There is always a bright side if you look hard enough. England crashing out of Euro 2004 may have broken our hearts (again) but on the night of what would have been their semi final, Stellastarr* play the Garage. Now given the choice of seeing a bunch of average, over hyped, prima donnas defend a slender lead for 90 minutes or see an over looked, charming and quality band play just over an hour of quality songs, W&H are happily packing their St George's flag away and heading down the Garage.
Support band, The Subways have been making a bit of a name for themselves just recently. Having been picked for Glastonbury by Michael Eavis personally and apparently doing themselves proud on the day, it would appear that success is theirs for the taking. Bizarrely, your reviewer caught up with them at his local pub come live venue a couple of weeks ago where at the arse end of a ‘lively’ drinking session (the reviewer not the band) they apparently played a blinder. I say apparently as I remember them coming on stage and being quite impressed with the first couple of numbers but the rest is a complete blank. The joys of Tequila.
Steering well clear of Tequila, I can confirm that The Subways although far from being the finished product are an exciting prospect. A 3 piece made up of Billy Lunn on guitar and vocals, bassist Mary Charlotte Cooper and drummer Josh Morgan, they are tight and powerful. It has been said before that girl bassists are cool as fuck, with Stellastarr*s Amanda Tannen as well, tonight is girl bassist heaven. Although their material is nothing startlingly new, the opening song sounds like Jet (hardly original themselves), another sounds like the Kings of Leon, another like The Libertines and so on, they are charismatic and carry it off with aplomb. On the couple of songs where they have found a sound of their own they show real promise. Give them six months and you could be looking at something special.
Stellastarr* are already special. With last years debut album still getting heavy rotation at chez W&H it was something of a shock when it was announced they were playing a venue as small as the Garage. The fact it immediately sold out and they added another date for the next night restored some faith in the taste buds of London town. For those familiar with the record you will know that Stellastarr* deal in beautifully executed arty indie rock with soaring pop melodies. Hailing from New York they take the best elements from that sparkling heritage, whether it be Blondie or Talking Heads or even the Strokes add a twist of the epic indie of the late 80’s and shape it into their own unique sound.
|
Live they manage to reproduce every soaring melody, sing every glorious harmony and generally make us sing along to everything we know, cheer what we don’t and hope they record that new album as soon as possible. They open with a new number that takes the template of the first album and builds upon it. The delicate guitar intro to ‘In the Walls’ brings the first raucous cheer of the evening and shows off Shawn Christensen’s vocal talent to the full. They blast through the whole of the debut album with a storming ‘No Weather’ and ‘Pulp Song’ in particular keeping the front rows bouncing up and down and even inducing some extremely polite stage diving. ‘A Million Reasons’ and ‘Untitled’ show off their mellower side, whilst ‘Moongirl’ goes all mysterious and windswept on us. A couple of new songs are thrown in for good measure and it all looks good for the future.
When they finally play ‘My Coco’ the crowd go suitably ape and a highly enthusiastic sing a long ensues. Truly a great single and criminally over looked by the record buying public it might be, but live it takes on a whole new life. It’s stop / start formula and driving guitar lines leave us breathless. At times tonight it is as though Stellastarr* are playing a home coming show such is the enthusiasm of the small crowd and it has an obvious effect on the band who lap up the attention. An encore of yet another newie and finally ‘Jenny’ finishes things off nicely. It’s all over far too soon and we troop off into the night utterly grateful that the England captain is shit at penalties.
|
