OK I’m a little later than planned with this review, but here it comes anyway. Many of you regular readers of this blog will know that I have shamelessly promoted this rather excellent band called Steal The Smile. I finally got to see them live last week. So have I given them a good review? well for that you’ll have to read on. Let me begin with the support bands;
First up were InColour. Sadly I only caught their last one and a half numbers but they sounded like a pretty good band, check them out on MySpace by clicking here. Sorry I missed the first part of your set guys.
Second were MotionInColour and as far as I know nothing to do with the first band apart from the similarity of names, boy this is confusing for an old bloke believe me! Anyway MotionInColour were pretty good, a really tight band with an excellent drummer. Shades of Counting Crows and perhaps Hootie and the Blowfish, although to be fair they are probably too young to remember either of those bands! They do have a great sound though soft acoustic building to pounding drums and great vocals. The singer also gave perhaps the best heckler put down of the night. One member of the audience showed the height of his intellectual abilities when he shouted “You suck” during a break between songs, without losing a breath the singer responded with “So did your mum last night” bloody sharp and bloody hilarious also a bloody good band. Click here to check out their MySpace page.
The penultimate band of the night were Francesqa, personally I’m not sure about the name, but hey, to each their own. Let’s face it both Radiohead with ‘On A Friday’ and Blur with ‘Seymour’ had far worse names before they changed. Francesqa are a pretty strong rock band, certainly their vocalist has a great voice and excellent audience interaction. The rhythm section work well together and provide an excellent engine for the band’s overall sound. I really like this band I’m just not keen on the name, check out their MySpace page here
OK so here we go with the main men of the night, the mighty Steal The Smile. Well let me start by using an American phrase that I really don’t use that often, these boys rock! I’ve said in previous posts about them (and there have been quite a few!) that they sound a little like Blink 182 although with a much more English identity, which is something I love. Far too many bands adopt fake American accents to sing, these guys are part of a great English rock tradition that stretches back to Syd Barrett and runs through the Clash, the Pistols and Paul Weller amongst others. They rock out in the way only English guys can!
Henry jumps to avoid some Ghostbusters style green ectoplasm!
It is clear that Steal The Smile have now been playing together for quite a while, their musicianship gets straight ‘A’s from me and they are developing a superb repertoire of their own songs. Their new single is fantastic, it’s called “Rome Was Built To Burn” and if you hurry to their MySpace page their may still be just a few copies left, otherwise you’ll just have to wait for their forthcoming EP. They played a few new songs including the excellent “What Would Elvis Do?” which you can currently hear on their MySpace page
Luke introduced a great cover version by telling the audience that if they didn’t recognise it they were ‘complete homos’ or that the band were perhaps playing it pretty crappily. Well even I recognised it so I guess I’m not a complete homo then! They also played it damned well, the song was Blink 182’s “All The Small Things”
Luke also has green ectoplasm problems at the FaceBar
So Steal The Smile are indeed a bloody good band, they can clearly cut it live as well as recording. Unlike some more successful bands who seem to have no sense of humour, these boys seem to have great fun on stage together too. Check them out on MySpace here, you WILL NOT be disappointed!
If you hurry you may still be able to purchase Steal The Smile's excellent new single "Rome Was Built To Burn"
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With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 