Legendary Scottish folk-rock duo The Proclaimers have retained a presence on the fringe of the British music scene for over 25 years.  “You always assume that a lot of people consider you a novelty”, Charlie Reid told me; but it quickly became clear that behind the upbeat, heavily-accented pop lie more seriously minded musicians. “There’s two things you’ve got to do,” thinks Reid: “you’ve got to stay on the road; and you’ve got to write new material” – a philosophy which has ensured that in 2009, the identical twins can still pack out the Oxford Academy’s main room while on a hectic national tour.

In terms of keeping their act fresh, “we change four parts a night in every set”, Charlie explains, before his brother adds that “the live thing is the primary thing for us, by a long way.” 

Their latest album, ‘Notes and Rhymes’ reflects this focus on the live show. As a two-disc special edition featuring acoustic and live versions of their newest material, the brothers wanted “to give people as much value for money as possible” in these tough economic times, with illegal file sharing adding extra pressure on the entire music industry. It’s a strategy that seems to have worked. The new material is selling well; “it’s been well received; the reviews have been great,” glows Craig with evident pride.

His enthusiasm continues as I mention their recent cover of the Kings of Leon track ‘Seventeen’. “We were looking for a contemporary American song… we’ll do something to open up people’s ears.” The cover works well, sounding surprisingly natural considering its migration from Southern American rock to Scottish folk. This is, of course, not the only engagement that The Proclaimers have made with twenty-first century culture.

Lending their most famous tracks to movies has helped to introduce their music to new generations: “Shrek especially, [it] replenishes your audience, you do get younger people coming along”.

These “younger people” are also notable at the summer festivals that The Proclaimers find themselves staple acts at. “We were on the bill with Glasvegas at South by Southwest,” Charlie explains, delighting in the current “golden age” of Scottish music – “between Paolo [Nutini] and Glasvegas; there’s really something going on there, culturally as well, with the accent and everything.”

Their Scottish pride is not contained to their appetite for the country’s music, however, with both brothers keen advocates of Scottish independence: “We’re not Nationalists, [but] we’ve always said it when we’ve been asked about it… it’s an economic thing, it isn’t particularly glamorous.”

This topic touches upon the political songs littered throughout the band’s back catalogue. “If you are moved to do it, do it” they say of protest songs. “If we had a whole album of political songs, we’d put it out, no problem at all”.

The lack of other politically-driven music does worry them too, “I think it’s pretty bad… maybe Thatcher won.” Songs like ‘Free Market’ on their latest album reflect this edge to the band, but the love songs and upbeat singalongs that their fan base know and love remain ever-present as well.

For the gig itself, the brothers put on a showcase of their two and a half decades in the music industry, with all the variety of their views and tastes. Epic love songs, a notable punk cover, and the crowd favourite ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’ all feature, as does the friendly charm of the Scotsmen on stage. A band with depth that may well surprise the casual listener then, The Proclaimers demonstrated it all – from misery to happiness – today.

Before she was offered a record deal four years ago, Natasha Khan worked as a nursery teacher. It’s difficult to imagine the Bat for Lashes frontwoman soothing grazed knees and comforting children with a bit of story time – comforting certainly isn’t the first word that springs to mind as she appears on stage and launches into the keyboard intro of ‘Horse and I.’ Otherworldly, yes; maybe even a little unsettling, as anyone who’s seen the video for ‘What’s a Girl to do?’ (hooded cyclists wearing creepy-looking bunny masks following Khan on a dark woodland path) can testify. If anything, Khan is more like a character from a fairy-tale herself, a kind of sorceress-like figure with her ethereal voice and predilection towards the occult in her lyrics.

‘Horse and I’ is a great set-opener, a tale of village ceremony with a brilliantly atmospheric drum beat creating a sense of hooves thundering through the night, the chilling violin crescendo at the end adding to the sense of a strange nightmare place – the kind of dream you might have after watching cult 1973 film ‘The Wicker Man.’ It’s followed by ‘Sleep Alone’, and then ‘Wizard’, with its delicate melodic tune and Kate Bush overtones. Next comes ‘Bat’s Mouth’, and then ‘Glass’, the echoing vocals of the intro swelling into a majestically psychedelic chorus. The real crowd-pleaser, however, is ‘Daniel’, in which Khan’s tambourine-shaking dancing has more than a hint of pagan ritual about it.

Spectacle undoubtedly plays a huge part in Bat for Lashes’ stage presence, but not at the expense of vocal quality. Khan delivers an energetic performance but her voice doesn’t falter once; her singing combines perfectly with the gorgeous synth-pop feel of the music. Pop is definitely central to the Bat for Lashes aesthetic. In spite of the eerie beauty of much of the set, there’s still a lot of sweetness to the songs – ‘Priscilla’ in particular, which closes the encore, has a kind of childlike innocence.

There are many different schools of performance that come under the umbrella term of method acting. The case studies may be impressive and highly entertaining, but they shed light on bizarre extremes and question the worthiness of the self-confessed ‘method actor’.
Stella Adler’s take is focused upon the actor conjuring up emotions solely from the scene, excluding personal memory. Marlon Brando and Robert de Niro are amongst her most legendary students. In preparation for New York New York, de Niro learned to play the saxophone to ‘virtuoso standard’. Due to his dedication to training for Raging Bull, he was estimated to be amongst the top ten middleweights in the world. During the months leading up to the filming of Taxi Driver, he worked twelve hour shifts as a cabbie.
Daniel Day-Lewis has his own very personal vision of method acting which became evident in his portrayal of the severely paralyzed Christy Brown in My Left Foot. He refused to leave his wheelchair between scenes, regularly asking to be carried over technical equipment and wires. His sustained hunched position in his wheelchair caused him some discomfort too, earning him two broken ribs. His role in The Name of the Father as Gerry Conlon required substantial weight loss. He maintained his Northern Irish accent on and off set, demanded that crew throw coldwater at him and verbally abuse him, and even spent time in a solitary prison cell.
The pinnacle of intensity struck him when starring in Hamlet in the National Theatre. Day-Lewis had an uncontrollable fit of terror during the first scene with his father’s ghost; he sobbed hysterically and refused to go back on stage.
Physically, Christian Bale has pushed himself to the limit in many roles of various extremes. For American Psycho, he studied the book avidly and refused to socialise during the filming period. He spent months tanning and working out to achieve an Olympian physique. The Machinist saw him lose 63lb in order to play the emaciated Trevor Reznik, before the director and doctor forced him to stop. He also studied insomnia at great length, and deprived himself from sleep for prolonged periods.
Forest Whitaker’s role as Idi Amin brought a new extent of research that lead to his greatest success to date. He spent time in Uganda reading books about Amin, watching footage, meeting his relatives, his friends and even his victims.
Adrien Brody attracted attention in The Pianist. Having sold his apartment and car to replicate his character’s loss of everything at the hands of the Nazis, he withdrew for months, learning to play Chopin on the piano. In his role as Jack Starks in The Jacket, Brody spent hours on end in a ‘sensory deprivation chamber’ to prepare for scenes in a morgue drawer. Between filming he insisted on being locked in the drawer, kept the straight jacket on when possible and refused to speak to anyone on set.
Recalling Daniel Day-Lewis’ traumatic appearance on stage, I cannot help thinking that method acting is somewhat lost on film, not to mention being unpractical and rather self-indulgent. On stage it makes more sense, as the direct dynamic of performance savours more of the intensity that can be lost through a camera lens. Lawrence Olivier famously questioned the nature of this practise regarding co-star Dustin Hoffman, who had refused to sleep and wash prior to the filming of Marathon Man. On regarding Hoffman’s state, Olivier commented casually, ‘why don’t you just act, dear boy, it’s a lot easier’. I could not agree more.

Ten seconds into the fourth piece of his improvised solo concert at the Royal Festival Hall last year, American pianist Keith Jarrett stopped playing and delivered a curt lecture about the evils of coughing in the concert hall. So devoted was his audience, however, that his reproach garnered a thunderous applause. Immediately after, Jarrett returned to the piano and began the piece exactly where he’d left off, as if he’d already completed the whole thing in his head. He went on to give what was described as a ‘never-to-be-repeated, pulsing rock band of a concert’.
It was his first performance in London for 18 years, and it filled the Festival Hall. Jarrett is one of the very few jazz musicians in the world who don’t need to plug their CDs at the end of a gig. One critic likened his return to that of a prophet – and amongst his acolytes were students, families and film stars (well, I recognised Jurassic Park’s Sam Neill). A stark contrast, certainly, with the grey-heads, Boden shirts and tasselled deck-shoes that dominate so many jazz clubs. And now we have a recording of the long-awaited event. Testament, a 3-CD production, brings Jarrett’s Festival Hall concert together with one given five days earlier in Paris.
After working with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis, Jarrett astonished audiences in the 1970s with a series of unique solo improvisations in which one piece could last for an hour or so. The most famous of these musical high-wire acts is the Koln Concert, which has gone on to sell nearly four million copies.
In the early-90s, however, the format of Jarrett’s concerts started to change. In place of the ‘epic journeys into the unknown’, as he describes them, he offered his audiences a series of vignettes reflecting the remarkable breadth of his style, which ranges from blues to bebop to baroque. The effect, in some recordings, can be a little disjointing. But what is striking about Testament is that, even though it crosses many genres, Jarrett’s playing remains unmistakable.
The tone of the Paris concert is darker, with Jarrett’s early classical training coming to the fore. It kicks off with a brooding, often atonal, improvisation, followed by a forceful ten-minute vamp in C-sharp. The London concert begins in a similar way, but its pace quickens with the scurrying bebop scales of ‘Part II’. Then the musical language is simplified. ‘Part III’ is an insouciant blend of gospel and Americana – two of Jarrett’s most enduring influences. This is what many in the audience at the Festival Hall had been waiting for – and Jarrett clearly enjoyed himself in his notoriously eccentric way. He played a good deal of the piece standing up, gyrating and singing along. Every now and then, in the recording, we hear a trademark nasal yelp (there’s a video floating about on YouTube with the title, ‘Keith Jarrett IS Cartman’).
‘Part III & VI’ of the Paris and London concerts, respectively, are beautiful examples of the shimmering, ethereal inventions that have in recent years become one of Jarrett’s hallmarks. There is, in fact, a good deal of music in both concerts that sounds as if it comes from the experimental end of 20th century classical repertoire. But in the Festival Hall concert, Jarrett’s new and old selves come together. ‘Part VII’, a highlight, achieves the drive and the refinement Jarrett sought by shortening his improvisations, but evokes the spacious, emotive gospel tones of his earliest work.
The lengthy essay in the album sleeve makes it clear this is an important album for Jarrett, now in his mid-60s. It vindicates his new approach to improvisation, but is also a triumphant testament to his innovations over the last 30 years.