Broken Bells Cover Neil Young At Triumphant UK Live Debut

Broken Bells made their UK live debut last night with an impressive sold-out show at London's ICA.

Fresh from performing at the Nouveau Casino in Paris on Monday, The Shins' James Mercer and Danger Mouse from Gnarls Barkley took to the stage to a rapturous response from the audience including a certain Mark Ronson.

They then proceeded to launch into 'The High Road' flanked by a huge fuzzy projection, two guitarists and a keyboardist come trumpeter.

Early set highlight came from 'The Ghost Inside' after which James joked: "Thank you for coming to our first London show. Are you guys drinking enough? Good."

Letting the music do the talking, the duo then stayed quiet throughout as they breezed through a set consisting entirely of tracks from their eponymous debut album with surprising accomplishment.

Danger Mouse proved to be very much the heartbeat of the band, switching between drums, bass and keyboards with incessant regularity.

After exiting the stage with a modest wave and a modest "thanks" from James, they returned for an encore which arguably featured the set highlight – a cover of Neil Young's 'Don't Let It Bring You Down.'

The set finale was another cover – Tommy James and the Shondells' 'Crimson & Clover' – and despite a few bumbling notes which led James to proclaim "that was gonna be so cool, that was gonna be sick!", it did little to dampen the triumphant show.

(by Melissa Cowell)

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