It's been a long road for Four Day Hombre - not just in the sense that this is the end of their tour (and they seem visibly relieved) but also that it has been five years since they released their first EP. A month before their debut album release in the tiny, packed, Bar Academy, playing upstairs from Taking Back Sunday, it's fairly obvious why everything might finally right for them now.
Rather than suffering from being worn out, they seem relaxed and confident and are gently witty between songs in front of a very appreciative, if none too animated, crowd. And what songs they are - it's easy at first to make obvious comparisons with Radiohead, Elbow (in the excellent rolling trip-hop-like beats especially) and even Coldplay (Simon Wainwright's sparingly employed falsetto) but they are expansive beyond any of them, with almost all songs seeming to take on a life of their own, flowing gracefully and inventively to places unrecognisable from where they begin and never quite allowing you to get a firm grasp on them.
Extremely fine singles The First Word Is The Hardest (here ended via a mutation into a very pretty cover of Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill) and 1000 Bulbs don't even stand out as highlights and while throughout one fault is a lack of anything instantly memorable, in the encore they even prove to have a more immediate side which will be more likely to win over new fans too.
2 comments:
Next time I'm there we're definitely going to see a gig at either the Bar Academy or the Garage, as both are within a walking distance from Ada's (are they not?). Sometimes it's nice to know there's a local, homelier alternative to the big guns. Of course, we also need to arrange for it to coincide with a noteworthy artist's performance.
Btw, you goin' out tonight? If not, care to meet up on MSN?
Hi! Sorry I didn't see you on msn, how are things going? They are within walking distance I suppose as are Water Rats and Scala (thanks for telling the internet where I live! ;)) although we are much too lazy to actually do so.
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