Brakes

Music News was fortunate enough to gain entry to todays gig. This thing has been sold out for ages, and with 9 of the freshest bands around (hand picked by XFMs John Kennedy) it was a salivating prospect.

Brakes are relatively old hands at this compared to most of the new kids on the block playing today, and you would expect them to be headlining the show instead of being on in the middle of the day, however we discover this afternoons set is the first of 2 which Brakes will play today, they head off later to play at Turnmills.

Anyway, the Horrors leave the stage after a full on goth/blues/vampire assult and lay down the Gauntlet for the Brakes. Theres no messing around today from anyone, the changeover times between bands were super swift all day (bar a couple of technical errors later on....) and before we know it Brakes are on the stage kicking in to the new album opener, 'Hold me in the River', closely followed by 1st album opener 'Ring a ding ding' Eamons vocals are in fine form with all the screeches in the right places and the band play loud and as tight as a ducks arse!

They've only got about 1/2 hour here today so theres no messing about, theres a little bit of banter between the songs but they mainly plough steaming through of the heavier side of their catalogue, The slower counrtyish songs take a back seat, apart from NY Pie which surfaces towards the end of the set.

We get the singles, 'All Night Disco Party' and 'Cease and Desist' which the crowd lap up.And the band show that they don't take themselves too seriosly, with tracks like 'Porcupine or pineapple' and the truly great 'Heard about your band'( a sly dig at a nameless self important member of some band or other) which has half of the crowd shouting back the final line of "Whatever Dude!!!" that one never wears thin. The superb 10 second one chord beast of a song 'Cheney' also has the whole crowd shouting and banging their heads.

I'm not quite sure how Brakes can still get away with playing a venue as small as the Barfly, not that I'm complaining about seeing them in such an intimate venue, but it's only a matter of time before the secret gets out. Todays set was electric, with my only complaint being the lack of the powerful 'Margherita' off the new album, but hey, they still manage to squeeze 13 songs into 30 minutes! Tom and Alex even swapped instrumets (Guitar and drums) for one track today, 'Whats in it for me?' I think.(not 100% sure, watching bands all day is thirsty work!). They finished the set with the shortest song played all day(or maybe the shortest song ever.....) by anyone........'Comma Comma Comma Full Stop'

There were alot of quality exciting bands here today,(Dananananaykroyd, The Blood Brothers, Frank Turner and Good Shoes being the best of the rest) alot of which deserve to be reaching the heights of success over the next few months. If the Brakes can manage to get a bit more airplay and force their refreshingly individual sound onto more of the public then maybe world domination is possible.......in the meantime the rest of us get to witness brilliance in the Barfly.


Setlist:

Hold me in the river
Ring a ding ding
Heard about your band
All night Disco Party
Spring Chicken
Pick up the phone
I can't stant to stand beside you
Cheney
Cease and Desist
What's in it for me?
Porcupine or Pineapple
NY Pie
Comma Comma Comma ,Full Stop.