No
idea on start times so I took a risk that it might be later, and picked
Dean up at 8.30 for the trundle up the hill. I was right! We had time
for a drink and chinwag with the arriving Nudy boys,
plus tonight’s promoter Dave Franklin (who, rather handily, kept
popping out of the backroom venue to let us know when bands were due
on!), before slinging some coinage into the donations bucket for
entrance, and checking out openers, Cheltenham’s Oui Legionnaires.
A young trio, they kicked off with the tousled vocalist playing a
Dashboard Confessional-like impassioned acoustic opener from the floor,
in front of the sparse crowd, before joining his bandmates onstage and
hitting the “rock out!” button squarely. They kicked
up a high-octane thrilling post-hardcore/ thrashy EMO collision of
noise and driving riffery, in a Seafood locking horns with Rival Schools
and Husker Du kind of way. Some splendid strident choruses with
conflicting/ competing harmony lines, as well as some
Biffy-like tempo changes, also impressed, as did their onstage humour
(viz. the vocalist being shy about introducing a number called "Fuck You
Nottingham!”). Their set finished as it started; on the floor, with an
acoustic Frank Turner-esque duet to eternal
youth, with a hook of, “you’re just jealous cos we’re young and in
love”. Impressive stuff. I’d have bought a CD if they had any (“our
ex-guitarist still has them around his house in Gloucester!”), but rest
assured I‘ll check this lot out again.
Port
Erin, next up, were a different proposition; another trio, they started
off intriguingly with a windswept US-alt country sounding opener
evoking Shearwater or Grizzly Bear, but then their intricacies
and fiddly riffery veered for me too uncomfortably close to Proggy
clever-cleverness for the sake of it. A final, straight-forward rocker,
showed better potential; they’re another band I’d happily check out
again, if they kept things simpler!
Beef
eventually turned up and we caught up, hearing his recent Spanish
holiday horror story, before wandering in for headliners Nudy Bronque
about 10.30. Introduced onstage as, “3 idiots with guitars
and drums,” they were clearly playing to familiar faces and delivered a
relaxed, fun set from the off. Opener “Luggage” set the tone early, a
Pulp-like glam kitsch opener delivered with a swish and a swagger by
vocalist and rivetting frontman Aiden. Clearly
a big old showoff in his youth but finding the perfect outlet for his
flamboyant tendencies and deep, old-beyond-his-years vocals, Aiden’s
stage persona is part Jarvis Cocker, part Russell Brand, but all
entertaining. The 60’s tinged kitchen sink drama of
“No Wives, No Children” saw some yodelling vocals and squally guitar in
equal measure, but the subsequent “Peachy Keen” was a real early
highlight, the Orange Juice “Blue Boy” drumbeat gallop dovetailing into
the hooky chorus and more thrilling discordant
noise. Superb stuff, although the onstage banter (“in 10 years’ time
they’ll say the world wasn’t ready for Nudy Bronque!”) and switching on
of the drumkit’s striplights received as many cheers from the crowd as
the song itself!
This
lot don’t ever stray too far from the quirk (surely if “quirky” is an
adjective, “quirk” should be a noun!?); even during their most
straight-forward number, the upbeat Vaccines-fest indie rock
of “Juliet Ottewell”, they stripped back the middle 8 to feature more
of Aiden’s deep, resonant vocal histrionics and some comedic
stage-prowling and menacing stares into the crowd. Again, final number
“Space Travel 2013 By Phone” started with an art-school
stomp and ended in a thrashy cacophony of noise, with Aiden delivering
guitar riffery whilst rolling on the floor. They squeezed in an encore,
the splendid and ridiculously catchy “Bottled Blonde”, which was
introduced by the boys as, “the best song ever!”
and was tonight’s excellent exclamation point on another little gem of a
set from a band who deserve wider recognition. Hopefully they’re not
too far from getting it!
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