|
Listed only
as '+ Support' this treat to the old eardrums came to town and played
with all they had. Rather shocking was the poor turnout tonight but that
may have had something to do with the poor promotion the bands were
given for tonight's gig. Never the less although they weren't performing
to a packed room by any stretch of the imagination they came on and they
gave us one hell of a set.
Looking more like a bunch of jailbirds with their short haircuts and
dodgy clothes they stormed the stage and proceeded to impress the crowd
with the powerful and very tuneful delivery of their songs.
They looked young, they looked cheeky, and in fact the drummer Scott
Garrett looks about 12 years old. But don't be fooled by these chaps
they totally rock big time!
It was easy to compare their sound to the likes of The Wildhearts with
their biting guitar riffs and also Blink 182 because quite a few of
their songs had that rock/pop feel to them and sat nicely between the
two.
Having been billed as the support act they were still the last band to
hit the stage and it was Dr Zhivago, sorry that should be Johnny Zhivago
(although that's not what it said on the flyers!) that ended up playing
support to these lads.
The bass guitarist David Halloran jokingly asked the band if they were
in fact DR's and said that he had a little something that needed looking
at if they were! In fact the band actually made quite a joke about being
a comedy band and said they often had people laugh at them.
This statement could be taken out of context and mistakenly taken as
coming from a band that make people laugh as they have no, or very
little talent. With The B* Movie Heroes this is most definitely not the
case, make no mistake about it.
You could tell quite easily which genre of rock they were coming from
and who would be into their good time style of rock n' roll. Hardly
surprising to find out that they were going to be supporting none other
than Silver Ginger 5 the following week. I'm sure they will attract a
lot of new fans and reach a much wider audience by doing that support
tour. SG5 fans will love them to bits, mark my words.
If the main singer/guitarist looked a bit familiar then that was because
it was none other than Neil Phillips fresh from The Yo-Yo's fame. The
band actually reformed earlier this year after Neil returned from his
stint with hugely popular band The Yo-Yo's. That was one band that
should have stuck with it a bit longer but decided to call it a day much
to the disappointment to a lot of people.
However! Never fear! B* Movie Heroes is here! They rock in much the same
vein and keep all the fun and happy rock and smirk feeling with their
songs that his last band were famous for.
The fourth member of the band was the wonderfully charming Dean
McCreadie on guitar. All three guitarists took it in turns to sing and
they all had really impressive voices.
I always think it's such an added bonus if you have more than one person
who can sing in tune in a band, but to have 3 is just a blessing. It
gives a band so much more depth and variety and also the members to each
play the front man part at some time during the gig.
Stops any ego's getting too big which is always a danger in rock bands
these days. These guys looked really good together, they sounded
fantastic and they all looked like they were having a good time, which
is good for both them and the people watching them.
The band had a 3 song CD available and joked that everyone should buy it
as it was done really professional like and they only made 3 mistakes on
it in total! They then went on to play the aptly named song 'Running on
Empty' which is what they told us their bus was at the minute. They said
if we didn't buy their CD they wouldn't have enough money to buy some
petrol to travel up to Glasgow for the following nights gig.
They finished the set with the song 'Million miles an Hour' which they
said was heavily Dogs D'Amour influenced and was written/dedicated to a
girl from Preston who works in Tesco's. The start of this particular
song sounded a bit like The Who's - Pinball Wizard and had some
immensely wicked guitars in it.
Just as we thought it was all over, as the crowd screamed out for more,
we might have been small in numbers but we were loud in gobs! They band
came back on and did an encore for us which was that little known rock
ditty … Summer of 69! Yeh!
I'm not sure how the band felt the gig had gone that night, but I know
the people who were there all thoroughly enjoyed it and are looking
forward to going to see them in action again next month at The Office in
South Shields. A review of that gig to follow!
What can I say other than if you dig the sound of the bands mentioned
above then check these guys out. At present their gigs are cheap to get
in to, but if they carry on like this they won't be for long!
Setlist: Science
Fiction, The Drug, Give me Tuesday, Simplicated, The Image, Damned if
you Do …, Running on Empty, Miles Away, Million miles an Hour. Encore:
Summer of 69
|