Rough Trade 50: caroline and My New Band Believe

After absorbing some rays of the evening sun above the Thames on the Queen Elizabeth Hall’s beautifully biodiverse roof garden, we descended into the brutalist octagonal foyer. This is one of my favourite spaces in London, where concrete pillars somehow feel light, splashes of bright oranges and pinks accentuate the original design, and mid-century modernist furniture welcomes the crowd. The QEH is the smaller sibling of the Royal Festival Hall and all the more intimate and welcoming for it.

Opening the night were My New Band Believe, the shape-shifting project of Cameron Picton, formerly of black midi. This was the sixth time I’ve seen the band and each time has had a completely different line-up of performers, with each bringing their own styles and instrumentation to deliberately sparsely rehearsed tracks. This was a core part of the song development for the self-titled debut album. Some ideas stuck and were elaborated upon in future shows, others faded away having only been heard by those in attendance. This live song development is something I love witnessing first-hand over months and years and keeps every performance feeling vital. It’s an approach fellow Windmill scene graduates, and Picton’s good friends, Black Country, New Road used in the early development of their best material too.

Of late, whilst touring the eponymous album, the MNBB line-up has coalesced around a core group which tonight included Dillon Harrison on drums, former black midi touring member Seth Evans on keys, and two members who now feel irreplaceable. Kit Moseley has been on guitar at Picton’s side on the four most recent times I’ve caught them, including when they performed acoustically as a duo at Rough Trade West. The final member was virtuoso bassist Caius Williams, who I believe to be the most important and talented performer in the country right now that adds levels to every project he’s involved with.

This was my new favourite set of the year. The extended 20-minute opening medley gave me goosebumps. black midi-esque high tempo sections swelled, where every instrument and performer appeared to be at their absolute limit, before suddenly falling into sparsely accompanied sections of Picton’s gorgeously delicate and intimate vocals. Geordie Greep might get more attention, but to me Picton has always been the more interesting of the two black midi vocalists. After the set, a regular gig-goer in his seventies said that MNBB “were the best electric guitar band in fifty years” and merely that this doesn’t sound like an outlandish statement is testament to what Picton and friends have created. It was a shame that a couple of later tracks has to be cut short, but we were still treated to 50 minutes of wonderful musicianship. The interplay and onstage communication is a joy to behold and something MNBB have in common with tonight’s headliners, caroline.

As is often the way with caroline shows, a singular amp held the spotlight for the opening of the set. Through this, Alex McKenzie’s bass clarinet reverberated a perfectly positioned snare drum and this acted as the texture upon which the opening songs were layered. The eight-piece set up in a broad semi-circle around the edge of the stage, intricately interplaying off each other’s cues to give the crowd details which could only ever really come across live.

The extended violin duo bridging ‘U R UR ONLY ACHING’ and ‘Dark blue’ touched on Irish trad before resolving into the guitar led refrain of their debut single to cheers from the crowd. Jasper Llewellyn’s vocals were unfortunately inaudible for most of the song, however. Unusually for caroline, who famously sound check for many, many hours before every performance, this was one of a handful of early gremlins which crept in and appeared to slightly knock them off their stride. However, the collective ethos of the band repeatedly shone through as they encouraged one another and elevated their performance towards their outstanding peak.

The evening, and indeed the whole weekend, at the Southbank Centre was organised to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Rough Trade. After ‘Dark blue’, Llewellyn explained that they’d played an early version of the song at a party in the shed-like house of their manager at which Rough Trade founder Geoff Travis was present. He’d asked them immediately if they’d like to make a record and caroline signed with the label in early 2020. The most interesting part of his patter, however, was the phrasing introducing the next song as ‘from our last record… currently’. caroline 3, anyone?!

‘Coldplay cover’ from their second album caroline 2 involves the band splitting into two groups who play different songs (both early versions and/or adapted parts of tracks on the album) on different sides of the stage. Originally, this was performed in the kitchen and living room of a house, with each song growing and fading as a microphone moved between them and this was replicated on stage by Magdalena McLean. This track was written to mimic the feeling the band had at festivals where their precious moments of empty space were filled by other bands playing on distant stages. Every time I see this live, I wonder how they manage to avoid lapsing into the other song!

The closing run of ‘Two riders down’, ‘Good morning (red)’, and ‘Total euphoria’ must be one of the best any band can offer. During the first of these I watched a hunched Casper Hughes, seemingly deep in thought at the lyrics he wrote after the death of a friend just before the album’s recording. This track is the one that always makes me emotional, given the context of having life cut short whilst doing that most life-affirming and freeing activity of cycling. As it should happen, the latest edition of the Transcontinental Race was starting just as caroline entered the stage. This self-supported epic, built on developed community trust and positively advocating for equality, is the closest thing in my life to the spirit invoked by caroline. That it’s founder, my personal hero Mike Hall, was killed whilst riding has forever intertwined them in my mind.

‘Good morning (red)’ also had very immediate feelings given a new Labour Prime Minister was due in office the following day. It might not be the optimism of Corbynista socialism that the track was inspired by, but there seemed to be the tiniest amount of cautious hope in the room. Either way, the post-rock ablution during the breakdown of ‘Total euphoria’ that followed cleared the mind in the way only a bass felt by the whole-body can. Of course, this being caroline, the awesome rumbling is provided by a pitched down bass clarinet channelled through a sub bass exciter rather than your standard bass guitar! Oliver Hamilton’s headbanging violin in centre stage was one the few acts where any member stepped forward to take the limelight, but it felt fitting for the catharsis the crowd had been waiting for.

Heading home on the bus, much of London appeared to be in and outside of its pubs watching the World Cup final. Checking the score, it’s safe to say that we were all very happy with our decision to see two of the greatest bands this country has to offer. If Rough Trade sign continue signing acts like caroline and My New Band Believe, they look set for another 50 years.