Bell X 1 The Pavillion Cork

Photos: Sean Monaghan www.bandphotoz.com
Words: Anne Marie Curtin

Bell X1
21st October 2008
Live at the Pavilion, Cork
Acoustic

“We're most pleased to announce some intimate acoustic shows in Ireland in October and November.We'll be visiting places we've never been, or haven't been for a long time, and playing some new tunes along with all the hitz...
We'd also welcome any requests you might have. Email us at bellyrequests@gmail.com, or reply here, and we'll see what we can do...”
That’s an excerpt from their website and it pretty much says it all really. So I’ll stop now.

Ha! Not a chance. But start as you mean to go on, you know, and this was how they were - by all appearances they were relaxed, comfortable and having fun…and definitely not taking themselves too seriously. Chatting, laughing and generally taking the mick with the crowd, there were only three of them on stage, with (I believe) David Geraghty on the left being all things to all men on the piano, guitar, harmonica, banjo & vocals, Dominic Philips in the middle on bass and vocals and Paul Noonan on the right on guitar, vocals and bizarre links. As soon as I saw Paul’s ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ t-shirt, I knew I was completely snukkered.

Mixing the new with the old, they covered a songlist including “Bad Skin Day”, “Alphabet Soup”, the unexpectedly funny “One Stringed Harp”, the gorgeous “Next to You”, “Blow Ins” and an ode to the joys of being breast fed: “I was doing fine when I was being breast fed”. Well then! And joining all of these together were musings on the oddity that is the Latin mass (where the priest turns his back on you), the possibility of marketing a Bell X1 Breast Pump, the Marquee with Duke Special and things wot people did at Oxygen. This particular wandering around the Oxygen campsite conditions led on to a rather angry-sounding number called “I Am the Defector”. Hmm…

“Bad Skin Day” was of particular interest to me as it is such a richly layered sound and there were so few of them on stage – to see how it’s all put together, especially acoustically, is an excellent experience. They made really good use of a loop in this track and also in the opening to the second half where they showed their vocal range (especially Dominic) with some high vocal work looped live. The vocal work is particularly impressive – both the tightness in their performance and the clever simplicity of the harmonies themselves – having the tune echoed an octave below in some of the tracks with more complex harmonies above thickened the sound nicely but it’s risky and does not always work. It did here though.

“Shine” was always a kind of a ‘so-so’ for me in the whole rosemantic genre but, boy! was I rudely awakened on hearing it live! Lads, I had a moment. Oh my god, a more beautiful and touching love-song I have rarely heard. And it’s all in the telling. I have to admit, tears were felt brimming. Not a good look for a gig.

Now, I had to go before the end of the gig as it was a school night and my internal Mary Poppins was whooshing me to bed so I have no idea whether they played “Flame” or whether they did an encore but they are, as they said, traditionalists so I have no doubt that they did all of that and maybe more, and I would say, whether you have already seen them or you are a total Bell X1 know-nothing, either way, get a ticket if you can. (I believe there are some left in Ballybofe.)