Two firsts for me on Saturday night - this was the first gig I had attended in the back of the Brudenell (the Games Room) and secondly, I think the first gig I had been to where the audience for the support bands were bigger than for the main act.
It became clear that during the set of first band called, oddly (and dreadfully) Porl Whos, that they had bought a lot of family and friends to watch, especially as they are Leeds based and it was drummer Matt’s birthday. What wasn’t dreadful however was the noise they were making, and each song of the 30 minute set seemed to increase the noise and rapture of the audience, even the spaghetti western style instrumental. Think a young Arctic Monkeys, with swagger and confidence beyond their years, and you won’t be far off.
And talking of confidence, Doncaster’s Bang Bang Romeo have that in spades, especially their sassy vocalist Anastasia Walker. With a soulful bellow, similar to that of Alabama Shakes’s Brittany Howard, they also had the crowd rocking and rolling as the temperature inside the club neared sweatbox levels. Check out fabulous single Johannesburg.
And so to the main act of John J Presley, who along with drummer and keyboard player, sloped onto stage almost unnoticed to a crowd of approximately half of what it had been an hour and a half ago. Sadly most of them had decamped to the bar next door to continue the birthday party; however their loss was our gain.
Looking somewhere between Father John Misty and Josh T Pearson, the Birmingham based heavily bearded dude sure can play a down and dirty guitar. With a sound that his Facebook profile suggests is blues alt noir, the atmosphere changed drastically from what had come before, with an intensity you get from a growling vocal over an overdriven blues rocking guitar.
The keyboards and even a squeezebox used occasionally add another dimension to the sound however, which keeps the music varied and interesting. The fabulous single Honeybee then lead into Come to Me and the tremendous slide guitar gets an outing. The size of the crowd was irrelevant as the 11 song set ended with I'll At Ease, and clearly everyone had enjoyed the different level of musicianship we had just witnessed.
Intense, sweaty, dirty, fuzzy, at times psychedelic, and always compelling….looking forward now to that debut album.
Keith @kjsmith4082
