NME Awards Tour 2010
Where: 02 Birmingham Academy
When: 11th February 2010
Opening tonight’s events and arguably one of the night’s strongest acts The Drums, have come along way from the NYC underground music scene where they learnt their trade. Playing to an unusually large crowd considering the doors have been open no more than 20 minutes, the bands catchy summary pop tunes work as the perfect act to warm up the surprisingly diverse crowd. With front-man Jonathan Pierce’s eccentric Ian Curtis come Morrissey mannerisms and one of the most unique voices out at the moment, coupled with the band’s charisma, and songs like 'Let’s Go surfing' and 'Best Friends' will ensure that The Drums are on everyone’s must see list for 2010.
In terms of performance, and sheer originality, The Big Pink come out top tonight, delivering the strongest set of the night, walking on stage to a cacophony of wailing sirens, broken beats and the trumpet solo from Cypress Hill’s 'I Wanna Get High'. Despite the sheer talent of the band, the set-list selection was slightly peculiar, omitting such obvious album standouts as ‘Count backwards from ten’ in favour of less well known tracks from their debut release, A Brief History of Love. Despite playing an incredible 30 minute set, many of the crowd were simply stood waiting patiently for 'Dominos', a real shame, as whilst many people were milling around the venue chatting and filling up on overpriced beer, they were missing out on one of the most exciting bands to come out of London in years. However, what’s admirable about a band like The Big Pink is that they are so unashamedly different, and although not the most entertaining to watch live, their distorted electro fuzz sound more than makes up for it, and unlike other bands on the night’s line up, it’s difficult to make vacuous comparisons to other bands past and present
Hype is a very powerful piece of PR, and often artists fail to live up to it, and tonight’s prisoners are Bombay Bicycle Club, a band that have been on the live music scene for some time, yet have only recently started to make a name for themselves. Although chart hit 'Always Like This' is well received and a competent piece of song writing, for the rest of the set, it’s difficult to see what all the hype is really about. Musically they are different, creative and musically interesting, but lack charisma, seemingly ignore the audience and show little signs of being anything more than a flash in the pan, unfortunate because with some work they could be something special.
This awards tour headlining choice seems a strange one, they aren’t particularly, are an established band in their own right, but they seem a popular choice with the crowd. The Maccabees emerged fully onto the scene in 2007 with debut album Colour it in, however it’s only since the start of 2009 that they have really made a name for themselves, with the release of Wall of Arms. Unsurprisingly it’s this album the band take much of the nights set-list from, as the band are treated like gods, and tracks like 'Love you better' and 'Precious Time' treated like football chants with the audience managing to eclipse the sound of the band. The band however lack variety, they score full marks for energetic crowd pleasing jangly indie, but when it comes to versatility the band are severely lacking, and as a result some of the set borders on tedium.
Write a comment
- Required fields are marked with *.
-->