Here's my debt to you, I wanted to say I breathe for you / But you are a world away, a world away

Friday 21 January - Musically, there hadn’t been much to tempt us out so far this year, but tonight we were off to Fibbers to see four bands that I’d seen before, so I was pretty sure that we were going to enjoy ourselves.

I’m still not happy with Fibbers as a live music venue. It has no character and the drinks are exorbitantly priced. Anyway, we arrived about half way through the first of four acts, Boss Caine (Dan Lucas). The crowd was a bit thin on the ground but those that were there made up for their lack of numbers by the volume of their chat, all of which left Dan struggling to be heard and reduced his songs to a rather lacklustre drone, even when accompanied by Vin North on harmonica for the last two or three songs.

The second band to play were The Blueprints. Now I’d not seen these since early 2008 and the band have undergone some changes since then; Stuart Allan (vocals and guitar) and Russ Broadbent-(drums and vocals) still form the core of the band, with new (to me) boys Mark Waters (bass) and Tom Williams (keyboards and vocals) joining them. Their style of playing was also greatly improved. I quite liked them previously but tonight they really blew my socks off with their up-lifting, indie music and slightly squeaky vocals. Recommended.

Band three were one of my favourite York bands, 98Pages (and on FaceSpace), a power blues trio consisting of Martyn Fillingham (guitars and vocals), Jase Brooks (bass), and Andy Black (drums). Their debut album Broken Homes And The Halfway House was released in 2009 and since then they have added an enormous amount of new material to their canon of work. I only recognised about three of their songs. The new stuff is louder, darker, cleverer, but there’s more soft material too, edgy, moody. Martyn speaks of wanting to release some EPs and maybe another album this year; well he has plenty to pick and choose from. This band is really taking off, very highly recommended.

The headline act tonight was The Buccaneers. Originally a three piece consisting of Andre de Gaye (guitar & vocals), Leo Wild (bass), and Jonny Gatenby (drums & vocals), their ranked swelled in April 2010 with the addition of Vin North (acoustic guitar & harmonica) previously of Hijak Oscar. On previous occasions I’ve been somewhat underwhelmed by The Buccaneers style of garage R’n’B and I’m afraid to say that was the case tonight. Maybe it was because The Blueprints and 98Pages were so good, maybe it was because the clubbers had started trickling in early and were busy chatting away, oblivious to the fact that a live band was playing. Whatever, I simply felt a bit disappointed. Sorry guys.