‘Before Today’ by Ariel Pink and his wonderful Haunted Graffiti has been one of this year’s releases that has been there or there abouts blasting through my speakers for the best part of 2010. A record that has taken his Psychedelic/Lo-Fi/Psych-Fi sound to a new level, incorporating a wide range of genres with a majestic seventies style production that yet sounds completely fresh at the same time. Finally, with my obsession with this record I finally got round to seeing him perform at the Kings Cross’ Scala venue.
Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond my control, I missed all of the support acts as well as the opening 10 minutes of Ariel’s set but during after show conversations, it might well have been a blessing in disguise as apparently sound issues meant that the show took a couple of tracks to get going. Already though, they were living up to the expectation set by ‘Before Today’. Solidly working their way through sensational renditions of tracks such as ‘Little Wig’, ‘Menopause Man’ and ‘Round and Round’, as well as cuts from the rest of his back catalogue.
It was as good as expected and not worth missing for a second (which unfortunately I did) as you never know what may occur on his stage. The packed London crowd were wowed by Ariel’s erratic stage persona and performance with a frantic set of hits (yes, they are all hits in the eyes of myself and the rest of his followers), some misunderstood reaction to hecklers who weren’t actually heckling him, and were even treated to 2 encores which clarify that Ariel Pink is superstar performer in the making. Not sure if he would like to see it that way though.
Words/Photos: FR
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