Last night, Mew took to the stage at the Shepherds Bush Empire in London to continue their European tour in promotion of recent albums, No More Stories… Unusually for a venue like the Shepherds Bush Empire, the sound was a bit off for the first few songs but halfway through The Zookeeper’s Boy it picked up and it seemed fine for the rest of the gig.

Mew are a band who love to use visuals. Jonas Bjerre, the lead singer, is a graphic designer so he has created a ton of videos for the band to use during live shows. It all looked incredibly spectacular and really added to the music. They didn’t speak much all evening but with this kind of visual show it didn’t really matter. They did however do a few other things. The mask that Bo Madsen put on before Sometimes Life Isn’t Easy was amusing and the talking teddy bear was very odd and I do wonder in hindsight whether those things matched the overall mood of the show or whether or not it was misplaced.

The crowd, which, celebrity fact fans, featured ex-Busted member Matt Willis (say what you like but he may have just gone up in my estimations), were amazingly observant. During the tender White Lips Kissed you could hear a pindrop in its quieter moments. However, there was genuine excitement when the band played some of their more well known songs like the breathtaking Introducing Palace Players, 156, and Am I Wry? No. The performance the band gave was one of confidence. A keyboard player and bassist are added to the live shows to bulk up the sound and it certainly helped massively.

The setlist featured all of the aforementioned songs but there were also other noticeable highlights. Repeaterbeater was powerful and vicious sounding and Apocalypso was just brutal. There weren’t many new songs in the set, which was quite surprising, but it wasn’t a set that 0verly leaned into a ‘hits’ set either. The highlight though was a brilliantly inspiring Comforting Sounds. Yes, it’s a predictable closer but it doesn’t matter when you had the best match of visuals and music all evening (if you’re not moved by the visuals of a cat playing violin and other animals playing trumpets then you have a heart of stone).

Mew were definitely impressive though – worth seeing and worth all the hype I had heard about their live shows.

The setlist was:

Hymn
Reprise
Hawaii
Special
The Zookeeper’s Boy
Am I Wry? No
156
Apocalypso
Saviours Of Jazz Ballet
Bamse
Uda Pruda
Beach
Introducing Palace Players
Sometimes Life Isn’t Easy
White Lips Kissed
Silas The Magic Car
Repeaterbeater
Snow Brigade
Comforting Sounds

(Thanks Jann!)

More photos can be seen on my Flickr, and you can also watch a video of Apocalypso below. Keep an eye on that YouTube account as I also have a video of Snow Brigade that I’ll be uploading soon.

Like this? Try these!

• Placebo at the O2 Arena
• The Sounds at the Electric Ballroom
• Patrick Wolf at the London Palladium

Posted on November 11th, 2009 by Max
Filed under: Gigs, Reviews