Band of Horses

Wednesday night was the night that we were supposed to be seeing Kings Of Leon and Band or Horses play at Jone's Beach, however Kings Of Leon ended up cancelling their entire summer tour!

We were both really miffed not only because we really wanted to see KOL, but I really wanted to see the venue, it's an outdoor arena by the beach, and we really wanted to see Band of Horses too.

Luckily, a couple of days after the KOL cancelled the tour, Band of Horses announced a short-notice show in New York at the Hammerstein Ballroom, so all was not lost! So on Wednesday night I went to see the Band of Horses instead.

The Hammerstein Ballroom is up near the Tick Tock Diner (so I had to pop in for my tea), and is attached to the Manhattan Center. It's a really nice venue, it's not quite as ballroomy as I was hoping, but it had the boxes and balconies and it had a ballroomy ceiling...

We last saw Band of Horses at the Williamsburg Waterfront last summer, they sounded fantastic then and they sounded even better this time. They were brilliant.

I think they were pretty annoyed that their massive tour had been cancelled but they were so appreciative that everyone had gone to see them on such short notice, I think they'd managed to sell out the ballroom.

Their songs remind me of being in Arkansas (I listened to them a lot, sitting on the balcony of my room), and of being in big wide open bits of America. Their album covers always have really lovely photographs of American landscapes and starry skies and for the gig they'd got a big screen behind them and they projected videos and photographs as a backdrop for each song, which made me want to get in a car with Abi and go on a big roadtrip.

It was a great gig and I'm really glad I was able to see them after all. Here are some videos of their best songs...

It was a really great gig - I'm looking forward to seeing them again when they've got some new stuff, and according to them they're going to start recording that new stuff today!