It’s an interesting mix as far as the genre goes over at The Garage tonight, but you really can’t fault the welcome. Wondering in as As Animals started to perform (Thanks, whoever decided to concrete the Victoria line), I was greeted by an upbeat ensemble, filling the room with fairly funky, fairly poppy joy. It was obvious the band were enjoying their first ever London show. It may have been early but a nice crowd had built up, and the whole band were smiling and dancing around while performing. As enjoyable as the music was, I think it helped soak in that the band were so clearly enjoying themselves. There was a lot of depth to their sound, thanks to some great guitar playing, some tasteful synth and some incredible vocals. I hope they make it down for The Great Escape showcase!
Next up was Milky Chance, who unfortunately didn’t seem to go down quite so well. The main issue for me had to be the way the two musicians failed to complement together; the guitar and the electronics just didn’t gel at all, making it sound at times like they were playing completely separate from each other. Add the repetitive drum programming into the equation (kick/snare/kick/snare at the same pace for an entire set) and I found it started to drag around 15 minutes in. On the plus side the vocals were fairly nice, and the problem gelling was possibly to do with the sound.
After a thankfully short interval, Young Legionnaire took to The Garage stage, starting at great volume with Killdozer, providing a good opportunity to hear vocalist Paul Mullen’s incredible yelled vocals, something I personally haven’t had the joy of hearing since seeing YCNI:M in 2007. There’s a good amount of variation to the songs too, songs like ‘Twin Victory’ providing the huge riffs while ‘Perfect Chain’ seemed to slow the pace down a little bit early in the set. The main set saw a few opportunities for Gordon Moakes’ aggressive bass tone to push the songs forward, with songs like ‘Black Lions’ working it’s way through the verse with just bass and some complex drumming. The bands’ encore seemed to fall more on the quieter side of things, with ‘A Hole In The World‘ allowing the audience to calm down and just enjoy Mullen’s fantastic vocal delivery before the fairly epic ending to the song crashed down with a few people singing along. The set finished with ‘Chapter, Verse’ winding the show up nicely, even if it did feel like a low point to end on.
I certainly wasn’t disappointed, this being my first Young Legionnaire show; the amount of energy the band put into the set was phenomenal. It’s good to see that despite this being a one off set the band hand no issue keeping a tight sound, something that’s particularly important during the big low riffs present in a fair amount of their music. It’d be a shame if they didn’t plan to play a load more gigs soon though.
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