Tuesday 10 April 2012

Olympians/aCivilian/Death Of Death Of Discotheque/The Lost Levels/Eyes- Open Norwich


So a new venue pops up in the fine city appropriately named OPENAccording to their website the club room holds 450 whilst the main venue holds 1550, just short of UEA capacity.  Where will Ocean Colour Scene and the various Zeppelin tribute acts perform now? Who knows? Hopefully in Cambridge. Anyhow tonight we are in the smaller of the two.

The venue looks and sounds great and apart from the poor draught lager selection, which they also ran out of, OPEN promises to add a new dimension to the Norwich live music scene. But booze issues aside five local bands for £4 is surely a good way to go about getting the crowds in on a Saturday night. Anyhow due to over-running prior engagements (pub) I unfortunately missed Eyes and 95% of the Lost Levels set, which is a shame as I have heard good things about Eyes and the Lost Levels sounded like a different (and improved) version of the band I last heard about 3 years ago.

So the Death of Death of Discotheque start it off proper with their frenzied punk-art-nosebleed-rock-pop. The dark synthy bits sound great, the guitar riffs give me the creeps (but in a nice way) and they all look like they live on a ward; business as usual then. Mostly drawing from last years smashing debut album Count Me In, their short set joyously writhes its way through the most kaleidoscopic art-school pop. Their set finisher, a rave-rock instrumental based around some looped spaz keyboard sample, is like a bugle call for any fuck-ups who aren’t already dancing to get on with it. And they do. Put bluntly DODOD really are fucking brilliant and their live show is worth 20 balmy minutes of anyones time.



aCivilian continue to fly the flag for Norwich indie music and do a fine job with a set bursting with influences and ideas. With songs coming from last years debut album Invention most definitely a band to take more notice of in the future. And finally Olympians bring the night to an impressive close with their well constructed melodies and effortless aura. I used to think the Olympians sounded like the Futureheads but they are far more interesting and subtle than that. As close to a model of contemporary pop sound as you could wish for. Set closer Foreign Language with its layered vocal harmonies is surely the best piece of art-pop heard this side of Kings Lynn in ages. So the Norwich indie scene lives to fight another day. Open, indeed.


Sammy @sickbookies

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