| INFO | The Subways
Fez Club
Gun Street
Reading
Friday 01/04/05
SEE THE PHOTOS VIA THE TOP RIGHTHAND LINK |
***SEE THE PHOTOS VIA THE TOP RIGHT-HAND LINK*** How can you not like The Subways? Just look at their fresh faces, look at their zest for music, look at the way they fling themselves around the stage. Their extreme affability has a lot to do with their youth - and the fact that someone nicked off with some of their merchandise T-shirts tonight only adds a certain schoolyard risibility to the evening. Walking nonchalantly on stage the trio soon plug themselves into overdrive, crashing into a wall of guitar-driven fuzz and melodic-tinted trash-rock. It's no wonder really that they won last year's Glastonbury battle of the bands contest, not a bad stage to start on for a debut performance that's for sure. While the stage in the Fez is ever so slightly smaller, they lose none of that sizzling vitality that stole the heart of Michael Eavis. It's hard not to keep still, in fact impossible - pixie-faced Charlotte Cooper is almost the size of her bass and leads the way as she jumps and headbangs around the stage in her short skirt and green cowboy boots. Singer/guitarist Billy Lunn, whose roar sounds like a raspy John Lennon joins her - incidentally his girlfriend - for some moshing while Animal-like drummer - incidentally his brother - Josh Morgan pummels and pounds away. Meanwhile you're wondering whether the drums in your ears will ever recover. With no official albums to their name as yet, the crowds still sway and jump to the rabble-rousing blast like the tunes are old favourites. Single Rock 'n' Roll Queen has a red-hot fever pumping through the song. The spiky 1 AM, their breakthrough single, employs the boy/girl vocal dynamics to the max, Billy and Charlotte singing alternating verses, though her cutesy vocals pale into insignificance compared to her man's fluid voice. Their songs don't pretend to be stunning compositions - they're back-to-basics and catchy with an electric undercurrent of razorblade guitars, brought about by what looks like 20 effects pedals. Touted as sounding like the Von Bondies, (male singer, female backing vocals) they bring more of a young vivaciousness to the music scene that manages to override any notion that they haven't exactly got the most original sound on the planet. Their Nirvana and Rolling Stones influences are clearly heard tonight. However this is the makings of a brilliant band. That they can continuously jump around the stage so effortlessly while still playing a tight set shows how finely tuned they've become - though the relentless gigging has eroded away none of their enthusiasm. They still give 110 per cent and above all, look like they're having a good time in the process. Plus they own the stage - all eyes hooked on their every move - pretty damned good for a band whose average age is 19. Playing their crunchy and attitude-laden new single Oh Yeah towards the end, they seal off a cracking set, even coming back for an encore. Their X-factor is the raw power behind their music rather than their song-writing. They rock out, they have fun - we rock out and we have fun. It's a simple formula, but it's one that works. It's the heady days of youth encapsulated in one gig. Singing "these teenage years, they don't last", it makes you wish that they'd last forever. Sigh. | 
