People in Planes with Toadies / The Whip Hand / We Walk in Straight Lines 24/6/09
Filed under: Live Reviews by Kirk3 Comments »
The evening started uneventfully with the first act on, an unsigned local band going by the name of ‘We Walk in Straight lines’. They opened with a song called ‘Banged to rights’ which itself showcased at least 3 different music genres, the problem is, they did them one by one and never really mixed them very well, unfortunately the same can be said about the whole set. There was no spark or continuity and all this combined to make a very forgettable set. Although much props for the innovative use of the kazoo! Respect lads!
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(Including one for the kazoo)
Almost in perfect contrast to ‘WWiSL’ was ‘Toadies’, a band we confess to know nothing about prior to the night, or so we thought, turns out the band are genuine guitar hero’s in more ways than one. Not only did they fire out 3 brilliant songs the best of which was ‘Backslider’, but then they fired out cult classic ‘Possum Kingdom’ (a song good enough that it made into the popular game Guitar Hero 2) the rest of the set was more guitar shredding and good lyrics, however one point of note, during the fan requested ‘Mr Love’ there was a brilliant, almost epic, distortion guitar solo, it was the bands last night on the tour before heading back to Fort Worth, Texas, seems they pulled out all the stops and despite what seemed their maturing looks were easily the most energetic band show that night.
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Next up where another local unsigned act, ‘The Whip Hand’ the trio played an energetic 7 song set, which showed if nothing more they have potential to be good, with the right songs. The band showing good technical ability, however the material on show won’t take them very far. It looked like the bassist was really pulling out all the stops, however due to poor composistion was completely drowned out and you would never know if what looked impressive, sounded impressive.
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Up next where the main focus of our evening, Welsh Alt Rockers, ‘People in Planes’ a ten song set, with cuts from new album ‘Beyond the horizon’ (Released 6th July, Wind-up records) including ‘Mayday (M’aidez)’, ‘Last man standing’, ‘Pretty buildings’ and ‘Vampire’. And tracks from their debut album, not least of which ‘Moth’. This was a solid set which excelled at points but mostly disapointed. The main problem with the set was rooted in expectation, having listened to the bands new album, which gives a great account of them, the live PiP are much diminished from their energetic offering, at times committing one of the worst live sins known in music, and completely ommiting the impressive ending to ballad ‘Pretty buildings’. Particular highlight can be heard from the final song of the night, Vampire, which gave a good account of the band for new listeners.
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All in all, a good nights entertainment, the line up would have been a lot fairer had Toadies been main support, with them putting in the best performance on the night. However I have to say, the turnout could have been much better, this could have had an effect on the performance’s, not only was the crowd small, but energy was also low.
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