Fat Hippy Records NightReviewed by Gladstone
How much did I want to see Deportees live? I'll tell you how much. After getting up at 4.50am on Friday morning to go to work, then finishing work at 4pm, and spending about 4 hours tidying and cleaning my flat, and being absolutely knackered, I got a text from one of the band members saying they were on stage at 8.45pm. I decided, rather than going home for a nice relaxing bath, that I'd go to the gig. I jumped in the car and sped into town, ditching the car at the closest legal place I could think of, and legged it to Drummonds. Having not done much exercise recently, I was almost dead by the time I got to Drummonds. I saw Captain Tom and wheezed "are Deportees on yet", "nah, man. About 10 minutes". So I nipped across to the cash machine, and back to Drummonds, saw my Aberzine colleague Lucky, headed inside, got a pint, and then waited for the magic to start. This took a good bloody half an hour! I could have strolled, taking the long way round. Stopped for a chat with a couple of beggars on Union Street, and still had time to order a pint before Deportees started.
Nonetheless, I was still very excited about seeing this band. I have what can only be described as "gay love" for Eddison, and the same in equal proportions for Edgar Prais. Deportees are made up of members from both these bands, plus a couple of necessary additional members. I'd heard only good things about Deportees following their first gig that I couldn't get to due to fifteen feet of snow blocking me in.
Eventually, lead singer Adam Keenan announces that they are Deportees, and song one begins. And what a start! Four way spine tinglingly amazing vocal harmony with no instruments being played, except the odd tap on a drum by Christy. Having four members of your band that can sing this well, is just plain greedy. The song eventually kicks in, and well, it's just beautiful. There's some more bravery being shown with some odd timings of the first couple of songs. No simple 4/4 timings here. I'm not even knowledgable enough to tell you what it is - it's a bit "stop/start", speeding up, slowing down, kicking in louder, etc etc. A lot of work has quite clearly gone into these songs, and there's a lot could go tits up, but the band delivers it absolutely perfectly. The solid drumming is obviously essential for this to work, and work it does - brilliantly.
It's difficult to pin down and label what the Deportees offer up in terms of a genre or style. It's a bit rock, a bit country, a bit indie - it's most definitely brilliant.
The highlight of the set is "Stay All Night" - again, quite difficult to describe - it builds up from a fairly quiet and innocuous start, about halfway through the band hit you with a wall of sound - it's incredible how loud the song is (without being too loud), and you can 100% imagine them doing this on a much bigger stage. At this point, Lucky turned round to me and said "I just got goosebumps", and it's easy to see why.
The band wrap up their set with what Adam Keenan described as "a little country bastard", I think it was called "Let The Roses Grow" or something similar, and it was also fantastic, and a great, upbeat way to finish what is one of the best thirty minute sets of live music I've seen for quite some time.
This is a band to keep a firm eye on. If these guys want to, they can really make something of this band. Already right up there with my favourite bands, after just one showing.
Rating - ****
(very nearly a five-star rating, but I don't want them to peak too early!)
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