Good things come to those who wait. The Doves, who spent four years flying under the radar after wild success with 2005’s Some Cities, returned to Boston on Sunday night to end a US tour on a pleasantly haunting note.
An excellent setlist set the spellbinding tone at the House of Blues. Touring in support of their latest album, Kingdom of Rust, Doves started the Boston show with three new tunes. The first “Jetstream”, with its slow-building structure, readied the crowd for the rest of the show’s chilling surprises. The band powered through a mix of old and new songs, mostly new, which revealed fans’ approval of the Brit band’s new work.
Doves are set to perform an MTV live session on June 22nd. For your chance win a ticket for yourself and three mates. Go to the Nokia Music UK website. Fill in the details, its that simple.
Here’s a couple more reviews of the Terminal 5 show on June 5th, alongside a great set of photos from music site, The Trip Wire.com…
To view the rest of The Trip Wire’s photos (and a cute haiku), click here.
…the Manchester trio played NYC’s multi-leveled Terminal 5 last night, and not only did they play it, they sold it out, at $37 per ticket, no less. The fact it was their first local show in four years surely helped, but the resounding success of their layered, atmospheric indie rock remains: Doves are a force to be reckoned with.
The encore, which included the melancholy ‘Last Broadcast’ and the sweet lullaby-like ‘There Goes the Fear’, kept people riveted until the very last moments… and made for some very clogged exits at the end of the night, as no one appears to have been able to sneak away early from the gorgeously hypnotic set.
To read the rest of EMI.com’s review and see a few more photos from the show, click here.
Overall, I couldn’t hear Jimi Goodwin’s bass, but his distinctive vocals were consistently spot-on all night. Also, the band’s sequencing (controlled by the mysterious man crouching behind the drums?) was a little off, leaving some parts to come in at the incorrect time or not at all. (Or again, maybe I just couldn’t hear them?) Still, Doves soldiered through and seemed in good and gracious spirits.
Click here, to read the full review at kevchino.com.
Not until the third song into the show did Goodwin’s vocals warm up and the way he belted his voice throughout the venue was simply astounding. Every nuance while he was singing was similar, if not better, than any of his work done in a recording studio; seeing the Doves live was turning out to be quite an unexpected treat.
With songs such as “Pounding” and “Black and White Town“, the crowd was soon singing along, swept off their feet with each song that was played. Their title-track “Kingdom of Rust” was another favorite from the new album and the addition of keyboardist Martin Rebelski made his impact known. Rebelski certainly fit right in as well, practically hidden behind the mounds of keyboards and sound equipment in the far back right corner of the stage.
Click here, to read MusicUnderFire.com’s full review.
Oddly enough, most of their upbeat rockers, aside from “Black and White Town,” never really reached any point of combustion. This may have been a problem to do with improper sound leveling, but “Pounding,” didn’t emphasize much change in drum dynamics. “The Outsiders,” almost completely hid the bassline in the first verse that takes as much of the lead melody as the guitar. This song sounded superb on their performance on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, so one has to wonder what went wrong if it sounded good on a cheap tinny TV. In this respect, their studio production wins outright.
To make up for these blips that, for the most part, didn’t seem to be judgment errors on the side of the musicians, Doves outperformed any notion of high expectation on almost every other song. They played 17 songs, and I would say that 10 of them could have been the high points of the show.
To read the full review at Phrequency Blog (and view a great gallery of pictures), click here.
Friend of the blog Genevieve, sent us in her review of the Montreal show. A Lovely review, considering English is not her first language.
DOVES @ LE NATIONAL, MONTREAL 06.02.09
First of all, to be honest with you, this night I was supposed to see 1990s instead of Doves. But since the Glasgow-based band cancelled their whole North America tour at the very last minute for “unforeseen (sp?) reasons” and as Doves were playing on the very same night, I decided to go. But, don’t worry, it wasn’t a torture for me as I really love this great band from Manchester since about 8 years and I’ve already experienced them live in 2002, so I was very excited to see them again!
The support band, Wild Light, was already onstage when I arrived at the venue. I looked at them without paying any attention. I couldn’t give them a music style. Indie? Rock? I don’t know..they were good but, not really my cup of tea (sorry!).
At around 45 minutes past 10, Andy, Jez and Jimi hit the stage of the boiling National (because in fact, it was boiling inside the venue). They started with the astonishing Jetstream to the pleasure of the crowd. Many people, including myself, were singing along. Then they played Snowden, Winter, Rise, Pounding (really at this very moment, I jumped like nuts as this song is obviously my favourite Doves’ song), Words, 10:03, Kingdom Of Rust and Caught By The River was another beautiful moment of the concert. This song is powerful, especially in concert. Then the band left the stage but came back about 5 minutes for an encore and what an encore! They played four tracks: Firesuite, Here It Comes (it’s always great to see Jimi and Andy switching positions for this song), The Last Broadcast and There Goes The Fear. This song is always good live because at the end, I can’t resist to the fact of dancing as I was the Rio Carnival, hehe!
But I was a tiny bit disappointed they didn’t play Catch The Sun and The Man Who Told Everything though. But, hey! They need to choose between so many songs so, I forgive them! The concert was amazing!
What a great night it was! Doves is a magical band! Jez, Andy and Jimi are all talented and experienced musicians.