The Big Pink @ King Tut's 14/10/09

This may make me sound slightly hypocritical considering the review I wrote for this show on a certain website, but that review is completely honest, however it does miss out some vital details regarding the show.

The Big Pink themselves do have an image that could see them breaking the mainstream, and they certainly have a song in ‘Dominoes’ that could well be a hit. It is true they can appeal to a vast spectrum of music fans, they have become somewhat darlings of Pitchfork while they have been shot into the mainstream through Guitar Hero adverts and being featured on the universal jukebox every chain bar seems to host.

I must clear up that the band’s sound is not shoegaze-y in any way, comparisons with My Bloody Valentine and M83 seem completely unjust. The band play a mass appealing kind of electro rock, which does carry some slightly dark and gothic undertones, but also comes with that Oasis-ish lad-y wanker swagger that could see this band out jump any contempories on popularity. The band have been compared to The Verve a fair bit, which I can see as just, they’re like The Verve before Richard Ashcroft became such an unbearable twat that even Wayne Coyne wanted to hit him.

Still the band is enjoyable, the set is solid and both ‘Velvet’ and ‘Dominoes’ are brilliant tracks. The latter in particular, inspires a massive buzz and full on sing-a-long from the capacity crowd on a scale that you only see rarely at gigs these days. ‘Dominoes’ is exactly the kind of song you can imagine some drunkard singing to themselves on a bus home, much like that incessant ‘der der der’ nonsense from the Fratellis ‘Chelsea Dagger’, only with much more charm and of course quality.

However despite the soon to be anthem, the stand out from tonight’s show is the support from Glasgow based outfit Findo Gask. This band are a shining light in the current Glasgow scene and their blissfully bleeping pop gems, from opener ‘One Eight Zero’ to closer ‘Go Faster Stripe’, could get any slightly open minded music fan dancing. For most people who will probably read this Findo don’t need any introduction but just incase let their music speak for itself: http://www.myspace.com/findogaskuk. Catch them at their monthly residency, Crufts at Nice ‘n Sleazy’s this Saturday. This month Findo are joined by Copy Haho and North Atlantic Oscillation, it’ll should be a treat! I’m sure all the bands will be thanked for their performance onstage on Saturday, which Findo rather ignorantly tonight were not.