At the time of writing there’s a poll up on MusicInOxford to gauge people’s favourite type of gig – local bands you’ve heard of, big touring bands you’ve heard of or bands you’ve never heard of before. However, there may be general sympathy with the view that the most fun gigs are made up of a mixture of great local bands you’ve heard of and the odd unexpected surprise, and on that basis tonight’s Gammy Leg Productions show at the Wheatsheaf was the nearest thing to a perfect gig that I’ve seen in a long time.
Spring Offensive, having completed a national tour, received national radio play courtesy of the BBC and released a magnificent 13-minute five-part concept single, are surely one of the next bands most likely to break out of Oxford in stunning style, but tonight is a reminder that until you’ve hit the big time there’s still nothing to stop you playing to an empty room even in your hometown. However, beginning a show playing to an empty room – or a room with only the other bands and a couple of friends – can bring great things out of a band, leaving them relaxed and comfortable, and Spring Offensive do seem to be both of those things as they kick into a set of songs mostly taken from their ‘Pull Us Apart’ mini-album. They’re at the sweet spot of knowing the songs well enough to make it look easy without knowing them so well that the band look bored, and it’s a pleasure to see them on such excellent form. Their gangly frontman’s uniquely English voice sits perfectly on the two guitar and bass backing, all built on the impressively solid foundations of their driving and imaginative drumming – Spring Offensive are joining Ute in spearheading the movement to bring the woodblock into the post-rock arsenal – and the whole is dry, wry, wiry, witty and wound-up. Performances like these are the reason it’s worth heading into town on a gloomy school night, and another reason why Spring Offensive are heading to the top of the list of Oxford’s favourite bands.
Following such a strong and confident performance from a band so near the top of their game is always going to be tricky, and Bristolians Poppy Perezz – listed on their record sleeve as “Poppy Perezz And The Plasticene Peacock” – would have had their work cut out for them were they not so relentlessly, unassailably cheerful that they seem completely unaware of the mountain they have to climb. Instead, they sail straight into an immensely cute set of what they called “pinball electro”, and what we’ll call “chirp-hop”. A Mexican guitarist and laptop-wrangler backs the spitting image of Pushing Daisies era Anna Friel, who floats, flauts and sings, and the duo immediately win over the audience with their elated nintendo charm-pop. And while it’s the sweetest thing to see, it never seems affected or saccharine. Halfway into the set the singer announces their song about “when the bubble bursts” – her “journey through the darkness” – and the song kicks in with soca-style synth glockenspiel, fast reggae guitar and laser sound effects, to which the smiling and floaty dancing is, if anything, more animated than before. By the time they’re halfway through the song ‘Space Antelope’ – dedicated to a friend of theirs who, apparently, is “a bit of a space antelope”, the audience has formed into a spontaneous conga line, amid a proclamation that “we’re all space antelopes”! I’m aware that to many an MiO reader this will sound like hell on stilts, but there are nothing but smiles in the Wheatsheaf tonight, from an audience who came to see very different things.
And finally, The Yarns, who intrigued and impressed at the 2009 Winter Warmer as a less whimsical Stornoway, and while that comparison is initially an instinctive one based on their line-up of drums, bass, acoustic guitar, harmony vocals and trumpet, it is a comparison that holds up. The Yarns have a slightly darker tone than 4AD’s finest but are bright and welcoming, taking it easy and breezing through a confident set – up until the point where, “for the first time in Yarns history”, an electric guitar is brought out for a new song, a bizarre reggae number which comes over a bit like The Police, only slower, and with a trumpet. As if themselves feeling that it didn’t really work, they return to their normal acoustic tone with a hoe-down about Thierry Henry and no more is said about “going electric”. The Yarns are a strong band with some good songs – like ‘Robert’ and ‘Too Late (Gather Round)’ from their debut EP – but their live performance is somehow unremarkable, and it’s hard to pinpoint why. Spring Offensive had jokingly described themselves as “only entertainers” at the start of the night but there was something in it; their energy and motivation was palpable and infectious. Poppy Perezz were so eager to please and so clearly overjoyed when they did that only the most dour post-rock Scrooge wouldn’t spare them a smile. The Yarns are, by comparison, perhaps taking it a little too easy. They’re a band worth keeping an eye on, though at the moment they provide evidence to support the maxim that talent alone isn’t quite enough.