A
local Friday night up the hill… again! Continuing my May itinerary of
relatively small gigs, here’s one at The Castle, scene of riotous Christmas Eve
drinkies and games of killer pool in my wayward youth, and more recently scene
of numerous (and equally riotous) Raze*Rebuild sweatathons. This time, however,
Abstraction Engine are the hosts, therefore promising something a little more
cerebral and thoughtful, given their chameleonic and wide-reaching alt-indie approach
to music-making. Either way, I’m getting more on board with these splendid
bunch of local gig veterans, so I’m up for it!
So,
a drive up the hill, an easy slot in my new (free!) old town parking spot and a
wander through an eerily deserted old town saw me pitch up at an equally quiet
Castle about 8.30, meeting up with the AE boys and enjoying some lengthy rock chats,
in particular with bassist Gareth about shoegaze veterans Ride! Grabbed a seat
in the back room and had some banter with landlord and old friend Kev
Fitzgerald before opener David Lynch plugged in his acoustic guitar and kicked
off his set. Another scene veteran, this was apparently David’s first gig for 7
years (“[my] last one was here with The Shudders!”), but he showed little
evidence of ring rust, with a fine, Americana tinged opener. Gareth subsequently
reckoned David’s set was “Weller-esque”; I’m not on particularly familiar terms
with The Modfather’s solo output, but other numbers had touches of
Beatles-esque britpop, his second number ripping off Mark Morriss of The
Bluetones, apparently (!), and “The Man On The Clapham Omnibus” was Kinks-esque
both in terms of London-centric subject matter and knockabout melody, so we
were both on the same chapter, if not the same page... My favourite, “Beautiful
Day” had an element of Buffalo Tom’s slower descending acoustic riffery, having
also apparently gained BT fan Richard Skidmore’s seal of approval! A relaxed
and urbane set concluded with David well and truly skewering the Welller
comparisons with a tense reading of The Jam’s “Down In The Tube Station At
Midnight”, segued in with The Housemartins’ “Happy Hour” to at least end on an
upbeat note!
A
few technical issues with their banks of keyboards (“we are Spinal Tap!”
quipped vocalist David) delayed Abstraction Engine’s start, but they kicked off
at 10 in front of a very quiet Castle back room (me, David plus two or three curious
locals – damn shame really!) with the synth-led 80’s-tinged Talk Talk-isms of “Talk
In Your Sleep”. Again darting from indie-genre to indie-genre, “Crossfire” was
tougher and almost echoey pseudo Goth, and “Placeholder” a jangly Wheat-esque
intro morphing into a ragged punk rock noisefest! A later “Forever” was a
gauche little C86 ramble-athon with a Smiths lyrical homage (“save your life –
because you’ve only got one…” and, following a plug for the new CD EP (“don’t
forget to mention [it], available through all good outlets – and Tom’s
backpack!”) they built up to a strong finish with a fine sounding, post-punk “Dreamer”
and the absorbing, slow-burn Wheat alt-college rock dreampop of “Shiine”.
But
then there were the covers… In anticipation for their appearance at Lechlade Festival
next weekend, they’d thrown a couple of non-originals into the set, to road
test them for a Festival crowd unfamiliar with their own material. Fair enough,
really… An earlier, understated run through of Wings’ “Silly Love Songs” wasn’t
really to my taste but was OK really, I guess; however they then finished with
a straight cover of Spandau Ballet’s appalling 80’s cheesefest ballad “True”.
Yuck! Still, it got a couple of locals up and swaying along, and hopefully it’ll
serve its’ purpose as a competitor to Alexandra Burke – me, I’ll just remember “Dreamer”
and “Shiine” from this set, and pretend it didn’t happen…!
A
bit more banter and piss-taking with the boys afterwards, before I wandered back
through a still-relatively deserted old town to the motor. Another enjoyable
set of intriguing indie from this lot – shame so few were there to see it… and
shame about those covers. Hopefully they’ll go down well at Lechlade, so my “pain”
won’t have been in vain…!!
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