When it comes to mind-numbingly dull and predictable indie rock bathed in dry ice, HAVEN are simply in a class of their own. This Mancunian-based Cornish quartet demonstrated every cliché in the book, with John Simm-lookalike GARY BRIGGS (vocals/ guitar) giving it loads in both the Richard Ashcroft hair and moody chops departments, while trading in the kind of white noizzzz…distortion (yawn!) this correspondent has seen and heard for far too long already.
Kicking off with "Need Someone" (strange, I need the bog, m’self…), their guitar bliss-outs rippled ponderously ever onwards, only letting up for "Is This Bliss?" when HAVEN finally showed glimmers of hope when Briggs swapped electric for acoustic.
This, in turn, produced their finest performance of the night with the single "Say Something", but couple this with tunes like "Comes A Change", "Beautiful Thing" and "Still Tonight" and you’ve only got something akin to a watered-down STARSAILOR. You can’t even begin to imagine how depressing that sounds. Actually, my fears were confirmed when, after the closing "Let It Live" wibbled into infinity, a group near me shouted: "Thanks a lot STARSAILOR!"
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On the whole, the audience consisted of post-pubescent teenage freshers, who for the first time made me feel old to be 30 and would also explain why most of the audience seemed perfectly content, bearing in mind they’re too young to have witnessed, say, RIDE or half a dozen other superior Creation acts I could mention.
I came away incredulous that JOHNNY MARR would stoop to producing something this half-arsed and thinking on tonight’s evidence it would take a brave person indeed to predict HAVEN worthy of a bright and rosy future.
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