Borderline

Picked Billie up last night, after her stint at Harley Street and went out for din-dins. I'd seen a couple of likely places on the walk from Ox Circ, a nice mews pub, and a funky new establishment called Mash which had it's own brewery on site. However the menus at both were piss poor so we chanced upon this place:


Quite the grooviest little spot I've seen in many a long year, with a huge mish-mash of retro fixtures and fittings, glittery chandeliers and Chinese silk collaged wallpaper....It's always worth walking out of somewhere if you think you deserve better.



They even had a 2 course prix fixe happy hour, so we had ginormous tiger prawns, and baked cod with the stickiest sticky rice available this side of the Uhu canteen. Billie then beat a hasty retreat, and I proceeded in the bucketing rain to the Borderline to see Charlotte Greig again who was supporting James Yorkston.



The three guitar line-up worked better indoors where you could hear all of the instruments, rather than the weak and weedy sound at the Green Man. Cotton Crown was especially nice, and at the end sounded like it wanted to segue into I'll Be Yor Mirror. Next up was Fionn Regan, who had also played the Green Man, but had been missed by all. I thought he was excellent, but everyone else thought him too rocky (because he had bass and drums). There was a bit of a Libertinesesque edge to his accoustic ditties, and by the look of some of the trendier elements of the audience (skinny white boys in tight white jeans, string vest, leather jacket casually hung over the shoulder, and checked flat cap at jaunty angle) he may be being eyed up as the new Pete Doherty (only with talent). The songs on his Myspace page don't really have the same edge they had live. Definately worth looking out for if he comes your way.

This was the second of two nights that James Yorkston was playing at the Borderline, last night he'd been accompanied by his band, but tonight he was mainly solo acoustic. After a while he was joined by a young female violinist, and later on a harpist too, but I just didn't think his songs, or his voice, offered enough variety to hold ones attention through the 90 minutes he intended to play. I skipped out after an hour claiming early night required to prepare for first thing in the a.m. driving lesson.