For this Unplugged for Autism charity show, synth rockers White Lies strip away the pomp and pyrotechnics, taking to what’s probably their tiniest ever set-up. Singer Harry McVeigh mans a miniscule keyboard-cum-drum machine, bearded bassist Charles Cave takes to an antique snug chair like a trawlerman spinning odes to a mermaid lover and drummer Jack Lawrence-Brown discards his booming kit for a modest xylophone. Given they are a band built for volume, pop opulence and brute force largesse, it’s like watching André the Giant attempt his first laser eye surgery.
Yet subtlety and restraint prove an unexpected forte. Early songs such as Unfinished Business and Farewell to the Fairground become sparse and sombre funk grooves, skeletal apparitions of Duran Duran, while tracks from last year’s third album Big TV – on which they drew back from the arena-grasping bombast of 2011’s Ritual to paint in more intricate emotions – truly gleam. When McVeigh tackles a solo acoustic First Time Caller, his rich, sonorous voice becomes a hypnotic weapon, channelling the vengeful anguish of a protagonist calling her absentee DJ father on his radio phone-in show to demand, “I want you to love me more than I love you.” It’s true, little White Lies work wonders.
They close with a cover of Prince’s I Would Die 4 U, another phantom of the 80s, leaving headliner Gaz Coombes a hefty gauntlet to lift. The one-time Supergrass frontman struggles initially, the bluesy bones of Hot Fruit and Buffalo bared by the format, but hits his stride when tapping taped strings out of boxes lined up atop his keyboard during artful ballads from his second solo album Matador – most notably The Girl Who Fell to Earth, a touching song about his autistic daughter. Supergrass’s Moving is a rousing singalong finale to a haunted yet heart-warming night.
