Spector @ The Haunt,
Brighton 3/10
This year I have been lucky enough to see some big bands in
some huge venues. However sometimes you can’t beat being in a small venue, and
The Haunt in Brighton provided just a setting. Having seen Spector play live on
YouTube I was looking forward to seeing them in the flesh. They didn’t
disappoint.
Before Spector took to the stage, there were a couple of support
acts. The first band, who I only saw half the set of, were ‘Two Jackals’. They
played 80s style indie music with synths but they didn’t really capture my
imagination. Their last couple of songs were Ok but not anything I’d rush to
listen to again. The second support act was a band called ‘Pale’. They had a
similar style to the previous band, but seemed to have a fuller, more
accomplished sound. Even though they only played a short set, they managed to
get the crowd onside early on. Out of the two, they were definitely the band I preferred.
On to Spector then and they gave it everything they had
right from the start. You’d expect that though given it was the first night of
the tour, although their first proper gig in Brighton apparently. They played a
mixture of songs from their first album ‘Enjoy It While It Lasts’, all of which
had the place bouncing (quite literally, you could feel the floor flexing under
your feet), as well as debuting some new material.
They started off with older material including ‘Friday
Night, Don’t Ever Let It End’ and ‘Upset Boulevard’. These went down a storm
with the crowd who sang and clapped along to most of the set. The new material
was well received; I particularly liked ‘Decade of Decay’, a new song that has
been on YouTube recently, as well as some other songs that were new, even to
the band themselves.
They finished their 13 song set with their three most
popular singles. ‘Celestine’ went down well before they thundered into ‘Chevy
Thunder’ which had the whole place rocking again. They ended on the brilliant ‘Never
Fade Away’ which included a mass sing and clap along from the crowd.
Overall they put on a very good performance even though Tom,
the bass player, was playing with a broken collarbone. Singer Frank McPherson
is a brilliant frontman. He has a confidence supported by a quirky sense of
humour which enables him to effortlessly interact with the crowd, which he did
on numerous occasions. Importantly though, he sounds exactly the same live as
he does on record, maybe even better as he can put more passion into the
vocals.
They said they had never played Brighton properly before,
but I think they might well be back at some point. I had a really good night.
The venue was good, the crowd were superb and the band responded with a fantastic
performance. I think it’s fair to say the band enjoyed themselves. Certainly
not a bad way to kick off the tour.
*I apologise for the lack of pictures with this post, as
there usually are with my gig reviews as there were too many people in the way
and my camera wasn’t working.
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