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Bombay Bicycle Club brings acclaimed sound to Tampa's Coral Skies Music Festival

 
Jamie MacColl, Jack Steadman, Ed Nash and Suren de Saram of British indie rock band Bombay Bicycle Club.
Jamie MacColl, Jack Steadman, Ed Nash and Suren de Saram of British indie rock band Bombay Bicycle Club.
Published Oct. 23, 2014

It's safe to say Ed Nash has never had a gig like the one he booked Sept. 19.

That was the day after the Scottish referendum on independence from the United Kingdom. By coincidence, the Bombay Bicycle Club bassist was booked for a DJ gig in Glasgow.

"It's an incredibly exciting time to be here," Nash said by phone, shortly after arriving. "I imagine people will be celebrating wildly or drinking their sorrows away. It could be quite a night."

Such is life as a member of Bombay Bicycle Club, an increasingly in-demand band. Case in point: On Wednesday, four days after performing at Tampa's Coral Skies Music Festival, the London alt-pop group will find out if their latest album So Long, See You Tomorrow won Britain's prestigious Mercury Prize, an honor previously bestowed upon Franz Ferdinand, Arctic Monkeys, James Blake and P.J. Harvey.

"I'm honestly absolutely blown away by it, probably more than I have been for anything in the past," said Nash, 24. "It's so prestigious and it's so well thought of that I'm really very flattered by the whole thing. I used to follow it as a kid."

Though the young group has yet to break big in the States, it isn't for a lack of quality output. Bloggers and Brit-watchers picked up on 2011's A Different Kind of Fix through sleekly quirky shoulda-been hits Shuffle and Lights Out, Words Gone, but the swirling, hypnotic, immersive So Long, See You Tomorrow marked a meteoric artistic step forward.

"To me, it's a summery album," Nash said. "It's very upbeat, and I guess it seems quite positive and happy on the first listen. And then as you go over it more and more, there's a melancholy undertone and vibe. We always kind of liken it to the end of the summer, when all of those big feelings are drifting away."

Nash said it's hard to put into words the sensations they hope a particular piece of music will evoke in listeners. But Bombay Bicycle Club is a band that also thinks visually.

"I find it strange when people put so much time and effort into the music on their album, and then it almost feels halfhearted, a lot of the album covers you see now," Nash said. "They just stick a photo of themselves on the cover, or they have something that doesn't fit whatsoever. I find that strange. I think it should be a package. That's kind of what we think about — the album as a package, the artwork, the single artwork and the music, all in one thing."

That's especially true for Nash, who painted the artwork for the band's 2010 album Flaws and helps oversee the rest of the band's aesthetic.

"I draw from time to time on tour," he said. "I normally paint with oil paints, but I think everyone would get p----- off if I brought them on the bus. It would be unbelievably messy."

One good thing about touring, Nash said, is that it gives him the chance to take in artwork on the road. (He sounded excited that St. Petersburg's Dalí Museum was only a 30- or 40-minute drive from Coral Skies.)

"It's actually a great way to see paintings, being on tour, as long as you're kind of on the ball with it, and you check into what's going on, which sometimes I find hard to do. But whenever I'm in New York, I go out and I see galleries, and in San Francisco I do the same. Just whenever there's time."

Jennifer Lawrence buys mansion

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JLaw has some sweet new digs with a long pedigree, a scant $7 to $8 million later. According to E! News, Jennifer Lawrence bought a 5-bedroom, 6 bathroom, 5,500 square-foot Beverly Hills mansion that belonged to Jessica Simpson. Simpson sold the house to an unknown buyer in October 2013 for $6.4 million, but other famous known owners have included Crocodile Dundee Paul Hogan, Tom and Kathy Freston, Ellen DeGeneres and producer Rick Yorn. Man, if walls could talk, we bet that house would never shut up. The Internet has taken great delight in labeling it 24-year-old Lawrence's new bachelorette pad (to which we say … it's her home, regardless of relationship status!), while simultaenously reporting a split from Coldplay singer Chris Martin or Lawrence having his baby, depending on whom you believe. We're not inclined to believe either, considering the evidence is naught in the latter claim and in the former claim the fact that the Hunger Games star was spotted Wednesday at a movie and at Los Angeles' Ago restaurant both sans Martin. Yawn. This is 2014, people. Can't a girl go to a movie and dinner without a boyfriend? Then again, TMZ reported that "consciously uncoupled" Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow were spotted having dinner with their two kids Tuesday night, then Paltrow's SUV stopped only a block from the restaurant after they left "separately." Consciously uncoupled, indeed.