The Birdman Rallies

Live at Blues Bar (Harrogate) on Thursday, 11th February 2010

For a local band, playing in a local bar, these guys were obscenely good tonight. I've caught them a couple of times before but this was the one where you think "I'm lucky to be in on this early before everyone else finds out!"

Already with a couple of albums under their belt, the quality of the songs shone though tonight, doubtless due to the serious rehearsing they must have done to be this tight. It's that tightness and an added muscularity that lifted the performance tonight, The Birdman Rallies have songs that could easily collapse under their own weight and complexity and they could certainly be accused of having a distinct whiff of feyness and whimsy on occasion but tonight, on 'Darkness' and 'Creative Dance' for example, they almost justified the bass player's Mastadon T-shirt.

The majority of songs are simply great pop songs. A clear mix of mid sixties Small Faces and Kinks cross bred with a healthy post punk anti-rock intellectualism. 'Destined For Your Wheels' and 'You and I' were exceptional tonight, the latter, using a vocal imitating machine glitch trick employed in a few songs, reached an acapella climax that would justify any amount of hype.

And hype is what they'll get if they just get out there more. Danny Webster as main songwriter, singer, guitarist, trumpet player and toy glockenspiel player is surely, as soon as he learns he doesn't need to do all those things at once, a star in the making.

• www.thebirdmanrallies.com

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