Delays
Live at Cockpit on Wednesday, 1st March 2006
I arrive at the Cockpit just in time to see openers Captain take to the stage. They go on to set the tone of the evening with their shimmering, often delicate indie pop music. The added dimension of the soft synth and keys, matched with the often stunning female backing vocals really gave Captain an edge that makes them stand out from the large crowd of up and coming bands of a similar genre. Climaxing tonight with a stunning ambient soundscape style breakdown they impressed the small crowd which had managed to get there early to catch them. Definitely ones to watch out for in the future.
Next on were Long Island outfit Nightmare Of You. Made up of members of various post hardcore bands, such as Movielife and Rival Schools the band's change in direction to a more indie rock path bodes them well to appeal to both Delays fans, and Fall Out Boy fans, who they have also been seen touring with recently. A few technical difficulties onstage at the beginning mean that it takes the band a while to relax and start enjoying their set tonight. Once they hit their stride, on tracks such as "My name is trouble" and "I want to be buried" singer Reilly becomes a camp showman, often with a dark almost horror style delivery - similar to Alkaline Trio. Musically they are quite diverse, with backing track laden disco numbers, mixed with straight up rock tunes. My only criticism is that the lyrics that I picked up on didn't sit well with me. I found them often clichéd and immature compared to the music they were sung to. Lyrics such as "I want to kiss you on the mouth and tell you I'm your biggest fan" sound far to Son of Dork for my liking, but maybe I'm not too fond of the whole emo genre to fully judge.
Headlining tonight Delays take to the stage to the sounds of Prince, with flashing disco lights and smoke machines. They really shine tonight as worthy headliners, complete with a screaming collection of girls at the front, all salivating over the Gilbert brothers, and their merry men. They are on top form tonight, with both new songs, and old favourites going down a storm with the gathered onlookers. Kicking off with the synth-stomp of "Lost In a melody", it perfectly sums up the mood of the crowd. This is pop done well. "Long Time Coming" is played tonight as a celebration of what has been achieved, and new songs "You and me", and current single "Valentine" are both haunting and catchy-as-hell, and show real promise for the new album.
It's a slick performance that will undoubtedly see them go on to achieve bigger and better things, and all credit to them.
