Red Light Company – The Stoke Sugarmill
There’s some degree of hype around Red Light Company at the minute, and it seems fairly misplaced. The hype doesn’t look like it’s reached, or been noticed by Stoke, take away the support bands and their family, you could count the rest of the audience on two hands with fingers to spare.
At times, there are glimpses of what could be, but nowhere near enough. The band doesn’t look awkward, but for some reason awkwardness was given off. Maybe it’s the Justin Hawkins-esque front man, standing like he thinks he’s the saviour of all things rock, or the confidence and arrogance that can make a band, a la Courteeners, but if it’s unwarranted, it can so easily ruin it, as it does here. The guitarist swaying and bobbing like a dad at a wedding, the bassist being motionless singing the same chanty backing vocals to each song, gets tedious, quickly. The one redeeming quality was the drumming. It was exactly what the rest wasn’t, original, fast and attention-grabbingly feverish.
Yet Meccano, the band’s debut single, deserves to be chanted back from the crowd and you can see it happening, it will stick in your head for hours afterwards. If only its quality wasn’t so surprising and out of the blue. The rest of the set just rumbled into each other, the same attempted big chorus and predictability, they’re treading precariously into Boy Kill Boy territory. It also doesn’t help if you’re out-shone by one of your support bands – Fox Cubs.
Review by Jack Phillips
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