Dalston, The Proper Ornaments, Omi Palone, Echo Lake

I made my way out to Dalston last night (thursday) to see a No Pain In Pop show at the Shacklewell Arms which I later discovered was apparently a sort of a fundraiser for the British Heart Foundation.

The first band on was Omi Palone, who I happen to consider to be arguably the best indie rock band around at the moment. I'd seen them once before and been a fan ever since. suffice to say they didn't disappoint. Incredibly strong songs and a fantastic sound make for a pretty potent combination. Also, I'm frankly always happy to see an indie band not harking back to britpop or (still) trying to be the Strokes! Everyone needs to see Omi Palone in a small venue before they surely graduate to much bigger things.

Next up came my highlight of the night in the form of the Proper Ornaments who are now without doubt one of my favourite bands. I had heard of them around the place before and possibly heard the odd track but somehow before last night they had somehow largely passed me by which is doubly strange as I am pretty partial to Veronica Falls!

The set didn't start ideally as there appeared to be keyboard problems which were tinkered around with for a while and eventually solved by dumping the keyboard entirely!! However, after that the band soon got back into their stride and were spectacularly good. At first they seemed to be almost psychedelic, then shoegazey, and after a while I'm not sure what. What suddenly came to mind was the Jesus and Mary Chain playing American Beauty (the Grateful Dead album rather than the film of the same name), which as far as I'm concerned is absolutely perfect. The only shame was that there wasn't anything of theirs for me to buy.

The night was headlined by Echo Lake who I suddenly realised have a quite beautiful dreamy sound (even more so live than recorded), but at the same time manage not to drift off into the realms of easy listening and chillout which so many similar bands seem to struggle with. They periodically develop a harder edge when needed to jolt everyone back to reality and keep things lively. 

One of the best complete lineups I've seen recently, and it turns out that Dalston isn't as much of a hassle to get to and from as I had originally suspected.