bromheads jacket & THE yell

My main problem at first was that the similarities between the two aforementioned bands are uncanny. At times it feels like you could have wandered into some portal, been transported back in time to the 80’s and are seeing a youthful Fall - the music and image are more or less identical. Their occasionally narrative, half spoken lyrics roll their way around on top of repetitive 60’s influenced style guitar pop. It has a ramshackle appeal and at times it sounds like it could all collapse at any given second. As their set goes on I find myself enjoying them more and more. By the end, I surprise myself by wishing their set didn’t have to end so soon. Then it is on to the night’s headliners, Bromheads Jacket. They’ve grown a lot in the last year or so. A hefty sized tour schedule has seen their live show become tighter and them moving from playing tiny venues just big enough to swing a cat to venues more cavernous. Yet their live show still retains that intimacy to it. From tonight’s opener ‘Leslie Parlafitt’ to set closer ‘What If’s & Maybe’s’ they have a good proportion of the audience eating out of their hand. The front half dozen rows are going crazy for the majority of the set, people are crowd surfing and there’s even a mini stage invasion. Singer Tim seems to strangle his guitar while the set as a whole keeps itself at a steady pace though out, only dipping in speed once midway through for ‘Poppy Bird’. Every so often there are bands where one song will put them in to peoples’ consciousness temporarily before they fade away from the majority’s gaze; while those they do make a stronger connection with remember them for all the right reasons and for more than one song. I get the impression that Bromheads Jacket could be one of those type of bands, the opening bars of ‘What If’s & Maybe’s’ receives one of the biggest reactions I have seen from an audience for a long long time and will no doubt continue to do so for many months to come. But I can’t help wishing that a few more of those going crazy for that one tune would open their ears to the band’s other songs.