A stage packed with dust sheet-covered equipment gave Stricken City little room to manoeuvre during the opening slot. On the plus side, they were playing to a rapidly filling room of surprisingly attentive people - attention that they held with aplomb.
The band seem to be going through their `building up stage experience` phase but they`ve got a slightly gawky charm that it`d be a shame to lose. Musically, we`re talking catchy guitar pop with enough quirk to keep things interesting. Oh, plus the obligatory extended percussion sections - 2009 is turning out to be the year mainstream indie rediscovered drum rhythms.
Bombay Bicycle Club are one of those bands that have been on the edge of my radar for a while. I`d half heard a few songs and suspected I might like them if I gave them a chance. However, last night I didn`t think they were much to get excited about. Jack, a graduate of the Thom Yorke School of Dance, mumbled words which were punctuated occasionally by tight bursts of frenetic guitar riffage.
There was never any fear that Maximo Park would get things back on track. With the release of their third album, `Quicken The Heart`, they`ve established themselves as an indie mainstay - something that didn`t look all that likely when they first appeared on Warp many moons ago.
An aesthetic band, there was none of the clutter that the other bands had to put up with. Their stage-set was all about silhouettes, strobes, spotlights and contrasting colours. It allowed Paul Smith to throw as many shapes as he liked - jousting with his mic stand, leaning back to shout through a megaphone and leaping from the front of the stage.
Although I don`t think the new album is as strong as previous ones, the more recent songs were received well enough - peppered throughout a set of established faves, of course. `My Velocity`, `The Coast is Always Changing` and `Books From Boxes` caused a fuss early on, but then Maximo Park are well-oiled party starters these days .
Chris Unitt (View Original Article)
Flicking through Bombay Bicycle Club’s (BBC) plain but friendly website earlier in the day, it’s easy to be impressed by the cracking selection of tender yet raucous tracks beaming from the home page, particularly for a band only just out of school. Jack Steadman’s vocals echo that of a young, less gay, Brian Molko, whilst the stop-start guitar antics of the rest of the band, draw comparisons with The Strokes and even Pavement.
And on the night, as the fresh-faced teenagers play to the jail-bait muddle crammed inside an upstairs room in a former Methodist church turned garishly daubed indie-club known as ‘The Sanctuary’, their already distinctive quiet / loud dichotomy simmers a likeable set along at this Levi’s Ones to Watch gig.
Yet simmer is the correct word, for despite a clutch of likeable, tight tracks on record, tonight’s gig just feels a tad undercooked. The young band clearly have talent, but the blistering energy of support act Flashgun is never truly matched by the headliners, with the melodic, raucous frenzy onstage never quite spilling over (that’s enough cooking analogies). It all feels a bit detached.
Which is a shame, because as much as I want to love and get excited by BBC, the gig struggles to really excite, as the baying crowd wait patiently for a killer track to grab us all by the collective gonads and scream ‘DANCE BITCH’. Sadly, it never comes, effectively relegating a capable live set to the level of musical muesli - good for you, but extraordinary hard work.
Dave Allen (View Original Article)
