When a musician is sitting down for a song and then rises three or four minutes later as the tune reaches its climax, one cannot help but recollect disturbing images of boybands (clad in pure white, naturally) getting up off their stools and throwing their hands in the air when the inevitable key-change crops up. These sort of CD:UK nightmares plagued me as Gale Pandjanian, guitarist and one half of Turin Brakes, pulled up a chair at the beginning of his band’s set. Thankfully though, they were dispelled as his prodigal fingerwork conjured the kind of emotions Westlife can only dream of. It was consistently the highlight of the gig – whether entertaining with tantalising riffs or haunting slide displays, Pandjanian’s melodic but powerful guitar glued the performance together.
But he is only half of the duo. Olly Knights makes up the vocal other half, and his mesmerising voice was on form. Let’s be clear about this – Knights can sing. But more than that, like James Dean Bradfield of the Manic Street Preachers, his intonations are a microcosm of the wider ambience generated by the band – it reflects the music absolutely.
The set was composed, as one might expect of a band promoting a new album, mainly of recent material. Lilting single ‘Painkiller’, which reached a giddy number five in the charts, was accompanied by other the strongest tracks from Ether Song – the delicate ‘Rain City’, ‘Stone Thrown’, and ‘Panic Attack’ amongst others. The Optimist LP was also well represented, with the presence of old favourites like ‘Futureboy’ and ‘Emergency 72’ always welcome.
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It was good to see an effort to up the ante for a live audience. A plain recital of songs from either album would have been lost in a packed Leeds University, so the addition of a lively backing band was a necessary, rather than interesting, phenomenon. They leant the Brakes some much-needed clout, but thankfully the trademark celestial pseudo-folk vibe was left wholly intact.
I found some moments of recklessness – crowd favourite ‘Emergency 72’, for instance – Knights and Pandjanian even tried to ‘rock’, which had the bizarre sense of slightly ridiculous incongruousness as trying to Morris Dance to Dr Dre. They pulled it off admirably, though, causing the previously relaxed-to-the-point-of-paralysis crowd to actually move for once. The inevitable final showpiece of epic single ‘Underdog’ was the tomato ketchup to the rest of the gig’s fish and chips, leaving the venue to wallow in its own sense of satisfaction. Which is something Westlife could never accomplish amongst post-pubescents.
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