A Friday night spent with Pixie Geldof, Citizens! and a room full of sweaty East Londoers was never going to be a Friday night wasted!
HOME is a new monthly night run jointly by indie label Young and Lost Club and free music paper / website Loud and Quiet. Hosted by the tiny, fun but rather over-heated venue Power Lunches, the concept behind Home is a simple one: put on young, up-and-coming bands who feature in the magazine, and then dance to them. Tonight’s line-up included Pixie Geldof’s new band Violet, Cheatahs, and new Kitsune signing Citizens!
Violet are a band that are very comfortable keeping things slow. Their delicate approach has a sweet dynamic to it, and is built around Geldof’s vocal melodies. Where she gets loud, the band swell and build; when she gets soft, so do they. For the main part, it works. Pixie’s voice falls somewhere between Hope Sandoval and Grace Slick but without the psychedelics. Mazzy Star is an obvious reference point, but it’s not until after the show when my friend says, “They just sounded a bit like Lana Del Rey,” that the mood is broken, and I kind of agree with him.
Then suddenly for the next half an hour I am fifteen again and watching skate videos just for the soundtracks. At least that’s how I feel as Cheatahs power their way through a set full of distorted guitars playing uplifting lead lines that remind me how much music meant to me when I was young. It’s nice to know that maybe some other people listened to the same US punk bands I did, and I can hear traces of Pivot, Strung Out and Chavez in the dual guitar attack and backing vocal harmonies. As we near the end of the set the Bob Mould / Husker Du influence becomes more and more apparent, but that’s no bad thing.
The difference in atmosphere when Citizens! come on stage fascinates me. A room that hindered the two support bands suddenly feels like the centre of the world. This is largely because the younger members of the crowd are now watching the band they have come to see, and for the first time tonight, people are dancing. Perhaps this is helped by their singer Tom taking the microphone and gripping it in both hands, facing his audience down and actually moving around on-stage.
The live set differs to the band's recorded output and sounds much less like U2. The dance influence is less obvious tonight, suggesting that this is a band who are happy to use the studio as an instrument itself, and still keep a sharp and angular live set that people can jump around and get sweaty to, which they definitely do.
Thing is, I feel like I’ve seen a hundred bands like this in the last year or two. Handsome young men, angular guitars, a drummer who won’t leave the hi hat clutch alone, and a poet singer who really means it. Only I’m not really sure what ‘it’ is supposed to be.
HOME Returns on May 11th with Proper Ornaments and Chet Faker.
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