Euros Childs and David Kilgour at the High Dive

Euros Childs + David Kilgour at the High Dive | Seattle

Euros Childs is kind of a mysterious guy, at least to me. There aren’t any photos of him on the sleeves of his records and his previous band Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci weren’t photographed very often either. Half of his songs, he sings in his native Welsh, so even the music has a mysterious quality to it. So when I found myself standing next to Euros at the High Dive I did a double take, he looked like somebody’s kid brother who sneaked in the back door at this 21+ show. Not very mysterious, but a very nice guy and someone capable of playing a killer show to mostly empty High Dive on Halloween night.

Euros is quite prolific of late, putting out two albums this year. The Welsh sung Bore Da came out back in March and the recently released English sung Miracle Inn just released last month. Euros was behind his giant keyboard accompanied by bass and drummer Peter Richardson who is himself another former Gorky (and Topper) . The songs came quick, one after another, and when his acoustic guitar wasn’t coming through the sound board, he quickly put it down and quickly moved on franticly to the next song. Most of his songs are keyboard based, and Euros can rock it on the Roland, at times reminding me of the energy of Jerry Lee Louis. Not that I ever saw Jerry Lee live mind you, but he certainly conjured up a manic energy that I imagine Jerry Lee had, especially on the rocker Henry a Matilda Supermarketsuper.

Another one of my favourites from the night comes from the new album, Miracle Inn.
mp3: Euros Childs – Over You

Not sure what it is about the Welsh and their habit of playing long songs live. A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of hearing Gruff Rhys do his 15 minute Skylon! and tonight I had the pleasure of hearing Euros do the 15 minute title track to Miracle Inn. It’s not so much a single song but multiple ones under the guise of Miracle Inn, and the small appreciative crowd was totally into it.

Euros is touring with New Zealander and former Clean man David Kilgour. They are alternating nights as head liners and tonight Kilgour drew the short straw. Since the Clean he’s put out six solo albums, so he had a wealth of material to choose from, but he stuck mostly to his last three. I’m a huge fan of his album Sugar Mouth, and he’s understandably moved on since that 1994 pop masterpiece. Since it was Halloween night, he sported a black whig for the entire set and brought up Homer Simpson for one song. Kilgour seemed like he was in goofy mood, but the loud conversations of uninterested drinkers in the back of the bar seemed to take away any energy the band could muster. Despite that, he still sounded great with his distinctively laid back voice giving his pop songs a really shimmering quality. It was a real pleasure to see him in this rare (at least in America) live setting.

Though, he didn’t play it, No, No, No from Sugar Mouth is one of my favorite David Kilgour songs.
mp3: David Kilgour – No, No, No