12 February 2007 (gig)
13 February 2007
'Put your sexy guns in the air!’ proclaims Travis as the Gym Class Heroes take to the stage. Not surprisingly the majority of the teenage crowd at the sold out Carling Academy follow suit and the charismatic frazzle haired lead singer appears to have won everyone over without even singing a note.
Gym Class Heroes have been slow burning away for the last ten years and with 3 EPs and 2 albums under their belt appear to have mastered the art of their sound; tight live band, very few samples, 2 MC/vocalists, and plenty of energy. Prose and Concepts, New Kingdom and Spearhead, to name a few, have all come and gone sine GCHs conception in 1997 but none seemed to captivate nor find success in the rock mainstream. Appealing to the new generation of emo kids (GCH are backed by Pete Wentz - Fall Out Boy) the live band are credible without being cheesy and are a bit more refined than any of the aforementioned.
'Taxi Driver’ pretty much kick starts the evening is a name dropping homage of a tune that lists Sunny Day Real Estate, Hot Water Music and Jets to Brazil amongst others in the lyrics. 'Scandalous Scholastics’, twice released 'Cupids Chokehold’, Myspace mikey taker 'New Friend Request’ and 'Make Out Club’ sail on by.
The evening started in the Nags Head with Kev and I passionately discussing Alan McCormack and Southend United’s plight against relegation, re-mortgaging your house, the new Cold War Kids album and how to effectively use Dream weaver. That did rapidly change as all we rabbited on about on the 11.14 home from Liverpool Street was the hopefully bright future for GCH. Ohh and the possibility of us both entering the London Marathon. Yeah right!
