We don't get Bell X1 often in the States, so I've jumped on the opportunity to see them when I can. I've even had the chance to see them in their native Ireland a couple times. That said, the band's recent acoustic set at the Hotel Café in Los Angeles was, hands down, the best I've ever seen them.
Bell X1 began the set stripped down to singer/guitarist Paul Noonan, guitarist/pianist Dave Geraghty, and bassist Dominic Philips. Starting out with "How Your Heart is Wired" and then going into "The Great Defector," both from the band's most recent release, Blue Lights on the Runway, Paul was kind enough to slip in his vocals "that's cell phone" after the "people from the mobile phone company" line, much to our amusement. After a great story on the homeless man on Paul's street growing up who had found a lady friend one night, the band played a great version of "Rocky Took a Lover."
After "Rocky Took a Lover," the rest of the band (guitarist Marc Aubele, relieved of keyboard duty for the acoustic set, and drummer Rory Doyle) joined the three already on stage. The band went into "Next to You" and followed by rocking it up with "Reacharound," dedicated to Bill Clinton after Paul's explanation of to what type the song's phrase "cute hoor" referred (a "lovable rogue" - not a prostitute).
To be sure, what deserves mention here isn't simply the great delivering of the songs, but the interaction with the crowd from Paul Noonan - the stories and banter. At some point, Paul explained that the band was in town for an Oscar party and that Dave Geraghty and Tom Cruise had finally been in the same room together. "Do ya see it?" I never had before but now I certainly did.
The band played "Eve, the Apple of My Eye," a song that had brought them to play an acoustic set at this same spot several years earlier when it was featured in an episode of The OC. The group then gave us "Light Catches Your Face," a fantastic version of "White Water Song" (my personal favourite song of theirs), and ended the standard set with a version of "Flame" they claimed to have "countrified" for the evening. I don't know that I'd call it country but I'd definitely call it good.
The band re-emerged for an encore of "I'll See Your Heart and I'll Raise You Mine" and here we received the most amazing moment of the gig: Paul stepping away from the microphone and singing directly to us, without amplification. The venue, getting a little noisy and typically LA, rightly quieted itself for him.
