Perhaps I'm getting too old to go gigging...I guess as long as I'm enjoying it and I can manage to stand unaided for an hour at a time then I should make the most of it. But the crowd at The Days gig at the O2 Academy 3 in Birmingham made me feel particularly old (my friend texted me when I was still on my way there to let me know that it was a bit like a youth club - we're only bitter!!). Interestingly this is probably the biggest challenge that the band have – how can they extend their appeal outwards from the teenage girls who made up most of the audience to include the more *ahem* mature market that can help to welcome their thoroughly deserving pop music to the mainstream charts?
Anyway, this was the 4th time I'd seen The Days (support slots for The Feeling and SFG, and at the O2 Academy in Islington back in February this year) and they are a really fun band live. Their set is pretty extensive (12 songs, including a cover - see below) and they rarely put a foot wrong when performing live. For a young band they exude confidence in their playing and you can tell that they have done a lot of gigging and touring over the last few years. The audience was pretty well acquainted with their songs and I was particularly impressed with one guy I was standing next to who seemed to know all the words to every song. And he wasn’t even standing at the front!! The four piece definitely know how to write a pop song and pretty much all of their songs hit the mark. My favourites from the set were the storming No Ties, which is a great opening, and Jane, which is a real grower as I wasn’t that fond of it to begin with but it’s constantly running round my head even now. Love in This Club, a cover of the track by Usher, is a popular turn live, with the drummer Harry making it to the front of the stage to address the audience and pick up a pair of sunnies to wear for the duration of the song. I must say that I prefer the brilliant version they have on YouTube – check it out if you haven’t seen it yet…
Full Set List
No Ties
Confessions
Give It Away
The Days
Who Said Anything
Kate
Believe
Hey You
Carry Me
Jane
Love in This Club
Never Give Up
The boys themselves are obviously very hard working and the last 3 times I’ve seen them they have come out afterwards and spent as long as the fans wanted chatting, signing things and having their photos taken. This time round they were even taking people’s details for the mailing list and selling the odd t-shirt! Individually they are all really lovely and they even think The Feeling are really good live so they are alright in my book!
So they are putting in all the work, their songs are catchy, their live performance is assured and their fan base is both enthusiastic and loyal – all they are missing is the radio play to kick start them up the charts. Radio 1 seems to have little interest in what I would call ‘proper’ pop bands (other than SFG strangely), with bands like McFly and The Feeling seemingly out of favour. Fingers crossed that their next single Never Give Up, which is out on May 4th, brings them the success they deserve (you can pre-order the single here).
Monday 20 April 2009
Monday 13 April 2009
Go:Audio, 9th April 2009 @ The Electric Ballroom, Camden
I went to the Go:Audio gig on Thursday with little in the way of expectations as I was the recipient of a text message that morning offering me a spare ticket. I'd heard of the band as a previous support for Scouting for Girls and took a couple of minutes over lunch to look up their myspace so I would have some idea what their music would be like. If you want to do the same then please click here to take a peek. Listening to a couple of their tracks put me in mind of Busted (no bad thing in my book!) but a bit edgier and not really anything like SFG.
Anyway, it's worth a couple of words on the Electric Ballroom as I hadn't been there before. Very convenient for Camden Town tube and the bouncers were actually quite friendly, although as we got there pretty late on they didn't have much of a queue to deal with. The venue itself kind of reminded me of student union club - a very dark cavernous place with toilets that run out of loo paper before the evening is out. The sound was ok though, which is definitely the most important thing. There's an upstairs balcony that I only discovered late into the set (whilst on a mission to find the aforementioned toilets) that gives a pretty good view over the crowd and the stage without getting stuck in the scrum downstairs - must try and remember that for next time.
I already said that we arrived late and support act Saving Aimee was already 3/4 of the way through their set, which was a shame as I always try and make a point to gain maximum value for money from my gig tickets ;-) I was surprised how busy the standing area was for Saving Aimee (check out their myspace here if you want to hear what I was missing - they have their own headline tour of the UK in June) and the crowd seemed to be really into them - so much so that the bar was pretty much empty. It was then that I realised that my friends and I had probably increased the average age of the gig goers by several years when we entered the room, and a significant proportion of the crowd were no doubt too young to be purchasing anything harder than a ginger ale. I had suspected this following my experience at the SFG concert in Wolverhampton last year, where I had this distinct advantage of being several inches taller than large swathes of the audience as most of them hadn't finished their growth spurts. It's bizarrely intimidating to be in a room full of 'youngsters' (I hate being 30) as you want to have more in common with them than their mums and dads loitering at the back of the room.
So anyway, to the main event. There were probably about 750 people there when Go:Audio came on to the stage (although I am notoriuosly bad at estimating numbers) and the vast majority of them where obviously from the ranks of their 34k+ myspace friends and very pleased to see them. The boys from the band are a lot closer to the age of their fans than the guys from SFG and they seemed relaxed and very natural on stage - the keyboard player kept stepping out in front of the keys to engage with the audience. The lead singer kept up the chat all the way through their set and the audience responded really well, prompting a number of resounding sing along including their track 'Why'. There was quite a bit of jumping up and down but standing half way back it was all fairly orderly - seeing the sweaty fans emmerging from the front of the crowd at the end of the gig suggested that there was probably more fun going on at the barrier.
Go:Audio were good fun and their music is quite strong in the vein of Fall Out Boy (Sugar, We're Going Down featured on the soundtrack both before and after the main set and received a strong reaction from the crowd). The band variously describe their music as 'pop-rock-dance' or 'pop-rock-electronic-dance-core' and the four-piece is certainly unconventional in their lack of bass player. My favourite track of the night was probably Drive To The City, which they played in their encore and is going to be their next single (out April) - the opening had definite overtones of early nineties dance music (again, no bad thing in my book!).
Overall I'd say that although I'm not a converted Go:Audio fan, they put on a good show and I can see why they have a loyal following. Their album is due out later in the year and I wish them the best of luck with it.
Anyway, it's worth a couple of words on the Electric Ballroom as I hadn't been there before. Very convenient for Camden Town tube and the bouncers were actually quite friendly, although as we got there pretty late on they didn't have much of a queue to deal with. The venue itself kind of reminded me of student union club - a very dark cavernous place with toilets that run out of loo paper before the evening is out. The sound was ok though, which is definitely the most important thing. There's an upstairs balcony that I only discovered late into the set (whilst on a mission to find the aforementioned toilets) that gives a pretty good view over the crowd and the stage without getting stuck in the scrum downstairs - must try and remember that for next time.
I already said that we arrived late and support act Saving Aimee was already 3/4 of the way through their set, which was a shame as I always try and make a point to gain maximum value for money from my gig tickets ;-) I was surprised how busy the standing area was for Saving Aimee (check out their myspace here if you want to hear what I was missing - they have their own headline tour of the UK in June) and the crowd seemed to be really into them - so much so that the bar was pretty much empty. It was then that I realised that my friends and I had probably increased the average age of the gig goers by several years when we entered the room, and a significant proportion of the crowd were no doubt too young to be purchasing anything harder than a ginger ale. I had suspected this following my experience at the SFG concert in Wolverhampton last year, where I had this distinct advantage of being several inches taller than large swathes of the audience as most of them hadn't finished their growth spurts. It's bizarrely intimidating to be in a room full of 'youngsters' (I hate being 30) as you want to have more in common with them than their mums and dads loitering at the back of the room.
So anyway, to the main event. There were probably about 750 people there when Go:Audio came on to the stage (although I am notoriuosly bad at estimating numbers) and the vast majority of them where obviously from the ranks of their 34k+ myspace friends and very pleased to see them. The boys from the band are a lot closer to the age of their fans than the guys from SFG and they seemed relaxed and very natural on stage - the keyboard player kept stepping out in front of the keys to engage with the audience. The lead singer kept up the chat all the way through their set and the audience responded really well, prompting a number of resounding sing along including their track 'Why'. There was quite a bit of jumping up and down but standing half way back it was all fairly orderly - seeing the sweaty fans emmerging from the front of the crowd at the end of the gig suggested that there was probably more fun going on at the barrier.
Go:Audio were good fun and their music is quite strong in the vein of Fall Out Boy (Sugar, We're Going Down featured on the soundtrack both before and after the main set and received a strong reaction from the crowd). The band variously describe their music as 'pop-rock-dance' or 'pop-rock-electronic-dance-core' and the four-piece is certainly unconventional in their lack of bass player. My favourite track of the night was probably Drive To The City, which they played in their encore and is going to be their next single (out April) - the opening had definite overtones of early nineties dance music (again, no bad thing in my book!).
Overall I'd say that although I'm not a converted Go:Audio fan, they put on a good show and I can see why they have a loyal following. Their album is due out later in the year and I wish them the best of luck with it.
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