Young Knives

I'm stood in the Hoxton Bar and Kitchen with my third overpriced pint of flat Red Stripe in a plastic cup.I'm hoping the band come on soon so I don't have to visit the toilets again and have to avoid eye contact with the 'toilet guy' who will be expecting a quid for the 'service' of handing me a paper towel......(that's right, I love this venue..!!)

I've seen Young Knives a few times now and they're always a captivating band to watch. Mainly I think due to Henry's fantastic ability to dress up a simple chord progression into often quite complex guitar work. And of course the fact his brother (on Bass) calls himself the House of Lords. Always amuses me that one.

This is the first time I've seen them since the release of 'Superabundance' last year, so I'm looking forward to hearing some of the newer stuff, and hoping they open up with the hopelessly catchy 'Fit 4 U' ,the latest album opener. They don't. (It doesn't get an airing, sadly) They kick in instead with a fast paced rendition of 'Terra Firma' which gets the crowd going a bit. Henry then informs us that they will be trying out a few new songs tonight, OK, fair enough I think, bring it on!. Next up we get a brand newie called 'Reproduction', and pretty good it is too. Following that is 'Lightswitch', one of the catchier numbers from 'Superabundance', however, all I can think about is when are they gonna play an oldie to start that moshpit going!?....unfortunately the answer is, they're not!!

It's not that the last album isn't any good, or that the brand new stuff doesn't sound promising ( it's always tricky to tell on first listen eh? ) but come on lads, throw us a bone here!! From the 12 tracks they play tonight we get 6 brand new ones, 4 from the last album, none from '....are Dead', and a measly 2 from 'Voices of Animals and Men'. Namely 'Loughborough Suicides' and the fantastic 'Tremblings of Trails', although, great though these tracks are,they're two of the more moody numbers from that album. And although I by no means think it's necessary for a band to play all of their singles in a gig to make it enjoyable, At least play one of the oldies to crank up the pace and the crowd a bit.

Tonight we get no 'Decision', no 'Rumour Mill', no 'She's Attracted to', no 'Up All Night' (Easily the best of the recent singles), we don't even get 'Weekends and Bleak Days', you know, the one that goes' hot summer,hot,hot summer....',guaranteed to start the crowd singing!!. I appreciate it must get tedious playing the same old songs night after night but I'm sorry, only Bob Dylan can get away with such disregard for his audience! And he has a few more years under his belt!

It's about give and take. Tonight Young Knives took our money, but didn't give us what we wanted to hear.


Setlist

Terra Firma
Reproduction
Lightswitch
Royal Daylight
Counters
Everything Falls into Place
Loughborough Suicides
Boarding Houses
Watch the Birds
Tremblings of Trails
Sister Frideswide
Turn Tail