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.
Turbowolf are huge within the Bristol scene, having grown up there I saw them play a range of venues almost every weekend over the last six years. However, now on the verge of releasing a second album, the band’s waves of rock’n’roll, psychedelia, heavy metal, punk rock and electronica (yep, they’re hard to classify) look set to reach the wider masses. Playing a string of intimate UK dates, their raucous set at London’s Barfly (25 April) was full of headbanging mosh-pit madness, which included me getting hoisted onto a burly man’s shoulders and losing my shoes and watch in the process – it was worth it. With a snarling punk attitude and speaker crunching riffs if the London show was anything to go by, their new record will be pretty darn spectacular indeed.
On the road: Camden Rocks Festival (31 May 2014), Download Festival (13 July), 2000trees Festival (10-12 July)
In the build up to the release of her debut solo album Diploid Love, Brody Dalle (pictured) played three shows in London: the Hoxton Bar & Kitchen (24 February), Electric Ballroom (24 April) and Rough Trade East (27 April). I went to all three. Her opening gig in Hoxton was a curious affair, with the singer asking the crowd several times why no one had given her any yellow socks, making for a strange night, for the slightly moody and heavily jet-lagged Dalle. All was forgiven performance-wise as she relentlessly bashed through old songs from her former band, The Distillers. Electric Ballroom, upped the game further, as the feisty frontwoman snarled her way through an extensive set of energetically aggressive tracks and giving us a fresh listen to her explosive new material. And by the time she played her in-store at Rough Trade the tables were completely turned, with the crowd doing the strangeness. “I love you so much that my vagina hurts,” yelled a fan at one point. “Well, I haven’t heard that one before,” replied Dalle. You have to hand it to the punk rock heroine; at least none of her shows are ever dull.
On the road: Reading Festival (22-24 August)
Dinosaur Pile-Up are reasonably undetected within the rock scene’s upper tiers, but after tirelessly gigging and releasing two studio albums and various EPs, their time could be now. I ventured down to Bristol’s Hit The Deck festival to check out the awkward alt-rockers in action. It’s actually surprising the size of a crowd the Leeds trio attract and kicking things off the pulsing riff of Arizona Waiting, the audience exploded with excitement. Lead singer Matt Bigland’s bowl haircut and granny jumper typifies the band’s geeky look, though it’s actually miles away from their raw guitar drone, obstinate lyrics and angsty vocals that weave together into wonderfully organised chaos. On the face of it, this hardworking three-piece should have a full-blooded career ahead of them and are worth seeing while they’re still playing cramped venues.
On the road: Camden Rocks Festival (31 May), Southsea Festival (20 September)
