Kowalski
Seabright Arms, London
Friday 11th October
Despite the football being on, despite the pouring rain, and despite the allure of the burgers and fresh air on offer upstairs, we find ourselves packed into the basement room of the well-respected Seabright Arms in East London, waiting to see Kowalski play their debut London show (since relocating to the city) alongside their friends and fellow new-comers AGE.
Having released their first full-length record ‘For The Love Of Letting Go’ over the summer, and having decided to take the plunge and leave Bangor for the gritty urban-expanse of South London, Kowalski are an act who aren’t afraid to show their ambition. They are the latest example of the bright young bands moving away from Northern Ireland in search of major success, and tonight represents their first step on that path.
Slight delays with the sound-checks mean that when the Kowalski boys are finally ready to take to the stage the room is already packed with all the skinny jeans, horn-rimmed glasses, and dodgy facial hair that one might expect to find at a gig in the trendy east-end - the venue buzzing with relaxed end-of-week chatter. But as frontman Louis Price introduces the band, the noise dies down, and they launch into album-opener ‘Forfey’.
From the off, they demonstrate their polish and assuredness as an outfit, bouncing with ease through their catalogue of infectious and unashamedly poppy tracks, laden with soft synths, driving drums, and vocal-hooks designed to lodge themselves firmly inside the echo-chamber between your ears. And although tonight their crowd appear a little self-conscious and subdued, the boys succeed in ultimately winning the audience round with their penultimate song ‘While We Drive’; the insistent and pulsing opening giving way to a euphoric chorus and a dynamic lift that gets all the heads nodding and feet moving. The boys only have time for one more tune, and so they round-off their relatively short set with a thank you to the audience, a promise of more to come, and an impassioned rendition of ‘Get Back’ that seems to assert that Kowalski are more than just another ‘Two-Door aping indie-pop’ group, as some might have you believe.
After a short break, and some much needed air, AGE take to the stage to unleash their frantic, groove-orientated sounds. The recently formed five piece include a couple of members from the self-styled ‘instrumental sex-wave’ group Grand Forever, and the influence of their past musical exploits can definitely be heard in the mix here, with Tim Anderson’s slinky and scattered guitar lines sitting up-front alongside the band’s kitschy synth stylings.
However, on a night where the rhythm section just aren’t quite locking together, it falls to charismatic frontman Gavin Dwight to lift the performance and keep the crowd onside with his engaging stage-presence and perfectly unrefined vocals. He introduces their fourth track ‘Beyond’ as his favourite in the set, and it proves to be the highlight, with the band demonstrating their potential and seeming to grow in stature as the room starts to move and the walls begin to sweat - exactly the kind of energy that a band like this thrives on.
As the gig draws to a close, Zulu Winter’s Will Daunt jumps on the decks for a DJ Set, and we can’t help but appreciate him dropping a bit of T-Rex, as people gradually begin to move toward the bar and file out into the refreshing cold of the night after an evening full of promise.
Keian Roohipour
