Brown Brogues opens proceedings at the revamped Islington Mill, and, if you’ll allow me, I’d like to indulge in some not-so-cryptic hilarious wordplay: OH,I SEES what they are going for. Who has been in to COACHthem? Have they had WHIPSaround for some ideas? Even though they steal from the many bands of one man and one man only, they still write good songs (a la their inspiration) and are fun live. I don’t get why they have been hyped up as much as they have, but all the bands on this bill fall into that bracket.
In between songs, Spectrals sarcastically claim to be the future of British guitar music. I’m not sure if that was a reference to something that’s been written about them, but it wouldn’t surprise me. I’d rather see bands like them receiving press and adulation than a lot of other crap around. They saunter on stage and the music suits the relaxed atmosphere in the hip environs of the Islington Mill bar. When I caught them a few weeks later at a big venue with a stage and a barrier, they seemed somehow more boring. They have some great songs, but recently songwriter/recorder Louis seems to have taken his foot off the gas and been content to churn out lazier, more pedestrian songs. Wistful, swoonsome numbers are okay as lulls in the set, to act as counterpoints to faster rockers, but now they comprise 90% of the show. The launches into older, faster songs are when things really get going. The newer songs are more thoughtfully crafted, but lack energy from the band.
I’m not going to talk about Wavves’ rise and fall and rise. I like to think of main man Nathan as a jaded, burned out Lil Chris (from the popular TV show Rock School) finally hitting the skids then bouncing back. Something about his demeanour simultaneously screams bratty yet eager to please. Wavves released several albums with cool skateboard shots on the cover, presumably with the intention of being taken seriously. The piss was extracted from him very severely, and his response seems to have been to live up to this mockery, cultivating a self-parodying hipster doofus image complete with dope-smoking cats and Blink 182-isms. I thought I was going to hate it but the set is surprisingly well done; not half as irritating as I had braced myself for. The best song is still the self-titled one, though. I’m glad I was there, ch-ch-ch-checkin’ it out.