Artist:  Apollo

Venue: Carling Academy, Newcastle  

Date: 21 June 2008  

Always one to checkout the hot new talent in our native North East we were given the opportunity to checkout local band Apollo. I was only introduced to their music via their debut album ‘This Is My Town’ just recently and was suitably impressed.

The band tonight were the first of three bands on the set, but my intension was just to check out this particular band live and see if they were as impressive live as they are on CD.  I can tell you this the album doesn’t do this band justice because live they are a different animal, a more powerful dynamic five piece you'd be hard pushed to find anywhere else.

The band themselves are based around the brothers Lee and Neil Picton who are vocals and guitars respectively.  The pair along with Andy Liscombe (guitar), Matt Sizer (bass) and Jack Wilkinson (drums) are without a doubt the North’s answer to Crowded House with perhaps a little U2 thrown into the mix for good luck.

Their short but impressive set was taken from their said debut album and opened up with the current single ‘This Is My Town’.  A track that was meant to be played loud and proud as the album version is a much to polished affair and doesn’t really capture the real Apollo, which is the band's live sound.

The set continued with ‘21g’ with Lee really throwing out some quite soulful vocals on this one.  ‘Peaks And Troughs’ was next, this was a more mellow approach by the band but with that same U2 style Edge guitar work giving the song a great dynamic.

But the band are really at their best when they bring the tempo up and this was greatly apparent with ‘Last Time’, a real crowd pleaser for those who had arrived to the venue early, although those who were still coming in were instantly drawn to the stage to see who was playing.

‘(You Are Going) Down With Me’ was one of the highlights of the set for me with Lee really giving his all on this one, as this more melodic mellow refrain really brought out the best in his vocals, but although this was a more mellower track, Liscombe still threw out some fine Edge style licks to keep the guitar lovers pleased. 

The band definitely have that arena sound as the set was nearly at a close they still gave their all with one of my favourites off the album ‘Forget It’, this one is the pure classic style U2.

This very impressive set was rounded off with a little Bluesy/Funk smoked filled jazz club feel of 'Lay Dormant’ which was the icing on the cake of a fine set from a band destined for greater things.

 

All content copyright of The Mayfair Mall Zine unless otherwise stated.