I'm making my King's College Student Union debut here tonight. What a cracking little venue.
Good view from either upstairs or down, with a Residents Dry lounge to match, that has a beautiful view of London inside and a little shooter bar. As you would think, the beer is cheap too, £2.50 a stella. Happy as Lal.
THE RACE make there way on to the stage, with an ever increasing crowd of say around 40 at this point. They are a fine 5 piece hailing from Reading. Daniel Buchanan is the charismatic, animated vocalist and also plays enchantingly on a Casiotone. On lead and rhythm guitars are Jess Del Rio and James Del Rio, each having their own woozy, floozy style of playing, plus Jess backing up on harmony-laden second vocals. On steady bass is Graeme Moorcroft and behind the beat batallion that is the drums is Andrew Aitken.
Indeed The Race are in sparkling form tonight. I found myself dancing around, with onlookers aplenty, not sure what to quite make of it, whether its not cool to dance to "support" acts or whether it was just too early only being 7.30ish. Strange. Pounding out tune after tune with a genuine enthusiasm to please the crowd seems to be The Race's thing and they simply concentrate on doing it well. They have been compared to The Pixies, but I don't see it. Their sound is a highly charged emotional kick to the temple, with all the certitude of a judge delivering a life sentence.
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Half an hour simply wasnt long enough tonight for a final verdict, but on first looks, it was highly impressive. OK, maybe they need a few tweaks here and there where stage presence is concerned (except for Dan), but on the whole, The Race are a very enjoyable pastime.
They definitely win the race vs their Reading counterparts Morning Runner anyway.
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