We are the future.

We Are The Ocean *****
Veara*****
Lower Than Atlantis ***1/2**
Don Broco****7/8*
Electric Ballroom Camden 28.04.2011


Springlike evening. Massive queue outside the Ballroom. Hipsters abound. More plugs than B&Q electrical aisle. Beiber haircuts. Ink. WKDs. Kids. Lots of kids. Plaid. Boatshoe loafers. You can picture the scene. Another night in the furtherance of young British rock and roll. And it felt good.

Don Broco****7/8*

With 4 bands on, there's always the pain of a really early start and so it was tonight. No sooner had I plonked my bum down on a bar stool I had to haul my carcass into the main hall for Bobby D and the fun-filled noise machine that is Don Broco.


Considering it was such an early kick off, a really sizeable and voraciously baying pack filled the room.

They were raptuously received and kicked off straight into the splendid nut-grinding Thug Workout. Mr Damiani was in fine form. Sporting a rather natty Oli Sykes vest and de rigeur shorts he bounced, leapt, hurled him self around and looked like he was thoroughly enjoying himself.

However, he was somewhat eclipsed by the sight of Dan and Fez from the brilliant Proceed, dancing like a couple of tipsy teenage sixth form girls or a pair of self-conscious mincing go-go dancers (thankfully not in speedos or arseless leather chaps) at the back.

The crowd was lapping it up (the band, not Dan and Fez's floor show), and Rob set up the obligatory wall of death which kicked off splendidly - and during which he knackered his mic.

Don Broco are far from a novelty band despite the cheeky demeanour and pop sensibilities. They really are maturing into an original, rocking good-time bunch of loveable miscreants. They are as tight as a tick, effortlessly messing around with compound timings and crunchy guitar drops, as catchy as a super strain STi while cleverly mashing up their genres. Seamlessly throwing in allusions to reggae, ska, pop, punk (but thankfully not anodyne pop punk!), glam rock and metal. They come over as a really nice bunch of guys who are wringing all the fun they can out of the scene at the moment. And long may it continue.

Sure, they don't take themselves too seriously: they're neither shoe-gazing musos, nihilistic mournful black metal miseries nor emo coated screamers and whingers. Nope, they kick arse, then come round the front for a cheeky kick in the cock. With heavy boots on and with a run up. And all done with infectious smiles, energy and verve. Songs like Top Of The World, Do What We Do, the summer-saturated Beautiful Morning are genuinely excellent songs in their own right, but chuck in 300 hormonally dosed-up hipsters and something special happens.

The only reason they didn't get 5 stars is that they regrettably ran out of time for Dreamboy. Which I assume would've been the set closer. A shame, but certainly didn't sour the pudding too much. They were excellent and while the future of young British rock and roll is in the hands of these guys, we're in for a marvellous time ahead. Top Of The World indeed.

Lower Than Atlantis ***1/2**

I'll admit, Lower Than Atlantis are not on my playlist an awful lot. I own both albums and Mr Duce's voice is a cracking, worthy, necessary original and raw addition to everyone's collection. But my jury is still out on the songs. Don't get me wrong, they're not terrible. By a long way. In fact there are genius moments cosseted among the hearty and raw almost punky noise that marks out their territory. But apart from the obvious ones, I struggle to find anything too memorable about most of their oeuvre.

Nonetheless, they take to the stage, again greedily lapped up by the salivating mob and do, without doubt kill it. Loud, passionate, ramshackle, energetic and aggressive, they get the hordes baying and bleating while throwing themselves around without too much forced provocation. From the butch opener, (Motor)way of Life to the crowd pleasing Deadliest catch, packed with fishy, maritime and Pirate puns, similies and metaphors, they delivered a strong, engaging and sweat-inducing set marred only by a bit of a mid-range heavy sound mix. A bit too much estuarine mud. But bollocks to that really, everyone seemed to thoroughly enjoy it. As did I.

Veara *****

I'll have to be brief. I wish they had been. Derivative pop (skate) punk offering absolutely nothing new. They were terrible. Not musically, but just what they are. And what they stand for. The world really doesn't need this any more. Or any more of this.

Even the young crowd struggled with Veara.

And, to make matters worse, they had a secret weapon. Which failed miserably: and 808 bass drop that relentlessly was applied to all of their totally out-moded and puerile set list. It was like Jimmy Caulty's german sonic riot canon which causes spontaneous bowel evacuation. At one point I thought I'd shat myself, but on closer examination, the bad smell was coming from the stage. 

We Are The Ocean *****

I'll keep this brief for the opposite reasons. They came, they right royally kicked arse. They conquered. From the mesmerising opening salvo with three drummers and the sampled mixed up strains of their anthemic What it Feels Like through classics like Look Alive thru new crowd pleasers Overtime and the sumptuous Runaway, this lot have announced their arrival onto the world's rock stage. And some. Even allowing for an injury break in the middle of the set when an able and willing substitute stepped in for the temporarily crocked Dan Brown.

I'm not going to pick at the scab off the Alexis on Fire discussion - that's been well debated and documented. I will, however descend into the other debate of de jour about the new darlings of British Crossover; they are two bands. Not quite as simply as dividing them by albums and the obvious shift in Brown's dirty scream to a gruff, sexy vocal. But that they are capable of being heavily dark and frothily light in the twinkling of an eye.

But I believe that this schizophrenia is actually a good thing. Yes, the new album is lighter, more melodic and at times ridiculously catchily poptastic but it does sit comfortably alongside the harder more brooding and macarbre material from earlier in the band's meteoric career. Liam's clean vox are at times heart-melting, and although the lyrics won't ever trouble the scorers' notepads at the Novello awards, they are a true force in Brit rock at the moment.

I love the fact that younger kids are getting off on WATO. It makes a pleasant change from MCR, Paramore and 30STM and opens hearts, eyes and mouths to a more worthy and complex musical diet. Which has to be a good thing. Long live pop and roll.

Eddie Harvey Septet. *****

Here's a weird one. Last night, I was lucky enough to attend a great friend of mine's wonderful jazz performance at WAYOUTWEST in Richmond.

The ridiculously youthful (for an 85 year old) Eddie Harvey had assembled a brilliant Septet for a fantastic evening of sensational tunes and arrangements. From Ellington to many of Eddie's own, it was a true privilege to be in the company of such a grand band of jazz legends. For anyone interested the septet's line-up was: Dave Brown on Bass, Tony Kinsey on Drums, Tony Woods on Saxes, Chris Biscoe- Saxes and Clarinets, Jimmy Hastings-saxes and flutes, Pete Hurt - Tenor and Eddie himself on piano.

These guys (well apart from Dave and Tony as they're comparative whippersnappers) have played and written for and with some of the true greats of the jazz world and way back when occupied a similar place in the underground/alternative culture that many of today's rock bands park their arses. Alright, they may not be churning out variations on  a Thug Work Out theme, but the lineage is clearly evident. Well it was after a few pints anyway. Stunning stuff.

ASIWYFA next week. More tunes soon. Bwoooar!

X hits the spot.

The Xcerts *****
You Animals*****
My First Tooth *****
The Barfly Camden April 18th 2011

I really don't want to write about the supports. At all. Not that they were no good, in fact, far from it. It's just that I'm still buzzing from the main event, and the memories of the tantalising and earnest fluffers has subsided; eclipsed by the crazy-arsed fucktacular orgasmic fireworks of Murray and the boys. But, in the spirit of fairness, I will. And have.

So, we find ourselves back at the tiny Fritzl-esque sweaty box of love that is The Barfly. Stuffed with spicy chicken and Pinotage, we install ourselves at the bar ready to be entertained.

For a cheeky starter, we are served up My First Tooth*****

A raggedy baggedy band of art school folky/country looking folk. With a nurse on bass. Interesting.

My First Tooth - The later years

Despite the incongruous appearance clashing somewhat with the assembled hipsters and musos, they were bloomin' good. Hearty stuff. Lively stuff. Amusing and light stuff.Tuneful stuff. Folky-country-artschool stuff. And all very accomplished. There were definite hints of Arcade Fire, Captain (without Trevor Horne's noodlings and button tweaking), Fairport Convention and even Prefab Sprout but was an original(ish) melange and the crowd seemed jollied and indeed jolly, It was a rollicking variety performance with regular swapping of instruments. Strong male lead vox on most of the songs, sumptuously backed with tight and interesting harmonies. And a cheery girl singer looking like a new-age traveller version of Kate Rusby (but not quite as hot!). Odd looking mandolin/lute things (but thankfully no banjo!)and stringed things. All manner of this and that. I was half expecting a crumhorn or a sackbut to be wheeled out.

A brave and outré choice for a support slot in a dingy rocky venue. And despite some seriously wayward tuning issues later in the set, they were jolly good but would have been even better in a summer Cambridgeshire field at Cherry Hinton in glorious sunshine, fuelled by homemade lemonade or gallons of scrumpy. Well, the scrumpy, definitely. Don't even know why I mentioned lemonade.

So, who next? You Animals *****. That's who.Well there were some table lamps, standard lamps and a big menacing Korg synth thing. Then on trotted a whole bunch of likeable looking yoofs fronted by a young Emo Phillips in a Dennis The Menace shirt and complete with a blonde Debenhams make-up counter assistant perched behind the big menacing Korg synth thing.

You Animals. So young and with the whole world in front of them.

They kicked off with a mildly enjoyable pop punky, jangly, guitar-based indie noise with good enough but not staggering vox, all backed by electronicy noises emanating from the big menacing Korg synth thing. But to be honest they were (as one of my colleagues cajoled me to write) Pointless. Sad, but true. Not enough variety, difference, sophistication or even, more worryingly, and decent tunes. Well, certainly no decent choruses. Too many Woo Woos in lieu of lyrics and just a mid-range, muddy guitar fest albeit with a gallant and very energetic, engaging Emo Phillips front man. Not my sort of thing, but all power to them for their obvious self-belief and enthusiasm. It's not easy being up there as we all know.

Emo. Definitely Emo.

The Xcerts *****
Something strange always happens to me at gigs; I get worried that the much anticipated headline act isn't going to be significantly better than the support. Or significantly different. After You Animals' brave but mildly moribund offering, I was drawing parallels between their schtick and The Xcerts material. There were, undeniable similarities. Obviously a fuller sound due to the number in the band. But single-coiled guitars, poppy, grungy and rock influences  Woo Woos and a likeable, energetic and charismatic leader/frontman. Surely Murray and the lads would be at least a little noticeably different.

I seriously needn't have worried.

A Scotsman called Murray who actually is a genuine winner. Now there's a thing.

But before I continue in regaling the world with the details of how this mesmerising trio completely killed it, I have a confession. I didn't have my notebook with me. So I had to scribble my ramblings onto receipt paper kindly donated to me by the narmaid. Which I subsequently threw away. So I have no set list. I can't even remember which song they kicked off with. But whichever it was, it was bloody brilliant.

The sound was gutsy, full, aggressive, clear and beautiful. The mix was perfect. They were as tight as a Caelocanth's rectum at 20,000ft under the sea. In short they were fucking magnificent.

Murray's little helper. Boom.

Due to the Jagermeister and Gaymers and the inadvertent shedding of my notes, the memory was shaky as to the general make up of the set. But they definitely played Do You Feel Safe, Young Belane, Cool Ethan, Home versus Home, Distant Memory and Crisis in The Slow Lane. I don't recall Just Go Home or Slackerpop, but they might have done. In fact probably did. Whatever it was all brilliant. Every joy-drenched minute of it. Sing-alongs, fist pumping, tearfully emotional spine-tingling moments. Fanbloodytastic,

Man, this lot have to be one of the greatest live young talents in the country. And they proved it tonight. And some.

Here's Crisis in The Slow lane as just a taster. Pure, melodic, colon-twisting magnificence.



So, any worries about too much melding in with the previous acts were well and truly allayed. Murray's guitar sound was like a Dragster in your front room at times. And like a Stradivarius at The Albert Hall at others. All nitro-powered by the wonderfully threatening and impressive banks of Jim Marshall's finest turbo boosting backline. This is the fifth time I've seen these boys. From the first time supporting Dear ol' Sam Duckworth at a converted strip bar in Soho to the passion-soaked Strongbow Tent at Sonisphere. This was a new level. Their music is maturing. Their sound ripening, their confidence and mastery (although never in doubt) blossoming.

Woo Hoo!

They are deservedly on the up. And up. I was privileged to be there tonight and can't urge anyone strongly enough to see them soon. Although they are easily brilliant enough to fill huger venues with alacrity, get 'em while they're hot in a small, emotionally-charged venue like the marvellous Barfly and you won't find a better evening out. Anywhere.

Genius. Sodding genius.




We Are The Ocean and Don Broco next week.

In the meantime, I've just heard some tracks of the forthcoming Maybeshewill album - totally brilliant. Oh, and the new Metronomy stuff is grand too.

More tunes soon, Bwoooar!