Amy Gravelle (@AmyGravelle) checks out a host of acts about to tour, here’s her recent highlights that will be playing a UK venue near you soon.
When two rising UK bands decide to team-up and co-headline a tour, it’s the duty of this column to get a ticket and find out what all the fuss is about. Having cut their teeth on the Cambridge music scene, band of the moment Lonely The Brave stormed the Scala (10 October) for an epic performance at the sold out London venue. It’s refreshing to hear a new band who actually have something to sing about, and with vocalist David Jakes’ mesmerising the audience with songs like Backroads and Trick Of The Light, it’s evident from this performance that Lonely The Brave are primed for bigger stages.
On the road: The Junction, Cambridge (13 December)
Sharing the bill with Lonely The Brave – and having already graced this column previously – are Marmozets. When I reviewed these guys a couple of months ago they were only just breaking out with a couple of teaser tracks at Download Festival, but now that their fully fledged debut album The Weird And Wonderful is causing a raucous noise in the rock ranks they deserved a revisit. The West Yorkshire five-piece are fierce and unforgiving onstage, with lead singer Becca Macintyre blasting through tracks such as Born Young and Free and Is It Horrible, while the crowd stir-up an impressive circle pit that’s almost the whole width of the venue’s ground floor. Yet later in the set, the harmonious vocals of Captivate You and Hit The Wave demonstrate the band’s crossover capabilities, suggesting like their co-headliners, that wider acclaim awaits.
On the road: supporting Royal Blood at Brighton Dome (20 December)
Launching new solo album Trick, Kele Okereke‘s show at the The Macbeth earlier this week (13 October) had something of a party feel, even if it was a Monday. In actual fact it was the Bloc Party man’s 33rd birthday hence why so much Jack Daniel’s was flowing (well that and a bit of venue sponsorship by the Bourbon maker). And a celebration seemed to be in order, as there was a precise, electric feel to Okereke’s driving urban-house-indie set. The pulsing bassline and wistful vocal of Doubt or Closer saw him reaching into even more raveier places than his previous solo work and while not all Bloc Party fans will make the jump with him into this new territory, this new material should make him a bunch of new friends.
On the road: Oval Space, London (15 November), SWG3, Glasgow (28 November)
