Some flash in the pan stuff is so gone and forgotten yet so trendy at the time it doesn’t register. Real power comes through time, real artisitic endeavour and commitment isn’t frightened off by the ripple of favour, the fear of failure…rolling the dice and taking a risk can be tripl-y rewarding. I believe Custom Blue’s ‘All Will Be Well’ is their greatest achievement to date, well I might well have believed that had I not witnessed their performance on Wed. night at the Slaughtered Lamb which was quite frankly mind-slaughteringly awesome and quite possibly gig of the year. The support was affecting, and true, the team behind Blue Rose Code came off as very confident professional and full of exuberence. The music was beautiful basically. Then Sebastian Clark duo who at first jarred a bit but then broke me wide open with an eccentric array of pop songs that had hooks, charisma and L.A. freaky odd-ness. Then Custom Blue arrived, the first two songs duets ‘So Low’ getting a stripped down make over and improving on the deeply sad and moving original. Then came new song ‘Over Your Shoulder’ which didn’t so much arrive as creep and lurch into focus as the band took to the stage. They even referenced a Spiritualzed kind of moment as the song gently glided into view. Simon Shippeys voice owning and enveloping the moment with perfect poise and tone. Deep stuff. O.K. so now they’ve got me in the palm of their hand. Every moment from then on in shines. ‘Small Animals’ country shuffle the up-rush of ‘Cobblestones’ featuring a guitar solo by Alex Pilkington that rips into my need to be drenched in rock, the band pushing deeper into the sound. My wife turned round to me just before encore and said ‘why isn’t this band massive?’ to which I only wish I could have answered ‘they are massive…they’re fuckin’ massive.’
Posted on Friday, 14 August 2009
