DUNDEE LIVE - BANDS TO WATCH!!
SEAMS - "EP Launch Night", Dexters, Dundee 27-12-11
It is sometimes hard to believe what difference a year can make. In 2010, I saw this band play a Dexters "Battle of the Bands" competition - they were good, they had potential but also a young singer that seemed incredibly "shy". Cue many months later at The Doghouse and a band that had really found their feet with a singer who was so much more confident, so much stonger, yet still largely stayed rooted to the microphone, the whole lot, however, turning in a glorious performance.Now move forward - to tonight, to be precise.....
The stage went dark - in classic dramatic concert traditions, on comes the band to huge applause from the audience at a totally packed-out Dexters - they pick up their instruments and start to play - two guitarists, drummer and bassist. Chords ring out, rhythms begin to thunder and the band introduces the set - then out copmes the singer - Katie - and what a transformation. With gorgeous auburn-y hair and a grin a mile wide, to rapturous applause, she starts to sing. This is a young girl but she has a voice that is just to die for and the immediacy of the purity and strength just capture you right from the start. As the band then launch into action - shards of chords and notes pouring out of the PA as the rhythm section power ahead - Katie takes the stage, makes it her own, leaps about the place, onto the front,above the crowd, jumping back and generally dancing around that stage - but not a note or a line or anything missing - the transformation has arrived at this - and it's just jaw-droping.
During the first couple of tracks - not on the new EP that's being launched at the gig tonight - the band show that they have muscle, dexterity, finesse, dynamics, invention and force, with the two guitarists creating everything from chiming leads to heavy duty riffs, while the bassist is powering out his thunder and leaping about the stage scything the air with his bass like some musical grim reaper on steroids. The drummer is laying down massive and inventive rhythms that drive it all forward but also provide a wealth of twists and turns that act as the foundations for the guitarists to splinter out and power out in all directions. Above all this, Katie is delivering vocals that would make Bjork sound raw, soaring out with a mix of sweetness, purity, high-flying passion and feel-good strength, the initial problem of being heard above the band, thankfully rapidly disappearing as we were treated to one of the finest vocal performances from a young girl in any Dundee-based band.
They came to do "The Colour Purple" from the new EP and they didn't disappoint. On one of the finest tracks of the year on any unsigned band EP, Katie delivers an initial angelic verse over the ringing guitar notes before the band kick in and the whole thing lifts off with magic, only to go even higher than you thought possible as Katie's vocal heads for outer space. But then, with a dramtic twist, the band suddenly hammer in to this train-like rhythm as Katies tears alongside with it and the effect on the EP is great - here it is just astounding.
In tried and trusted traditions, the band fed off the audience who were cheering and hollering and clapping, so the audience reaction grew stronger and the band intensified some more. The guitarists were playing all manner of dual attack from splintered chords to ringing leads to stuttering riffs through expansive rhythms to all-out nuclear attack, while that dervish of a bassist was pumping out foundations that could have housed a tower block, and all the while the ever dependent drum work forges a path along which the others follow. But, make no mistake - Katie is the focal point and her vocal just got better and better and better as she took command of both the stage and the audience, arguably one of the most spellbinding visual performances I've seen from any lead singer of an unsigned band throughout 2011. At one point, they even did "Fall Over", the acoustic track off the Ep - a brave move, you'd think with just Katie on singing and one of the guitarists on acoustic. Initially I thought it wasn't going to work as I could hear more of the audience than the two on stage - but I'd reckoned without Katie's tenacity - refusing to be beaten that vocal took on a passion, a monumental sense of feeling and gradually she had that audience listening to every note, every word - it was amazing to behold. After that, it just went onwards and upwards. I can't recall the order, but I know we got a spirited version of "Maps" that just exploded into life as band and singer knew there was no looking back and, after the delicacy of the intro, started to surge, eventually hammering out riffs and rhythms as the singign just flew and soared above it all, that voice charting the absolute range of scale to perfection, sailing high and low with absolute assurance and a performance that you could only describe as magical.
The whole set was breathtaking - even the previous Whigs And Rakes gig at Dexters would have found its equal in this concert - and I have to say I was riveted and grinning from ear to ear from start to finish, almost a tear in the eye to see this band attain the success that they so richly deserve - and this is just the beginning!! In essence it was magnificent and a band that I'd walk across hot coals to see again anytime I could. You have to get the EP and you have to see this band in concert - it will change your life!
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