The Beat Surrender

Oh my god, I’m writing this with a pretty bad hangover and a run of very bad luck with public transport. The hangover will be explained throughout the review, the transport issues started with this gig and continued into today with my bus to work in the morning!

We were really going to see Switches play last night as they are a hotly tipped young band that are on a quick upwards curve at the moment, especially since getting the coveted single of the week award in the NME a few weeks back.

So with that in mind we set off nice early for Leeds train station to get the ten past six train to Sheffield, it was pretty direct and was due to arrive in Sheffield at ten to seven. Ten past came and went and we started getting worried, British Rail then very kindly told us just after a less direct train had left to Sheffield that ours was going to be delayed by forty five minutes.

Charming we thought, especially as ours ended up being fifty four minutes late in total, still it did give us a chance to consume the first beer of the night! A couple of cans on the train and only one spillage on one students coursework later from ‘Clumsy Hands Cookson’ and we were getting off the train in Sheffield.

We got into the venue for about ten to eight and found out to our surprise that Switches were on stage and already well into their set. This was disappointing but the rest of the set certainly wasn’t, buzz-saw guitars and a drummer that looks like he’s beating his kit up rather than playing it, made for a lively and entertaining spectacle on stage. Definitely a band I’d want to see live again and headlining in a small club I’d imagine they’d be brilliant.

Graham Coxon is altogether different to his support act. He left Blur because he wanted to play songs more in keeping with his taste in music, yet listening to the set and its not hard to imagine a few of them appearing on a Blur album.

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