Cherry Ghost / The Loungs / You Remind Me Of Rasputin / The Honeymoon Suite

There’s an eclectic mix of all ages, shapes and sizes at Night and Day tonight, which is unusual for the normally so hip it hurts venue, but there are some ordinary looking people here tonight including a lot of, whisper it, grown ups.

That’s not too much of a surprise, as Cherry Ghost (or ‘Churry Ghost’ as our Oldham-ite host Clint Boon says) are unashamedly an adult orientated band. Simon Aldred is no spring chicken, having strived for years to have a hit project he has finally found his niche, and us old folks love it.

Now kids, stop sneering through your day-glo hoodies because you too will one day get older, and when you do, as sure as eggs are eggs, you will like a bit of tune and melody, both of which Cherry Ghost purvey in spades. When the time comes, don’t fight it!

But before the main event - this is after all a XFM new band special - let’s see if we can find a band that can make a Cherry Ghost like breakthrough in the future?

Tardiness meaning I only catch one song of The Honeymoon Suite’s EMO-centric set, there’s enough on show to suggest they could do it. Despite being beyond my usual taste spectrum you cannot help but like them. Singer ‘Melon’ is the undoubted star, putting boundless energy into the performance and managing, somehow, to defy the laws of gravity with his trousers. Somehow they cling to the bottom end of his arse cheeks as though velcro’d to the garish boxer shorts we are all treated to a glimpse of as his competent band grin away.


Next act, You Remind Me of Rasputin look so young I’m not sure they are actually allowed in the venue, a thought not helped by the Coxon look-alike bass player’s between-song drink of choice...a carton of Ribena! Here’s a band that don’t wear their influences on their sleeve, they wear them on their shirt instead, as modelled by the lead singer’s Maximo Park logo. The keyboard player in particular has been watching Lukas Wooller of MP very carefully and has crafted moves to match with a backing vocal straight from The Automatic’s manual.


The songs themselves are ok, played pretty competently and with a nice line in twirly noises from the keyboard that remind me of the time of noises Metal Mickey made back in the day (ask your parents). They have one song, ‘Sonic Level 3’ which is about their favourite level of their favourite video game. I am both appalled and delighted by this frippery; part of me despairs that this is all the kids of today have to concern them whilst the other thinks it’s brilliantly fatuous. It just depends on the time of day.

The Loungs (pronounced ‘lungs’) are hairy men. 6 of the 7 have beards so it’s perhaps not a surprise to hear something of a folk influence in their sweet sweet pop. But there is allsorts in there, skiffle, ragtime, honky tonk, and even, courtesy of my favourite instrument the trombone, some oompah!



They don’t set much scope on lyrics, as highlighted by the song that starts ‘googley boogley I love you’, preferring to concentrate on experimenting with the structure of the songs with changes of pace and a combination of all the styles one after the other. Some of the songs have so many quicks and slows you could use them at a kids party for musical statues.

Still, it’s a pleasing mix, at times resembling The Beach Boys, The Housemartins and Wings. The highlight of the set is ‘I’m Gonna Take Your Girl’ which builds from a slow start to a jump-up-and-down chorus which even has a break for the crowd to shout ‘oi’ in between. A band to put a smile on your face.

Cherry Ghost have been putting in the hours on the festival circuit, and why the hell not in their flowering year, so it’s less than 2 weeks since I saw them last, but I am still astounded by the difference in performance.



Back then, the slower songs stood out a mile, ‘Roses’, ‘Mathematics’ and ‘People Help The People’ stunning the crowd into a blissful silence. But now, having heard the album, the quicker songs are shining too, suggesting Aldred has a skill to pen a tune that plants a seed in your brain and flourishes every time you hear it.

‘People Help The People’ stands out as the headline track – it’s shimmers with gorgeousness has a terrific sentiment AND a sing-a-long ‘na na na’ bit, what more could you want? - but other than that there is little that jumps out to surprise you, but this is down to the band’s consistency rather than being unremarkable. They have a set themselves a high bar that they seem to hit every time. The big surprise is left until the end, when they make a reasonable fist of speeding up Amy Winehouse’s ‘Back to Black’ and turning it into a country song. But like sensible adults, it’s not taken to 100mph, more like a legal 70.

FUTURE GIGS

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