The Beat Surrender

I’ve been to The Cockpit a few times recently, but it’s the first time I’ve been in through the bar bit and it’s pleasing to see that it’s had a bit of a makeover. In place of a rather uncomfortable area to chill out and have a drink they’ve actually put in comfy sofas and made it a genuinely chilled out little room.

We spend the first hour in their tonight having a few beers, one because it’s quite interesting checking out all the tickets on display of who has played there in the past. Secondly because whichever of the support bands are on before the main act, they are making a right racket and though I could tell you nothing about them as people, musically it’s obnoxious stuff.

Once they depart from the stage it’s on to Envy & Other Sins a band who seem to be more known for their appearance on the Mobile Unsigned thing last year than their actual music, which is a bit of a bloody shame as it’s actually pretty good from what I’ve heard so far.

They are just firing into Step Across when we get into the room, it’s the smaller of the two gig rooms and it’s about half full, a slightly disappointing turn out but the band don’t let that phase them over the next 40 minutes.

From that confident opening they move onto The Company We Keep and Almost Certainly Somewhere Else followed by the brilliantly titled Man Bites God. At about this point in proceedings a couple of things stand out for me. The singer has a similar stage style to the lead-singer with The Feeling, which is a bit annoying and overly dramatic at times. The second though shows what a tight band they are and very competent musically.

Towards the end of the well received set they play the brilliant Talk To Strangers, play debut single Prodigal Son which they say they haven’t played for two years and then recent single Highness, another slice of brilliant guitar pop that should have done so much better on it’s release.

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