Corridor at the Shacklewell Arms, London, May 16th 2024 – Corridor were such a joy last night, such a bright glowing smiling pleasure of a band, by the end of the set there’s just smiles and nods everywhere, no need for words, just knowing nods shared by strangers in a packed and happy back room of a rather decent East London music venue. Do like this place, almost almost very nearly almost didn’t bother last night, almost took the black dog for a walk instead, that recent album Mimi has probably been played as much as anything around here this year, it almost was a case of can I be bothered though, I mean, another gig, do I really need to go to another gig? There’s been thousands of gigs, do I really need to go see yet another band in yet another back room in yet another pub? I’m rather glad I went to the this gig.
They are delightful motorik, they do it in their own way though, not for them the obvious (often hard edged) moving along way, not the we must get there as directly as we can way, not that jumping on the Autobahn and making it all happen, there’s is a graceful motorik flow, their take on the locked on thing is a rather delightfully different one, a kind of French (Canadian) shrug and a we-have-all-the-time-in-the-world-to-get-there, a why rush, let’s take the scenic route and enjoy it all approach – we’ll stop along the way, drink some wine, eat some cheese, catch some rays, you know how it is. Hey, I don’t know how this making music thing works, I just ride the thing (here’s my other dog impression). Not that Corridor are taking is slow, they can move when they want to, Corridor are relaxed, not too relaxed though, they do rock, at times they really (really) do rock out and they do have a wonderful chemistry, they really are a joy. The band look like they’re having a great time, they seem very happy to be in a packed room on a Thursday night in front of a more than pleased to see them crowd. The whole thing really is a joy that just builds as we all get more and more in to it, as the room becomes one whole thing. Mourir Demain is an early set highlight, surely one of the songs of the year, certainly one of the song openings of the year, a fair proportion of the fine new album is performed, Caméra is another highlight, no, I’m wrong, the whole set is a highlight.
There’s is a clean sound, a sophisticated sound, a refreshing, cleansing sound, you might even say a continental sound. Corridor chime, experimental when they need to be, crafted, considered, always accessible, always a joy, a delight, refreshing, a band who clearly need to challenge themselves though. No danger of just going through the motions here, each song a considered piece of uplifting joyous art – “that was the best gig I’ve been to in ages” said someone I’ve bumped into at hundred of gigs, he might just have been right, they paint their music in a slightly different way, a delightful way and yes there will be an excessive use of words like joy and delight in this review. Is it a review? Sometimes you don’t want to have analyse it, you don’t want to have to try and figure it out and write it down in some kind of critical way, sometimes you just want bathe in the moment.
They are rawer live, a little more “on it”, a little more honest dare it be said? Not that there’s anything dishonest about their most recent perfectly recorded album Mimi – the album, or indeed their four albums now, don’t really prepare you for just how “on it” they are going to be tonight and how much more on it they’re going to get as the set evolves and we all, audience and band relax into it all. We said of Mimi, in the recent review of that album, that there’s something rather delightful about the new Corridor album, that the French Canadian band weren’t doing anything that demanding, that there was no great big noise, no great artistic statement, no off with their musical heads and vive la révolution going on, nothing like that, we said that they had just quietly made a really gorgeous album and that Mimi is an album alive with lushness, with gentle motorik undercurrents, with a knowing set of smiles – live there is all that, but there’s so so much more, live there is a demand in their delight, they are a challenge to us, music that was already richly detailed has something more live, there are extra dimensions, added colour, this by no means is to belittle what is very (very) satisfying album, but hey, once they got on it tonight, once they go into the zone, once they hooked it all up and got us to come along with them well, this really is a joy of a gig.
And by the time they got to set closer Domino the whole place is bouncing with them, bouncing with joy with them, with each other, what a set closer, they tell us they don’t want to do an encore, that the ending was perfect (only a fraction of the feeling is captured on that raw live footage, it does tell you a little bit though) and they can’t follow it, that it can’t get any better than that moment, they’re right, it was, what a gig, it doesn’t get much better, what an ending! They do do an encore with Pellicule and yes it is always worth going to another gig, Corridor live are even more joyous than their albums are, rather pleased I bothered, music is a joyous thing. (sw)
THE ORGAN 