Friday 30 November 2001

Right then. First up, and it's first time out for the very lovely King Rolo, who treated us to a mid-sized selection of tunes and songs on his very red guitar. Second song in, and the King is singing that "this is a call for us getting together", which is a fair appraisal of the reaction this set recieves - an unusually large crowd for a support act is eating out of the palm of his hand in a matter of seconds. King Rolo's range of songs is quite impressive (I nearly referred to his "range of material", but that makes him sound like a fabric wholesaler), from heartfelt romantic to slightly more grandstanding slogan-choruses. That the romance can be of the slightly sentimental country sort ("If I had three wishes, I'd give on to you", he sings) is made bearable, and enjoyable by the very obvious sincerity of the delivery.

With influences ranging all over the shop, this was a very enjoyable set. A set of unexpected changes and time-trickery is equally unexpectedly well-recieved by the very vocal crowd. My only reservation is that these are songs which sound as though they require a little more arrangement - while some are obvious solo material, the others could at times sound like they were waiting for the rest of the band to turn up. The King should make his mind up about this - he's a good solo act, and he needs to either concentrate on this or else start hiring the apropriate people. That said, anyone who can close a set with a song containing the sentiments "Let's do it right here" can do no wrong in my book. Come on now, everybody.......

I was fairly certain that I had already seen Pushking on at least one previous occasion. Having written this, and checked the photos, I'm not so sure it was the same men. They seemed to be a different shape, somehow. Anyway, if the line-up was unfamiliar to me, the music certainly wasn't - this was one of those occasion when you get to pass away any idle moments by playing "spot-the-influences". Having been stuck in the queue at the bar downstairs for much of their first song (sorry chaps - they don't sell Jameson's upstairs), the first song I caught properly was placed halfway between the good-natured riffery of the Charlatans and the trumpeting pop of "Wake Up"-era Boo Radleys. Four songs later, we get James playing "Rock The Casbah", with a sub-Gomez-style middle-eight. Imagine that. Sorry, I should have worn my anorak. Even at the end of the set, I I was still at it - "Seventy Three" is, in my little grey notebook, like the SeaHorses playing The Velvet's "Candy Says". Some times I rue the day I started listening to music. And what's this ? "The encore was a Doris Day song"????? That's going too far, surely.

Pushking are, on balance, an enjoyable band to spend an evening with, perhaps in the company of some friends and a copious amount of beer. There is plenty of melody and good musicianship on show,and the band are, truthfully, quite versatile. However, the overall feeling is that matters are just a little bit...well..flat, really. The songs are well-arranged, with several people taking turns on playing the trumpet (not crumpet, as I initially typed), and the two guitars and keyboards mean that they have a big variety of sounds at their disposal. This is, however, the root of their problem - all of the sounds on display tonight were just a little bit too safe for my liking. There is, I suppose, nothing wrong with being middle-of-the-road, but you do run the higher risk of getting run over. Also, as performers, ver 'kings are mostly invisible. Only their hard-working frontman makes much of an impression, with the rest of the spotlight being given over to their keyboard player. Which is fine, except that, for amounts of time tonight, he was sat watching his comrades do their stuff. In a way, I'm jealous - it was largely impossible to see the sixty percent of the band skulking about in the shadows, except when Mr Carter takes to the mike to sing the aforementioned Ms Day's "Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps". Oddly, though, this was the climax of the evening - Pushking attacked this old standard with an aggression and an assurance that they had largely lacked for the rest of tonight's show. Perhaps therein lies the way forward.

Paddy Garrigan