The Sheffield Scenester

After a gloriously sweltering weekend with sun lotion and BBQ’s all round it was a bit of a relief for the temperature to ease off a bit on Monday. So I headed down to The Boardwalk, since Monday nights in Sheffield have become quite a good night to see live music, most people by this time are partied out over the weekend and just want to chill in a relaxing atmosphere with a decent band or two on stage. The Boardwalk was a bit muggy once inside but with an ice cold beer to hand I wasn’t complaining, and with no-one rushing the stage I grabbed a pretty good vantage point and waited for the first band of the night.

This honour fell to Search Party, whom I’d seen support Black Flowers – then known as Flying Squad – about two months ago at The Leadmill. What surprised me this time round was that the singer/guitarist Adam seemed to have dropped his ‘thrash till you drop’ approach to guitar manhandling, instead employing a more structured, dare I say it, melodic sound to their set. Now I actually quite enjoyed their hard and fast approach, loving as I do the raw hardcore energy it delivers, but this newly adopted approach gave a slightly polished edge to the whole proceedings. Adam seemed more relaxed with the crowd while he tuned up for one song, he joked that he couldn’t afford a tuning pedal. The drummer also produced an interesting effect on the track ‘Thinking Out Loud’, I can’t be sure what he was doing exactly but it sounded like he was hitting his sticks against the drum edge creating a ‘clacking’ noise throughout! Playing one of my favourite songs from the Leadmill gig, ‘Mindset’, really was the highlight of their set for me, with its infectious yet pounding bassline throughout, until they played a new one ‘Colours’. This begins with a much slower tempo than their previous tracks until the finale when all hell breaks loose with guitars and drums almost sparring to the death amongst the mayhem that ensued. A great finish to an astoundingly refreshing band, they appear to be slowly finding their feet...lead singer Adam in particular. Now they have stopped concentrating so much on their instruments, they can now give time over to focussing on the audience – a sure sign of rising confidence!!

To follow this were Black Flowers, whom I recall being quite an accomplished group with a catalogue of short, yet intelligently structured tracks. Yet again they had managed to bring a crowd with them, not to the scale of their headline gig at The Leadmill, but enough to cheer them on. It is a credit to their craft, that even though I’d only seen them once and have yet to listen to any of their tracks (I failed to get a CD at The Leadmill) I still recognised and could sing along to several of the tracks they played. I still love the track ‘Dillinger’, a rollicking all out musical number which happily pulses along. With a change of pace they ripped into the track ‘Plague’, one of their older and faster paced tracks with a heavy, slightly disjointed indie feel to it. For this particular one, drummer Mark White, let rip on his kit just to remind everybody...as if they needed it...that he was still there and hadn’t lost his touch! The next track after this was ‘Row Your Boat’ but before they began, lead singer Ben Stanton turned to someone in the crowd and said “This one’s for you cos you come to every gig, what’s your name?” “Steve!” he replied, to which Ben responded “This one’s called Steve” much to the amusement of everyone in the audience. Musically they played a near flawless set with delicate, multi-layered, yet catchy and danceable tunes, plus this time round they were less distant from the audience. It’s always a pleasure to see a good live band, but if they seem stand-offish the whole event can be ruined, I like a band that connects with the audience, especially at this level! At least this time around I managed to get a CD, they are after all in short supply and with this quality on show it’s easy to see why!

Finally we had the group, Little Comets, this was definitely the band that people had come to see tonight, as for the first time they all surged forward in unison. Arranged, in fact strung high over the stage was a collection of percussion instruments – tambourines, maracas and the such like – so the scene was set for an interesting performance! As soon as they appeared on stage their fans seemed to go wild, and from this point on their enthusiasm never dwindled. With a slightly bouncy yet off-beat collection of tracks to their name, sometimes slipping into a reggae based rhythm, they certainly delivered to the fans as they swayed, bounced and sang along to virtually the whole set. Even when they slowed the pace down a bit you could still hear yelps of approval from the floor, at one point a voice from the crowd shouted “How big are your balls?” I’m not sure what relevance this has to the artist’s credentials but the reply came back anyway “Large grapes!” Amidst all this fun you could still hear the delicate piercing guitar of Michael Coles while Robert Cole’s hypnotic but fun vocal styling’s carried across the audience brilliantly! Every now and then they would reach up and grasp one of the overhead instruments to boost the songs fun level...nothing makes a song more infectious then someone on stage bouncing about with a tambourine! Reaching the final song of the night we were informed “This One’s For Dancing” to which the crowd went wild; finally a mosh pit mentality ensued, although it surprised me when they fell short of a stage invasion. Despite all this obvious adulation the crowd seemed disappointed at the lack of an encore, but it has to be said they were a fun bunch to watch as well as listen to!

This seemed to sum up the evenings ambience perfectly....an easy, layed back but fun loving performance from a popular and influential band, this was a great ending to a fun evening. Monday nights are easily becoming the perfect remedy to a hectic weekend of sweaty BBQ’s and all night partying!!!

Words and photographs by Geoff Buckthorpe