Three and a half of Brum’s finest bands on offer
this evening courtesy of the lovely This Is Tmrw team. First up relative newbies
Chartreuse with their neat boy/girl vocal interplay, 80s tinged pop (think a
little bit of Aztec Camera, Prefab Sprout and Deacon Blue mixed up with the
more recent Best Coast) and shimmery surftastic guitars. Bonus points for the
double drumming climax too which saw the band’s female vocalist Harriet teach
hers a lesson it won’t forget in a hurry. Impressive stuff.
Hoopla Blue continue to defy genres, gleefully drifting
from Floyd-y noodlings one minute to Wild Beasts-ish flights of fancy the next, adding a little
Highlife and steel drum sounding synths along the way. Texturally rich,
musically schizophrenic and played with the kind of intensity that makes you
think their very lives depend on it the Blue are growing into something really
special. Hoop hoop hooray.
Speaking of special things tonight was the first
ever appearance of a 7 piece version of Goodnight Lenin, their numbers boosted
by the addition of 50% of Free School (or 66.6% depending on if you count Greg
Bird as a full time member). As their last gig at The Rainbow proved GNL are
going through something of a metamorphosis right now, adding rawer, rockier,
hookier material to their existing more folk focussed back catalogue. Tonight’s
set kicked off with a brace of new tunes that well and truly fitted into the
first category, played with such ferocity that lead singer John Fell even busted
a string. Holy folk! There’s still an American vibe to the music but these
songs have more of the gutsy feel of Springsteen at his bombastic best (Start
Over, dripping with mentions of ‘gasoline’, could well be the distant cousin of
Born To Run) and with the new members sprinkling a little electronic fairy dust
over the whole thing it’s the ‘phattest’ they’ve ever sounded.
There was still room for plenty of ‘old skool’ Lenin
in the set too though, pick of the bunch being a sublimely brilliant version of
You Were Always Waiting and firm fan favourite Old Cold Hands. Whether these songs
will carry on being played if the band continues to get its rocks off remains
to be seen...or heard.
A mid set Twitter contest for the audience proved
that the band’s not lost its sense of fun, something which perhaps helped them
build a devoted fanbase in the first place. Challenged to tweet something witty
the winning entry was “What’s ET short for? Cos he’s got little legs”. Boom
boom. The prize? A copy of Jurassic Park...not the latest one but the old one.
Still, the bloke who won it seemed chuffed enough.
There’s room for much more electronica if this 7
piece experiment’s going to continue, perhaps more so on the older, gentler
songs, and when the band hits a groove you’re sometimes left wanting more but most
importantly of all they seem to be enjoying playing more than ever right now. Free
of the weight of expectation that came with the release of their much
anticipated debut album perhaps they’re just seeing where the road leads ‘em
this time? Judging by the audience’s deservedly enthusiastic reaction to this new 'meatier' Lenin it’ll be bigger venues
than this before long.
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