Last night I saw 11 live bands in the space of 10 hours, at 6 different venues, each doing a half hour set! I was in the front row for 6 of them as well! I began at 6pm with the Undercut and ended at 4am with the Holloways. Here’s a rundown of what I saw:
Undercut
A boring Bristol band kicked off Friday night’s precedings. Nothing much to say here really… I wouldn’t recommend them at all.
Kharma 45
This lot, who I wrote about recently, were much better. Their style is indie-electro (a bit like Kasabian or Muse but actually good) and songs like Sweet Ecstacy and Political Soul sounded great live.
The Wallbirds
A mixture of folk, pop and indie, this lot gave us some ace jolly music, had a super-cool look and were great fun to watch. I don’t think I’d listen to their CD, but I enjoyed their performance.
Radar
Ska-pop which was quite likeable, but a bit samey, so I only stayed half the set before heading to The Beach Club for Oh No Ono.
The Midway State
Having only allocated 15 mins changeover between bands, The Beach were unsurprisingly running pretty late, and this Canadian band were still on when Oh No Ono were supposed to start. I’d heard a couple of songs on MySpace and been unimpressed, but seeing them live I was totally converted – they have some lovely tracks and the singer has a good voice.
Oh No Ono
At last the acetastic Danes took to the stage, and it was hilarious to watch the reactions of the crowd as the lead singer began singing in his supremely high-pitched voice (or is it a vocoder? I need to know!). Their show was great fun and Practical Money Skills For Life sounded brilliant as their closing track. Best of all was their look which was just fabulous – they’re definitely my new style icons, even if they’re all male! My particular favourite was the guitarist (either Malthe or Aske, I can’t work it out) who was super-jolly and wore a cross between a Russian fur hat and a bowler hat – it was amazing!
Pigeon Detectives
I was at the front for Oh No Ono so I stayed there for the next band. I knew they were quite popular on Radio 1 etc. but I could only remember the song Romantic Type. I felt a bit bad being at the front when I didn’t even know what they looked like, and the room was choc-a-block with proper fans, but I did find the show surprisingly very enjoyable, and even found myself singing along to lots of songs (mainly possible cos they’re quite repetitive) even though they were new to me. It was a slightly traumatic experience as I got quite squashed, drenched in water thrown by the lead singer, and frequently narrowly avoided being crowd-surfed on, but I was proud to say I survived it unharmed. I could make it as a pub-indie kid yet!
The Airbourne Toxic Event
Talk about a random name, I walked up to the bouncer and said “Where do we go to see Air… um… thing…?” Luckily he worked out what I meant and directed me into the upstairs of Komedia, which was taken over by Club NME for the night. The group had one great song, the others being of mixed quality, but I was impressed by all their instrument-swapping.
Battle
I didn’t really pay any attention to these at all, so I can’t comment on them. They weren’t amazing anyway.
Foals
A bit too noisy for me, and I was exhausted by this point so just excited to find somewhere to sit down and spent most of the performance with my eyes closed to block out all the flashing lights!
The Holloways
These were quite good and I enjoyed their jolly single Generator, but I probably would have had more fun if it was getting on to 4 in the morning! Still, I can now say I’ve been to a gig so late at night that when I came out it was starting to get light…
Tonight is the final night and I have plans to see Ripchord, (We Are) Performance, Sonic Hearts, Tiny Dancers, Kate Nash or Captain (I can’t pick!), The Wire, The Hours, Winterkids (a last minute addition to the bill which I am VERY excited about!), The Answering Machine and Bonde Do Role!