Most promoters avoid putting on gigs in the summer months. Look at the listings for any of the big venues and the number of acts that are playing (and the quality of the acts) drops dramatically. This is, of course, because of the festivals. Everyone saves up to go to T in the Park or to one of the Carling Festivals, or even Glastonbury. With that in mind, I really shouldn’t be surprised that there was a small turn out to see
Look See Proof, but I am. Their debut album (which was released on the 1st July) is a decent enough record. It’s not going to win any awards, or break any music boundaries. It hasn’t changed the way I see music, but it’s not an entirely unpleasant experience. They’re very now. They sound a bit like a lot of successful bands, which is usually a good way to build up a fan base. I expected a good show, with a good crowd, and I guess I should be happy with 1 out of the two.
The first track of the set was the first track from the album (
You Don’t Get It), and lays out what you are going to get in the rest of the show; jangling angular guitars, a sing-song chorus (“You don’t get it, don’t get it now...”) and some harmonies that the Futureheads would be proud of. It picked up from there, with their two best tracks in next three songs.
Competition rattles along at a fair old rate, and the Futureheads comparisons just won’t go away. Given that they’re arguably one of the best live acts doing the rounds right now, that’s far from a bad thing.
Casualty is just a cracking little pop tune. Set to a guitar riff that wouldn’t look out of place on a Bloc Party record, the to and fro of the vocals came across particularly well live. The rest of the set was slightly more sporadic, more through the variation of quality of material available to them, rather than in the band’s performance.
Between Here And There sounds a bit like a Blink 182 track (whether that’s a good or a bad thing is really up to you) and
Standard Class is a competent pop track, but isn’t really better than anything that they played in the last twenty minutes.
Start Again finished with an impromptu stage dive, which illustrates how much both the crowd and the band were putting into it. When faced with a small crowd, they could’ve just given a half arsed effort. It speaks volumes of
Look See Proof that they didn’t.
At Tut’s you generally see four different types of bands; those who are just starting out, those who are at the height of their powers, those that are past their best (but playing in a small venue to please a dedicated fan base) and those that are utterly shite.
Look See Proof come under the first banner – they have potential. They just need to time their tours a bit better, and work on what they’re good at. It’s all very well wearing your influences on your sleeve, but they need to try and set themselves apart a bit more to get the type of success that they deserve. I wouldn’t bet against them.
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