 Another
late start at the academy tonight, but seeing
as there is only two bands that's ok. The Academy
is in the stage of being stripped out right now,
due to the venue change happening, so its looking
a bit odd tonight.
First up and hailing from eastern Europe (the
Balkans), Paprika Balkanikus, they play there
home and own brand of Traditional Music. Something
happened that ive never seen before, people dancing
to this sort of music, you see it on tv in old
films etc, but you don't expect emos dancing to
this sort of stuff, it was a very happy surprise
because i thought it was awesome to see these
4 guys, rocking the joint, with a Guitar, violin,
some kind of bass and an accordion, yes the academy
got rocked by an accordion. I couldn't pick up
any of the songs that were played because i don't
understand Romanian, but what i did understand
was that the crowd were having a blast with something
you just don't here. Brilliant.
 The Cat Empire is a large group of musicians,
including two sets of male vocals, two trumpets,
trombone, tenor saxophone, drums, keys, and a
DJ. There sound can only be described as a tuneful
mismash of jazz, ska, funk and rock with a heavy
Latin sound at times, and at some points a slight
tinge of cheesy euro pop. Again Ive never seen
such crowd participation before even from bigger
bands, even they some times they don't make it
past the first few rows, but this was front to
back singing along from the off, with opener Fishies,
ive never heard of this band before, or this song
for this matter, but the room certainly did, and
the room was certainly full of emo kids, don't
seem like there type of music, but what do i know,
they followed it up with Days and then Darkness,
the crowd seemed to be there singing along to
these rather lengthy tracks. There set also included
songs such as, How to explain, Lost song, Sly,
So many Nights. They Finished off there set with
Chariot, which went down a storm, on this particularly
wet day this band injected some much need sunshine,
the crowd and the band looked rather happy with
the way things went down tonight, good show.
Paprika Balkanikus - 4/5
Cat Empire - 4/5
Review By Robert Lawrence |
