My Luminaries / The Illegal Waste

There aren’t many stranger venues than Digital on a Thursday night. Essentially a nightclub, it somehow attempts to masquerade as a respectable venue for ‘real’ music fans amidst an indie-themed club-night. The reality, in fact, is a scene of several hapless guys playing blanket music in the middle of the most almighty piss-up known to man.

The gig itself didn’t even start until 12.30 with local band The Illegal Waste kicking off the night (or should I say morning).

It was an upbeat set but with a major problem. It stank of The Libertines. No, change that. It reeked of The Libertines. Sure, that’s no bad thing to listen to in the sense that it made for a cutting, fervent performance, but it was hardly probing the depths of musical ingenuity. Throw in the Strokes-like guitar solos and lyrical yelling and it results in a very unimaginative catalogue of songs.



In fact, the half and hour performance revealed a few more influences from a very concrete take on the indie genre perhaps attempted more for a certain aura than for a quality and talent in that field. It almost seemed as though image was chosen first and music was an offshoot for this appearance.

In almost direct contrast, My Luminaries seem intent on producing music based on the merit of its originality. They don’t seem to tick the conventional genre boxes that many other bands do and the product is a band with an incredibly diverse repertoire. You can almost feel the freedom of writing songs that aren’t confined to particular fields. As a result, to limit them to similarities with other bands seems unfair. Influences like Arcade Fire, Radiohead and early David Bowie are audible for their understated quirkiness in almost paradoxical alliance with the crushingly poignant lyrics of Bob Dylan. This is an intelligent band with intelligent depths and this brings their music to a higher level.

They eventually took to the stage a little before 1.30am in front of an increasingly sparse audience, now almost all of whom had had one too many. It was a shame that there were too few sober people around to appreciate the quality of band before them. It struck me immediately how well their music was transferred to a live performance by maintaining the definition of the individual instruments over the wall of sound they produced as a backdrop to the subtleties of the probing guitar melodies and lead singer Jaimes Ewers’ voice.



In saying this, however, I was disappointed to notice that the diversity which gives this band with so much credibility was lacking at times. The fact that they had a full sound, despite offering much in terms of a veritable wall-like resonance, often meant that songs like Petrol Station Union which gives so much to an album, is lost in the fuzz. By no means does this imply that they sound samey, only that their live performance doesn’t seem to do justice to the many layers that they have to offer.

Yet, somehow this all seems immaterial at times as Ewers throws out his lyrics to the drunken mob in front of him. If they could only hear a thing over the sound of the alcohol gushing through their veins, they would stop and listen. Quite a apart from the clumsy formulas of bands that seem to fall off the production line, My Luminaries has something to say and they say it well. Petrol Station Union starts with a profound reflection on the fragility of life by saying “with just the slightest of movements I could be buried in an instant, mortal as the morning I was cut from my mothers abdomen” and this serves to show the deeper contexts the band are prepared to delve into in order to achieve something more.

Moving onto the excellent up-coming single ‘Jumping the Great White’ the band incorporates the jumpier guitar riffs of The Talking Heads in a song that jumps brilliantly between frenzied outbursts of noise and controlled choruses of lyrical brilliance. In a slightly rawer live version, the insatiable energy of the song drove the band onto a different level from before, one which seemed to embrace the dynamic potential of live music before the gig culminates in the final climax of ‘The Outsider Steps Inside’, which shows the band’s ability to touch on a rockier sound.

Sadly this band went unappreciated by most in the room but this was certainly nothing to do with their quality. Commendably they continued to play to the highest standard despite the unreceptive drunken mobs in front of them. However for me, in my sober state, I have rarely seen a band that excites so much emotion and passion, especially at 2am.

FUTURE GIGS

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