Boy & Bear + Oh Ye Denver Birds + The Chemist @ The Troubadour

Boy & Bear

Although The Troubadour has sold out well in advance, and everyone is here to see Boy & Bear, it’s Oh Ye Denver Birds who are the most interesting band on show tonight. Sandwiched between the headliners and opening act, The Chemist, they’re interesting because of the mix of instruments, the mix of influences and because, unlike tonight’s other bands, they don’t sound like a copies of other, better known bands. There’s still a strong folk element and although there is also an electronic component, it differentiates from the more typical folktronica by having a much more experimental strand. It’s both their strength and their weakness though; whilst it grabs you attention for being interesting and different, it makes the songs themselves feel almost secondary and by the end of their set it feels that it’s been a bit overplayed and they need a bit more variety in what they’re doing.

Boy & Bear get on my wrong side even before they’ve played a single note, purely for the fact that three of them are wearing flat caps and one of them is combining it with a tank top. I guess that part of yet another nu-folk movement is dressing middle-aged as well as sounding it. They also commit a cardinal sin in apologising before they even begin for only playing a very short set at the start because they don’t have many songs. The negativity is reinforced when they play a far too obvious and very straight cover of Bon Iver’s Flume, telling the audience they have been playing it recently and could have dropped it from the set but would then be playing for even less time than they already were. In the end they play for under 40 minutes, but considering where they are in their career it’s not a surprise and nothing out of the ordinary. What they do, they do well; the band is tight and the vocal harmonies are strong and blend well and no doubt they’ll continue to impress people based on those attributes, at least whilst the current folk explosion is “in”, even if what they offer is nothing new and very traditional in its makeup.

Perth band, The Chemist, completing the hatrick of terrible band name on show tonight. They’re under the influence of a myriad of classic British bands; from the latter-day psychedelia of The Beatles to the glam-mod stomp of The Small Faces, the post-punk pop quirkiness of XTC and the updated hipster prog of Radiohead. Singer/guitarist Ben Witt has a superb voice, there’s no denying that, and his voice is the main selling point for the band, with the songs themselves being fine but little that hasn’t already been heard and been done better before.

More photos on Flickr.

Boy & Bear