You would think that on one of the
three days of summer Liverpool is treated to, the last place that you wouldd
want to be is in a warm dank basement. But come people did, so clearly Wolf
Alice (the latest band to roll off of the NME’s hype machine) are clearly doing
something right.
Opening band Mohebbi’s bluesy psych comes
across initially as something of a misstep on the promoters part, given that
they do not really fit in with the evening’s more indie aesthetics. The band span
things around entirely on songs like Jack and John, even descending into some
Can style freak-outs... if Oasis decided to cover Can. Imagine that, I dare
you.
Carrying on the 00s revival
Liverpool seems to be undergoing (see the Soho Riots), The Shadow Theatre’s
scratchy, snotty indie felt like being 14 again. You know, when that guy in the
trilby and winklepickers at the front of the Babyshambles gig was the coolest
guy you’d ever seen. Scratchy rhythms and jangly leads abounded throughout
their over-short set, especially on Interpol-esque tracks like Follow the
Lights or the Rakes-lite of Concepts (22 Grand Job anyone?)
Finally entering the ‘dungeon’ after
a slight delay, Wolf Alice’s blissed out twee grunge on tracks like Nobody Loves You Anymore is perfect for a hazy
June evening. Imagine Dinosaur Jr. rawness with Maccabees melodies. Yeah
something like that. Pretty sweet stuff, non?
The more slow-burner kind of moments
are a bit of a drag sadly, slowing the night down and reducing the band’s
momemtum. Which makes it all the more a shame that barely anyone was boogeying
along to the upbeat numbers. However it is their recent single Bros which tops
the gig with it’s pure epicness – if this was 2004 this would have been every
nascent indie kid’s anthem, à la Time for Heroes for the digital age.
It is also so refreshing to see a
band not bother with one of those encores where the band are off stage for
literally 30 seconds before popping back on for a few un-asked for numbers.
