The Beat Surrender

Sometimes things can get hyped up a little too much in the build up to a gig, I remember the first time Suede played in Leeds after they had just broke through and it was pandemonium trying to get a ticket for the gig. Once inside the crowd was bouncing around and dancing to the tracks being played before the start of the gig such was the frenzied atmosphere, they then came on and gave a less than convincing performance.

It’s fair to say that Clap Your Hands Say Yeah have not had that same level of frenzy surrounding them, they have however had word of mouth doing the job of building them up as a must see band even before the self financed and self titled album has even been released, so tonight was always going to be a test for them on their first gig in the UK.

A couple of things didn’t help them from the outset. The Faversham venue in Leeds is a great venue to see a band as long as it’s not completely sold out as this gig was. If it is sold out then you tend to find that a large percentage of the audience are either stood behind two massive pillars just in front of the stage, or else they are crammed into the areas that you can get a view from. This wouldn’t be so bad if one of the best views didn’t come from right in front of the bar.

The second thing against them was the support band Hockey Night. When I saw the poster for them walking in to the gig I thought, fantastic. After all it is ‘sports day’ in all the Universities in the UK so maybe its some hockey players party, that’s going to be full of nubile students. Alas no it was a dreary support band that looked and sounded like they’d never played together before. This would have been fine if it wasn’t for the fact that they were supposed to be on for thirty minutes and ended up doing over fifty minutes of prog-rock nonsense with the worst singer I’ve ever heard.

So Clap Your Hands are now on, but later than expected and the crowd are restless, not sure if it’s to do with the support band over running but they spend too much time tuning instruments and conversing to each other between songs to get any sort of momentum and excitement going. Alec Ounsworth looks nervous, but unlike the support bands drummer at least he doesn’t look like he’s killed before.

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