(Great Escape 2011!) Live Review: Brother and Bones at Brighton Komedia – 13th May 2011
It’s 1:30 in the afternoon, and the weather outside is screaming, “don’t go to that smelly underground venue!” Go to the beach, sit on the pier with an ice cream, watch another street gig, anything but go underground! No, I say: the show must go on!
What a decision that was, for one of the best bands I was able to see at this year’s Great Escape. Beneath Komedia, Cornwall based five-piece Brother and Bones were about to begin their set to a crowd of sweaty music patrons. The atmosphere is one of going into the unknown; here stands a band where there has been quite a bit of buzz about them but not really anyone knows what they sound like.
Well, they were about to find out that a band fronted by an acoustic guitar can be as formidable as anything around. Opener ‘Here Comes the Storm’ is a slow building roarer of a track and already the crowd are on tenterhooks. That’s only the start if it though, then the stomping began. My, could they make a noise with their feet, imagine Mumford and Sons‘ ‘Roll Away Your Stone’ on steroids and played at 11, then you are probably about halfway to realising the noise these boys made.
The dual percussion attack coupled with their epic bass grooves made for some seriously exciting tracks populating the middle of their set, including personal favourite ‘Back to Shore’ and ‘Skin and Bone.’ Brother and Bones are a band difficult to pin down. Their West Country roots point them towards a more folky feeling, but they simply rock too hard to be pinned down as a country act. The sound like a mix as the festival curators say between Mumford and Sons and The Dead Weather. While I agree, I also want to add that well, I think these boys could be better and bigger than both.
Live songs like new single ‘Don’t Forget to Pray’ have massive hooks that would appeal to the masses however with a paltry 4,000+ views on YouTube, I ask myself, will their name get out there? I for one hope so. Gigs like this are hard to find they come around once every few years, where you find a band you instantly fall in love with and you can’t stop playing their songs. This was one of those gigs for me, so I implore you, if you do anything this year apart from avoiding the rapture, watch this band.
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