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Artist News Gigs & Festivals Releases
Black Country, New Road release new music as live film
By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 21 February 2023
Black Country, New Road have released a new live film featuring eight brand new songs.
“We didn’t want to do a studio album”, says pianist May Kershaw. “We wrote the new tracks specifically to perform live, so we thought it might be a nice idea to put out a performance”.
Filmed over three nights at Bush Hall in London in December, the band decided against the convention of cutting together multiple performances to look like one and instead gave each show a distinct visual style, which they cut between throughout the film.
“We had concerns from live sessions we’ve seen or done in the past”, says guitarist Luke Mark. “They are very obviously clumped together visually from multiple performances. That can take you out of the performance and make it seem artificial and like it’s not actually live”.
“So we came up with the idea to make the three nights look visually distinct from one another”, he goes on. “To scratch the idea of trying to disguise anything. We wanted it to be very honest and let people know that we had three goes at it. This isn’t just us playing the whole thing non-stop”.
They also handed cameras to fans in the audience, in order to capture footage from their viewpoint, which is also cut into the film. “It makes you feel a lot more like you’re there”, says saxophonist Lewis Evans.
“When you see, like, I don’t know, John Mayer at the Nokia Ballroom or whatever, it just looks like you could never ever be there. These things seem so inaccessible. But this is like you’re literally in the room”.
Getting all this right was super important, stresses drummer Charlie Wayne, because this is the permanent form in which these songs are being presented to the world.
He explains: “We want the focal point to be this film. We’ve put a lot of effort into making it feel like you’re watching a live gig. It’s not an album in our eyes, it’s a live performance”.
You can watch ‘Live At Bush Hall’ here:
If you like what you see, the band will be back on the road in the UK and Ireland again in May. Here are the dates:
2 May: Southampton, 1865
3 May: Leeds, Irish Centre
5 May: Dublin, 3Olympia Theatre
7 May: Newcastle University SU
8 May: Glasgow, Old Fruitmarket
9 May: Manchester, New Century Hall
11 May: Norwich, Waterfront
12 May: Birmingham, The Crossing
13 May: Bristol, The Marble Factory
15 May: Cambridge, Junction
