I got into this gig near the end of the set by PLAYLOUNGE who are a very young duo who were playing thrashy guitar and pretty pounding drums. I think the drummer was also singing. They seemed like they would be worth seeing more of, in that they didn't seem to be trying too hard to be the White Stripes.
On looking round the venue I realised I looked like grandad at this gig as I had to be at least 15 years older than anyone else there and most of the audience were certainly still in their teens.
Anyway, the second band on were the scottish duo DOLFINZ who were both sporting what I hope were Ironic sweatshirts. The drummer's one was for a Bible school and the guitarist's had a large bunny on the front of it. Still, books and covers an' all that: the clothes didn't matter as they are a very good and raw duo that had something of the C-86 sound about them like an undernourished Pastels at times or hints of The Shend at other points in the set. Don't Know What To Do had just the right amount of shambling competetence to pull it off and make me believe they actually do know what they are doing.
On Sisters they did a fair amount of clattering while getting impressive amounts of noise from the limited set up and on Teenage Gloom, the drummer also joined the guitarist for some shared vocals while the shambling noise did seem to bring up some proper gloomy teenage thoughts of how you can translate the amateurism of your early gigs into something more substantial and longer lasting: something I hope they work out how to do.
The best song was "Girls who wear crosses on T-Shirts." That had some wry observations and some squalling guitar noise wedded to the furious drumming before they closed with I've got... to which the answer should be a bright future ahead of them. I liked them enough to buy one of the cassingles they were selling afterwards.
Third on this bill were BREATHE OUT a 4 piece from London who are touring to promote their new single Champion (released on Soundsavers on the 23rd of April.) They opened the set with Champion and sounded like they had also been listening to 80's guitar bands but rather than the C-86 type stuff the bands they reminded me of most were the Drop Nineteens and Velvet Crush. Ride The Waves followed and it did feel like a good ramshackle rollercoaster was being blown about by the wind and clattering along.
Everything You Know seemed to elevate the shambling part of the band's sound a little and as the set went on they seemed a bit more focussed in showing off their psychedelic edges. They had a bit of a discussion over what to play next and ended up with Concrete at which point I was transported back to Dingwalls in the 80's and to what was the first London gig by either the Charlatans or The Inspiral Carpets (I no longer recall which of those two it was) when they opened for Nico and while they were all snotty youthful bragadoccio, it was fairly obvious they might live up to the claims they were going to be huge, although Thankfully Breathe Out didn't act as boastfully letting the music do the talking for them.
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Good move too. White Chalk Cut had some of the band's best harmonies and sounded most like the Drop Nineteens which for me is a very good thing indeed. I hope this lot can build up a solid live following like the Drops did. Having a song called Fairplay may be ridiculous in an industry that never plays fairly but it still sounded good. They closed with The Payback and I hope they get some decent payback for the effort they are putting in. Breathe Out are really a band to watch out for in the next couple of years.
Last on were SLOWCOACHES, a Leeds three piece who were playing only their 10th ever gig and it showed as they were shambling to the point of disintegration, coming across like a third rate Tallulah Gosh. Yes, that bad. They never sounded like a coherent band at any point in fact.
Almost all of the songs needed massive amounts of work to even get them to the stage they might make decent demos let alone anything else and the girl singer/ guitarist lacked presence almost entirely. Also if you are going to sing a song called Tommy Gun and it isn't the Clash song it had better be at least as good as that and there one was miles from that as they shambled into insignificance.
They are at least young enough that if they put in the months and months of rehearsals and really work at it they might become an OK support act. But at present I'd give the Slowcoaches a pretty wide berth.
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