Later… With Jools Holland
London BBC TV Centre
22nd November, 2011

Always a fun evening to watch Jools’ two shows live, this series finale saw two hours’ of performances without a weak link. Red Hot Chili Peppers bookended the evening, the six-piece playing five funking hard rock numbers, including the rattling Monarchy Of Roses, with its wiry guitar and frenetic percussion. Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds quintet kept things simmering with four sweet pop-rock tunes, notably the instant What A Life, while Londoners Spector proved their worth as the next Franz Ferdinand, doing the suited indie-rockers thing thrice with aplomb. Fellow newcomer Michael Kiwanuku impressed with his pair of acoustic knocks, despite technical hitches, and Gillian Welch continued the stripped-down atmospherics with three turns including The Way It Goes. But the star of the show was Bjork, who, backed by a 20-strong female choir and topped by a Charlie Chuck wig, demonstrated her ability to dazzle with stunning audio and visuals, not least on the opening Thunderbolt. After a false-start, she seared through the song, accompanied by a stunning synth/drum link-up to a fusing, fizzing Tesla coil. Wow! Cosmogony, with its martial tones, and two more renditions, mesmerised en masse, leading Antony Kiedis to exclaim, “radical!” Yes, indeed.