Support: Villains, The People The Poet
Where: Barfly, Camden
When: 20th January 2014
Reviewed By: James Robinson
"Blind swingin’,
Y’know it ain't a thing, an
If you punk-ass bitches wanna take a shot,
I’ll be a leavin’ yo heads a ringin’"
Once said a famous rapper….
And it’s kinda resonant...
The same way that ‘kinda’ is a synonym for resonant, so to speak. Enhancing or enrichening by contrast. In somewhat of a post-structural manner, that would implicate that what beholds, thou dear readers, is a review of an album launch party (Blitz Kids', to be precise) that certainly spans the barriers of good, bad and ugly. Yet what you will find below speaks nothing if not the truth (and I do love a terrible simile, cause they hands-down beat metaphors).
As the January wind blew hard, and the rain began to fall upon the dark, wet concrete of a desolate night on Chalk Farm High Road, a lonely figure ordered another beer at the bar, and contemplated the past ten years of his life. Incubus provided the soundtrack of his early evening, and he was all too eager to tell his new-found bar acquaintance of how he’d never really ‘got’ nu-metal, but ‘always liked this song’. The bullshit beeps on the radar grew louder. At this point, the antagonist of the tale could take no more. He also wanted a cigarette, and thus turned away, walking out into the freezing January wind…
At which point, it became abundantly clear, that the girls lined up for this gig, and the boys beside them, at the tender age of sixteen, really didn't know what they were missing, or how just how lucky the band were to have them there. Of course, age is age, and you have to be over 18 to buy beer, and yes, you must look like Gandalf to be able to buy alcohol in a supermarket. But it would have been really nice to see some Xs on hands and let the young ones upstairs a little bit sooner.
Upon return from the nicotine, Drivelweasel was still harping on at the bar. I headed straight upstairs for the most blinding thing I never did see coming….
Villains opened like a tap full of fakery-wizardry (by which I mean, nothing original, but presented with a hat-full of huzaarhh!). Or more specifically, as I would put it, like Phil Specter Phil-Spectering the shit out of Alchemy-era Thrice, crossed with Thursday, TBS' pop sensibilities and halfway through finding out Far was such a thing. Then making Mickey Flannigan the frontman.
Yup. Villains, denouncing their previous incarnation, throw themselves right in with a sound that resonates a growth in both maturity and skill, and thanks to the house engineer tonight, sounds like the live equivalent of the first time I heard White Pony. Their on stage presence is both confident and professional, until that is, their lead singer takes to addressing the audience between songs. At which point, my friends, is unleashed the perfect combination of Adam Lazzara and Flannigan. From tonight's performance these guys are definitely one of the ones to keep an eye out at the emerging front of the British rock scene. It may be 2014, but Villains have certainly taken a decade under the influence of the Long Island scene and it ain't a bad thing at all.
Keeping with the theme of changing names and coming up stronger, South Wales’ The People The Poet (formerly Tiger Please) sound like Bruce Springsteen forced the Kings of Leon and Mumford & Sons to get naked and fuck fight to the death, collected the semen, blood and faeces into a bag, and use it to blackmail the Foo Fighters into recording a folk/rock record, mixed by Phil Specter, whilst Eddie Vedder and Brian Fallon cry-wanked cause they weren't asked to be involved. Which, my friends, is not a bad thing at all. This is a band that are destined to become huge, and I would highly, highly recommend checking them out on tour in the forthcoming months.
Also, any band from South Wales with a lead that makes paedo jokes about putting Pontypridd back on the map after some recent misfortunes are sweet with this reviewer.
Blitz Kids arrive on stage with two mighty impressive acts to follow. The Barfly happens to be one of my favourite venues in London owing to it's size and stage height, and by this point the place is heaving with the young-uns from outside earlier, frivolously foaming at the mouth for their heroes. The guys put in an impressive shift, and are technically sound. But for reasons unbeknownst to the heart, I just didn't get it. In comparison to Villains and The People The Poet, they felt flat and kinda awkward, a bit like the boobs of 90% of their fanbase. But hey, who am I to judge.
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