The Music

For anyone that doesn't know them, The Music fuse rhythmic dance beats and wailing high pitched vocals with driving guitars. There is certainly a nod in the direction of The Stone Roses, although they tend to have a far more upbeat tempo. They were playing The Stirling Albert Hall as part of their UK tour, a quaint little venue where none of the staff seem to know what's going on and you buy your drinks in lines reminiscent of school dinners.

As usual I missed the support act. It wasn't even a case of being at the bar - I didn't make it into the venue until 5 minutes before The Music came on, a combination of alcohol intoxication and public transport confusion.

Their intro was in-keeping with the venue. No big moody, atmospheric build up - just straight in with the opening chords of 'Take the long road and walk it'. Lead singer Rob Harvey was full of energy, prancing around stage with a dancing style capable of clearing pretty much any dance floor in the UK. His ridiculously long, curly hair spent most of the gig in a state of confusion.

The band wasted no time, moving onto 'The truth is no words'. Unusual for a band to play two of the major hits from their first album straight away but it was the start the crowd obviously wanted. The gig was far from a sell out and there was a clear divide, almost segregated by age, between the people who were quite happy to relax and tap their feet, and the band endorsed T-Shirt wearing fanatics who were going to pogo into one another until they got drenched by flying pints from the aforementioned foot-tappers.

'Freedom Fighters', the first single from the new album 'Welcome to the North' was what followed. Rob Harvery yelled 'Dance for the freedom', and well, everybody did. The infectious bass line is enough to get everyone nodding their head and tapping their feet and when you see just how energetic The Music are on stage you almost feel guilty if you just stand and appreciate them.

'Cessatation', 'Bleed from within', 'One way in', 'No way out' and 'I need love' were all played from the new album, all sounding a lot heavier and guitar driven in comparison to the ska overtones of their debut. 'Bleed from within' was a standout track where the whole band broke out into an impressively tight drumming jam.

It was strange that 'Getaway' sounded so quiet. It may well be to do with the Albert Hall's acoustics but for much of the set you couldn't properly hear the lead guitarist; however none of the crowd seemed particularly bothered. 'The People' went down equally well, and forced everyone to engage in whatever style of dancing they saw as appropriate.

The set list was short, but fairly predictable, aside from the glaring omission of latest single 'Breakin'(probably the best song from the new album). I wasn't too worried that they hadn't played it because I couldn't think of a more perfect set closer. But, once the band exited stage that was where they stayed. The Stirling crowd didn't appear to comprehend the idea of an encore and everyone made a dash for the pubs and bars, leaving a handful of die-hard fans to chant 'Music' until they realised the drum kit had been taken away. All in all the band played for about an hour and ten minutes. A bit of a disappointment if you were hoping for an hour and a half as The Albert Hall had advertised.

It's hard to believe that 'The Music' are barely out of their teens. I'm still impressed by the way they have created a generic hybrid of dance and rock and actually make it sound good; something a lot of bands of the 90's forgot to do.

FUTURE GIGS

sorry, we currently have no gigs listed for this act.