Zebra & Giraffe ended their The Wisest Ones album launch tour at Mercury last Friday. Singer-songwriter Tailor seemed like a bit of an odd choice for a supporting act but the two were great together and both gave excellent performances.
Mercury was fuller than I’d seen it in a good while which was a reassuring sign. It was an odd mixed crowd too which was a good indicator of the broad appeal of both Zebra & Giraffe and Tailor.
There’s certainly a lot of hype around Tailor; I wasn’t blown away by her debut album The Dark Horse, in fact I struggled a bit to listen to it all in one sitting. I was curious to see how her material would translate live and was intrigued by the stage set-up.
From the first track I was mentally apologising for being so quick to disregard her music – she’s a force to watch and even the slower songs (which I’d skipped through initially) became compelling. The live version of Indian in particular was awesome – she hit the high notes with ferocity and accuracy and beat the large drum by her side with such power that it threatened to fall over, and collapsed in a slow heap for the song’s final moments.
The next time I listened to her album was with converted ears…
I think the last time I saw Zebra & Giraffe was Ramfest 2011. They’d made some changes since then: down to a trio (in studio, and a quartet live) and with a darker sound on their new album, I was looking forward to watching them again.
I’d given The Wisest Ones a few listens and hadn’t formed much of an opinion of it, but like with Tailor, watching the band perform the new tracks made me excited to listen to the album again. The new line-up seems cleaner and slicker and their setlist was spot on, featuring a perfect mix of new material and older favourites.
The crowd were loving every second of it, singing along audibly and demanding 2 encores which were possibly even more energetic than the rest of the set.
As a side note, this gig was one of the hardest I’ve ever tried to photograph, but it was also one of the most musically enjoyable I’ve attended in a long time.
– – –
Zebra & Giraffe: Facebook | Listen to The Wisest Ones on Soundcloud
Tailor: Facebook | Listen to The Dark Horse on Soundcloud
