Music Review: City and Colour LIVE

Leeds O2 Academy - 25.01.14

Words: Lindsay Bradley

It was a miserable Saturday evening in Leeds, the wind and the rain made it a difficult walk up to the O2 Leeds Academy. As I walked inside at 8:30, City and Colour were just coming onto the stage. The early set time was due to some club night on after. Fair enough.

The band opened their set with the wistful ambience track ‘Of Space and Time’ taken off their new album The Hurry and the Harm. This album, in my opinion, is Dallas Green’s best work yet. The opening track reaffirmed this belief and from that moment onward, the audience had forgotten their worries and the weather outside.

When ‘Body in a Box’ from Bring Me Your Love began, the crowd cheered. When you read the lyrics it is not the cheeriest of songs (We celebrate the lives of the dead / It's like a man's best party, only happens when he dies.), but the Leeds crowd sang along at the top of their lungs. Everyone was so joyful and excited to be at the show. The atmosphere in the venue united the crowd, nothing could bring them down - it was just a shame a pint of Tuborg cost a painful £4.50.

Old favourites such as ‘Sleeping Sickness’ flawlessly fitted in with the likes of stripped down ‘The Grand Optimist’. The mixture of full band and solo acoustic fitted well, as he played the relatively upbeat ‘Fragile Bird’ with its reverberating guitar, taken from 2011’s Little Hell.

There was some banter during fan favourite ‘Comin’ Home’. As Dallas sang, ‘I’ve seen a palace in London / I’ve seen a castle in Wales’, the crowd jokingly booed and in typical Yorkshire style, and chants of ‘Yorkshire, Yorkshire’ erupted. Dallas stopped mid-song and joked ‘This ain’t a fuckin’ soccer game, chill out!’ Everyone laughed and he continued the song with a new zest of enthusiasm, feeding off the crowd’s energy.

Indeed, City and Colour are not an upbeat cheery outfit but they have a similar effect of  Chris Carrabba’s Dashboard Confessional. Dallas Green’s ability to bring a crowd together to make them feel not so alone is no easy feat. He achieves this with ease and the audience becomes his to play, their energy drives him through the set.

However, the show could not last forever. They closed the set with the haunting ‘Death’s Song’, the echoing ‘woah’s’ are still firmly stuck in my head two days later. People were not ready to go home but the eighteen song set was soon over. As we all headed outside, we were hit with the cold bitter wind of reality.  

Oxford Road Rating: ★★★★★

Music Review: Drive Shaft - Oil Change

Words: Lindsay Bradley

It is coming up to ten years since the fateful Oceanic flight 815 crash, with Drive Shaft bassist Charlie Pace on board. Since then, Drive Shaft has released a greatest hits album and a tour to accompany it. Everyone seems to have fond memories of the band, yet very few were actually part of it.

The Manchester band shot to fame in 2000 with their radio friendly hit 'You All Everybody' taken from their moderately successful self-titled debut. Two years later, they released their second album Oil Change with very little fanfare. In fact, very little was mentioned of the album and it was not until I was looking through Poundland that I saw the album on sale. It was only a pound and I was bored. Since the plane crash a few writers like myself, decided to revisit the album. Spin.com has actually compared the album to Weezer’s Pinkerton as a ‘lost classic’. No pressure then lads.

From hearing the first notes of the opening track ‘Vent’, I knew I had made a terrible mistake. Lead singer Liam attempts to croon sorrowfully with hardly the most imaginative lyrics, ‘Well I fell into a terrible lie / It seems my life was passing me by’. It was only the first song yet I already wanted to commit murder (half-kidding).

Through perseverance, it does get slightly better; ‘Ask me Again’ provides an indie-pop outlook to the Hollywood life. The catchy guitar hook teamed with the relentless percussion carried the lyrics well. ‘The door revolves, you’ve got to spin.’ This lyric signifies Drive Shaft’s short-lived career. It might have been a hit for the radio, but it was not meant to be.

The final track ‘Last Call’ should have been a poignant close to the album. Hearing Liam and Charlie sing ‘I wanna go home now’ is somewhat emotional, but I imagine hearing it back twelve years ago would have been painful for all the wrong reasons. There is nothing more displeasing than hearing grown men wail and attempt to imitate Chris Cornell and fail miserably.

The album could have been worse - Drive Shaft no longer sounds like a cheap copy of Oasis. It is clear that they had tried to come up with a new sound but by this point, it was too late. Drive Shaft will forever be remembered as one-hit wonders thanks to ‘You All Everybody’.

Digging through the past can sometimes unearth gems, but in the case of Oil Change, some things should just stay buried.

Oxford Road Rating: ★

Why did Oasis never sue for this blatant rip off?