Friday 12 June - we couldn’t decide on a single venue this week, so The Druid ended up at The Duchess to watch Ezio and Aimee J Ryan, (see The Druid’s Thoughts for a review) whilst A (plus newbie L) and I headed for Fibbers to see three bands. It was almost a replay of last week’s gig as the audience, and the bands, were very young, probably 15/16 years of age. This meant that there was a lot of youngsters running around squealing and hugging each other.
Anyway, as the first band took to the stage, we settled in to see what would unfold. Thrive are a four piece from York. According to their FaceSpace entries their names are; William George Cunningham Blackstock (vocals, bass), Robert Henry Anderson (guitar), Jamie Alexander David Wade (guitar), and Jack William Joseph Leaf (drums). I have to say that songs such as; Marmite Memories, Going Nowhere, and Potential to Succeed, certainly proved winners for me, the drumming was superb, at points nearly tribal, the bass was brilliant, and the vocals had good dynamic range often lacking in younger people. So, a great start to the evening.
Sadly, I wasn’t as impressed with second band, Littlemores. I’m guessing that they are from York. The band consists of Conor Hirons, Kai West, and Jack Williams. Now I don’t mind a bit of ska/punk, but a whole set delivered with monotonal vocals really doesn’t do it for me. Here is a band that needs to develop some variety in their songs.
Was this going to be a gig that starts good then goes downhill, or could the last band salvage our approval? Nothing so black and white. Headliners The Standbys have at least their bass player from York, and I suspect the rest are as well. They consist of; James Barton (vocals, guitars), Helgi Clayton McClure (vocals, bass), Matt Ashby (guitar), and Joel Batty (drums). Billed as Alt Garage/Rock they produced interesting songs, significantly better then the Littlemores but never reaching the heights of Thrive. Still, great value for a fiver!
As we had an early finish, and hoping to catch up with The Druid to see how his gig went, we headed for The Roman Bath to catch the second half of DSQ a very popular covers band. So popular indeed that we had to queue up outside until a few people exited, The Bath was packed to capacity. DSQ is basically a band formed by workmates at Castle BMW in York, the name an abbreviation of Dave Stanley Quartet (except there's six of them!) I’m not sure about their current lineup, certainly they have Mickey Adamson (vocals), and Dave Stanley (guitar). Mickey we recognised as being the vocalist from 80's band Flight. In 2006 they had Rob (guitar), Rainey (bass), Nick (keyboard), and Shaun (drums), but we semi-recognised the keyboard player, quite a young chap, as possibly playing in Free Spirit (thanks Ian). We got a good sprinkling of well-played covers; Van Halen Jump, Snow Patrol Chasing Cars, The Beatles Standing There, Def Leppard Animal, Van Morrison Brown-Eyed Girl, Steppenwolf Born To Be Wild, Bee Gees Staying Alive, Wild Cherry Play That Funky Music, and a highlight for me, Tom Jones Delilah. The last song was played in the style of The Sensational Alex Harvey Band who covered Delilah in 1975 (when it reached 7 in the UK Top Ten) and was memorable for me for Zal Cleminson’s evil “ha ha ha” bit, fantastic!
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