The Bluetones 18/05/2008

On arrival at the (by now incredibly familiar) Carling Academy I was somewhat surprised to see the the main floor where I'm usually stood down at the front, was closed off, and everyone was being directed upstairs. So off we all went to find that the 'Star Bar' was open and that it was going to be the venue for the night's gig. The star bar turned out to be a pretty tiny venue, even smaller (although infinitely less skanky) than the Cardiff Barfly, I'm guessing around 100-150 capacity, so it was a really nice small intimate gig.

The first act was a local (Bristol) band called 'The Chemists', who turned out to be pretty cool, sounded something like a mix of Feeder and the current indie band standard, but done to good effect, and was thoroughly enjoyable. I think that the sound tech might be a little too used to the bigger gigs and I felt that the whole night could have be turned down a notch to good effect, but I suppose too loud is better than too quiet in the end. the audience was fairly thin at this point, and although the band were rocking out for all they were worth no-one seemed quite in the mood to jump around. However the band did get a good reception, I think they were pleased with it, although their '2 woops'll do me' comments were somewhat ambiguous!

The next support act were called 'Amsterdam' and I'm gonna struggle to be nice! They were all musically talented enough (except for the vocalist who was a bit too shouty for their Irish-pop-rock sound), and the songs were technically not bad as such, but they didn't have an edge, there was nothing to set them apart from the plethora of other bands that sound exactly the same. Especially after the first act, which defied my immediate expectations of being yet another indie sound alike band to actually be pretty good, they just lacked something. It didn't help that the violinist/backing vocalist was having trouble with her mic for most of it (it sounded ok to me, I think she couldn't her herself), but that alone shouldn't be enough to ruin the whole thing. I did like the gadget that the guitarist used, I don;t have a clue what it was, but I want a go on one! (I'll be investigating this on the guitar/bass forums if you're intrigued!). There seemed to be a few fans in, but other than that I think the rest of the audience seemed a bit unimpressed also, as the cheering was particularly enthusiastic.

After the disappointing middle section we were all eager for The Bluetones to get on stage, so the set-up and wait for them to begin dragged a fair bit. by the time they took the stage the venue had filled up a fair bit, to the point I struggled to find elbow room to get my camera phone out to take pics, so there's not as many as I might've liked, but on the upside I didn't spend the night elbowing girls in the head! They kicked of their set with two or three songs of their new (apparently award winning, as part of their in band awards, at which their drummer won best drummer, but controversially the bassist didn't win best bassist) album which in only vaguely knew, as I haven't got around to buying it yet. They then progressed into their older material and the crowd started to really get into it.

One of the great things about The Bluetones live is that you can see they are still really enjoying themselves, which is always infectious, and the singer's somewhat self deprecating humour between the songs is a bonus ('this is the song that made our millions, not that it lasted'), especially when he managed to insult the male section of the audience by claiming he could see a few 'wife beater' types in before launching into their song 'Keep The Home Fires Burning' (all about domestic abuse) only to save himself their hatred by commenting afterwards that 'Actually, I tell a lie, you lot are alright, all the wife beaters are off seeing Paul Weller tonight!'

Happily for me they always play a good number of songs of the album that got me into them, and know best, 'Science & Nature' - although they are yet to play 'Blood bubble' or Mudslide, which would make me incredibly happy to see live... Along with most of that album they played all the favourites, including one which had been retired from live performances for a few years ('Putting Out Fires' if I remember right). When they finally left the stage the crowd managed to keep a pretty solid level of noise until their return, which was impressive considering the size of audience, I've heard bigger quiet moments at all the bigger gigs I've been to! They returned for a fun 4 song encore, finishing on 'If...' with the crowd singing along all the way.

If you don't already know them, go take a listen to The Bluetones as I reckon they are really under-rated - the more you listen the more you like them, so give them a chance, and once you like them you'll LOVE them live!

Pictures are available HERE

*Jumps around excitedly at the though of Terrorvision on Friday! * review on Saturday I would imagine...