Bricolage/ Wave Pictures/Wake The President/Falling & Laughing
1 Comments Published by Tom on Thursday, November 29, 2007 at 14:41.
It's a Scottish pop special at Fortuna pop! Despite their name Birmingham's Falling and Laughing are no Orange Juice clones. Aside from the odd jangle here and there the band bare no resemblance musically to the band from whose début single they took name. They open with their best song Lights Out Birmingham and the subsequent songs are poor re-hashes. That said they are mightily entertaining on the banter front which I guess takes the audiences attention away from the shambling performance they were witnessing. I am pretty sure that with more fine tuning they could become a very good band indeed but they do need to decide whether they are going to take the Field Mice or Sonic Youth route.
In complete contrast Wake The President do want to be like Orange Juice if only visually. The band are led by Anglo-Scot twins Bjorn and Erik whose wardrobe is circa Glasgow 1981. Bjorn even plays his guitar in a classic Collins pose. That said it is not all style over substance as they make a mighty fine noise. The songs are of a high standard although they still don't possess the killer tune that could take them onto the next level although new single Remember Fun is going in the right direction. They could do with dumping that Psycho Killer cover though.
The Wave Pictures were the band of the night for me. There is more than just the odd nod in a direction towards Hefner and the fact they used to be Darren Haymans backing band speaks volumes. Like the latter their songs are simple and effective whilst judging by the audiences reaction they have built up a large fan base already. New single We Dress Like Snowman took the honours building up into a wonderful crescendo.
Bricolage were the disappointment of the night for me. Like Wake The President before them the band are heavily influenced by Postcard Records - so much so that it hurts. I am not sure that it was because I expected so much from them - it was the first time I had seen them after all - but something was missing. Song wise it became a blur with each song blending into each other without no discerning features by the set's end. I guess I need to see them a couple of times more before deciding if they are as good live as they are on record!Photos courtesy of Bob Stuart, Underexposed.
"Song wise it became a blur" - wasn't that something to do with the beer you'd been supping? :-)
I liked Bricolage. Although they were the 3rd best band of the night. The Wave Pictures just beating off Wake The President for first place.
I liked the first lot too, they tried to combine indiepop and post rock changes with reasonable success. Agree they need to sharpen up the songs a little though.