly unique venue and is perfectly suited for this kind of event; the vegan café bar just exudes twee quaintness. People sat around tables or browsing through records in Monorail soaking up the atmosphere and eagerly awaiting the treat in store. It is not hard to believe that Stephen Pastel, Glasgow’s indie pop hero and front man of the band partly responsible for this delightful genre of music, The Pastels, works here. Indeed Stephen is in attendance tonight and he is not the only recognisable indie pop face. Camera Obscura vocalist and friend of Victoria Bergsman (Taken By Trees), Tracyanne Campbell is here spinning records before the performance, for which most of the equipment has been leant by Camera Obscura.

Before the band take the stage this is already the most lovely setting; girls performing pretty little dances in open spaces, burning incense in every corner and people posing for photographs with heart shaped biscuits just add to the beautiful atmosphere.

It is well gone ten when Taken By Trees take the stage but no one is complaining about the wait. The Swedish singer, tonight backed by a four-piece band, seems slightly timid as she speaks to the crowd in front of a charming backdrop of footage including kittens, snow leopards and red pandas. It is hard to imagine how this setting could be any cuter but then the band start playing, producing some of the most charmingly quaint tracks to have come out in recent times. If you look though the window behind the band you can see two bicycles tied to a lone tree, which combines with the projection to conjure just the cutest image.

Still with all this twee-ness it seems ridiculous that her most famous song is almost universally known in the English-speaking world. Not just for it being in the latest John Lewis ads aired during the X Factor, but also for it being a cover of Guns N Roses’ hit ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’. Still this cover is nothing like the brash, loud hair metal of Slash and co., she has very much put her own slant on the track. Gone are Axl’s crude yelps and the harsh guitars, instead we have chirpy keyboard lines on top of sweetly delivered vocals, indeed if it weren’t for the lyrics this would be almost unrecognisable as a cover.

Arguably the standout track of the night is also a cover, but a very different one. This time the former front woman of The Concretes has stripped Panda Bear’s (who features on her latest album, East of Eden) superbly pop, layered ode to his wife and daughter ‘My Girls’, which featured on the last Animal Collective LP. The track has not only been altered to ‘My Boys’ to give it a more feminine edge but the pretty simplicity of her version make it almost as irresistible as the original and in a live setting it is hard not to won over by its grasping beauty.

This show is quite possibly the most twee event to happen in Glasgow in a long time; the setting, the act, the people just all add to overwhelming cuteness of the whole night. At the finish of the show you are left with that overwhelming warm feeling inside that everything is lovely, just the ticket for this festive season all that’s needed is a bit of cinnamon, maybe there was some in the biscuits.

Picture: Tomas Hermoso

Neon Indian @ Captain's Rest 1/12/09

There’s a surprising baron feel in the Captain’s Rest this evening, especially when considering the praise tonight’s headliners Neon Indian have had heaped upon them for their superb debut album ‘Psychic Chasms’. Still, at this point the night is young and it does pick up somewhat for the band taking the stage (albeit not the full house expected), the quiz upstairs takes the majority of the blame for the late crowd.

The bulk of the crowd are lucky in their lateness as the stage times are running way behind and when the Texan four-piece take the stage they are greeted with a big enough reception. The face of Neon Indian, Alan Palomo, sways around delivering vocals and bleeps drawing large proportions of the crowd into rousing sing-a-longs. However, it is not the vocal hooks that will bring huge success to this band, it is the brilliantly catchy keyboard lines, courtesy of the lovely Leanne Macomber tonight, which could easily leave anyone humming them for the next week.

It is Macomber tonight who indulges in the most crowd interaction, encouraging the audience forward and making weak yet appreciated jokes about her very questionable Scottish decent. Still, the real genius behind this band is Palomo, the album is pretty much all his work, he is Neon Indian and for evidence of his talents you need to look no further than wonderfully catchy, ditzy pop single ‘Deadbeat Summer’. The track doesn’t necessarily stand out in the set as almost every track tonight drips with brilliant retro pop, but if you don’t yet know this band there is no better place to start.

Neon Indian’s first visit to Glasgow may have been plagued with time troubles but this will certainly not knock them of track. This band are destined for better things and don’t be surprised to see them selling out much larger venues in the not too distant future.

Their debut album ‘Psychic Chasms’ is out now of Lefse.

Picture: Lucy Knott