An
early evening jaunt down to Bristol’s Rough Trade, this, for another of those
in-store CD release thingies from Taunton’s splendid October Drift. If this
sounds familiar, it’s because it is… twice before I’ve seen da Drift do CD release
in-store gigs at this venue; a full-on electric show – in more ways than one –
for debut album “Forever Whatever”, gig 1,172, and a much lower-key,
bistro-tastic acoustic affair for the sophomore “I Don’t Belong Anywhere”, gig
1,249, this one in the store itself rather than the excellent back-room venue. So,
it seemed churlish not to make it a 3-for-3 for this increasingly special band
of shoegaze/ goth/ grungy post-punkers, for their highly promising new album
“Blame The Young”. They’d premiered a couple of new tracks at their May
Joiner’s gig (gig 1,325), the title track in particular sounding an absolute
banger, so this one may well be their best yet. Let’s see…
This one also promised to be a lower-key acoustic showing, so I set off slightly later, a 6.15 departure getting me parked up just after 7 and in time for a chat with occasional gig buddy Adrian, who’d coached it over from Wales on a last-minute tip. Popped into the unfortunately sparsely populated back room just before 7.30, the Drift boys nevertheless wasting no time in promptly taking to the stage and installing themselves on their high barstools. Straight away this promised to be a little more… energetic, let’s say, than these usual acoustic affairs, drummer Chris commenting, “despite not being able to lob ourselves around the stage [on this CD release tour], we’ve been [compensating by] drinking a lot more – so this is going to be full-on energetic acoustic!” And he was true to his word, the hectic and relentless build of excellent opener “Blame The Young” generating more overt energy than most bands’ electric performances, despite being allegedly “unplugged”! The stately, lower-key “Demons” recalled Echo and the Bunnymen or Adorable in its’ widescreen use of space, and the elegiac “Hollow” was preceded by a game of “Guess The Drumbeat”, Adrian (standing next to me) guessing correctly and winning a percussive shaker!
This was a fun and much-needed performance from October Drift. Lacking the fierce intensity of their usual dynamic plugged-in “live” events, the band instead showed a different dimension, with relaxed and witty urbane banter entertainingly filling the gaps between songs. And the new material, to a song, was absolute bloody quality, no messin’… After the story of “Hollow”’s inception was told (the song apparently coming out of a particularly chaotic Guinness-fuelled recording session), the subsequent more upbeat “Tyrannosaurus Wreck” was preceded by a discussion of the video, which featured vocalist Kiron walking around the town of Chard looking forlorn and wearing a knitted T-Rex suit (“for those of you who’ve been to Chard, [you know] it’s not the type of place to [do that in]!”) “Everybody Breaks” was another excellent newie, a proper lighters-aloft stately stadium ballad featuring some wonderfully textural and resonant guitar effects from Dan, and preceded by Chris’ story of telling his dad, on leaving university, that he’d give the band one year to make it – “that was 15 years ago!”
“It’s
strange to do a tour where you’re not dripping with sweat and there’s been no
physical accidents!” joked Chris, before the band took requests from the small
but perfectly formed (and very enthusiastic) crowd. An initial “Forever
Whatever” was however somewhat haphazard, prompting the band to, “end on
something better,” the big singalong chorus of “Waltzer” and the Kiron/ Chris
vocal duet of a wonderful singalong “Like The Snow We Fall” doing the trick in
that regard. Quick chats and CD signings with an affable band afterwards, Kiron
and Chris particularly recognising me from previous gigs and bigging up their forthcoming
Thekla gig. Let’s hope I can make that! Home at 10 after another fine showing
from a band rapidly becoming one of my favourites of the moment, and a band
seemingly at ease in any “live” setting. Acoustic, electric, forever, whatever…
October Drift deliver!
No comments:
Post a Comment