Arriving in time to catch the end of support act Van She (who I hear make great remixes, however weren’t cutting it as far as crowd pumping goes) I made may way to find a good spot to hear The Bravery. Front centre was a little too packed, so front-ish right hand side it was… The first thing that struck me when the band hit the stage was how incredibly handsome the vocalist Sam Endicott is! Talk about a modern day young Elvis Presley... and he’s a natural rock star to boot, with his thrusting and posing sending the girls into a frenzy. Shame I can’t say the same for his voice; I recorded a little bit on my phone just to be sure and alas, sexy Sam can’t sing very well at all. However, he readily admits to not being able to sing a note.
They opened with Fearless, a sure-fire winner and man, these guys are tight with a capitol T! This Is Not The End was up next and this was when I noticed just how much fun the guitarist Michael Zakarin was having! What a happy little lad he was bouncing around obviously having a great ol’ time and loving the songs he was playing us. Not to mention his great fashion sense, I do believe he was wearing a black silk shirt with white polka dots and black skinny jeans. As for the guy on laptops to the side of stage, he looked like he’d rather be dead or any place in the world than there… Can anybody enlighten me as to what he was doing? Someone said visuals, but there were none to be seen… However I heard he had Ableton Live open? The plot thickens… But they already have John Conway on keyboard duties with his Virus synth, Rhodes electric piano and kaos pad to mention a few of his toys.
Other tracks we were treated to from both their self-titled album The Bravery and The Sun and the Moon were beauties such as No Brakes, Tyrant, Every Word Is A Knife in My Ear (“It’s like poison!” Sing along now, man this one rocked live), Public Service Announcement (such a great rolling bassline), Swollen Summer, Believe and Unconditional. I particularly liked Sam’s little speech before launching into Time Wont Let Me Go about the film The Outsiders which he dedicated to Ponyboy, Cherry Valance, Matt Dillon, Emilio Estevez and so on. I was most impressed seeing as it’s one of my-all time favorite movies, however it seemed to go over the top of the predominantly early 20s crowd.
And last but not least, An Honest Mistake which had the place absolutely jumping! So much energy exuded from the Corner Hotel, both onstage and off alike jumping in unison to a bloody good song. Electronica mixed with guitars, modern day rock n’ roll with a totally cool and handsome band delivering the execution, it’s a winning recipe in my opinion. Thanks to The Bravery, til next time…
