Nine Feet Underground

A lot of people seem to go to gigs to hear the headline act, but nothing more (not to mention those who don't seem to go to hear the music at all?)  I'm  always keen to hear the support, especially if I've never heard of them as you never know what you'll find. And so I found myself at the front of the stage in SUB89 waiting for Tom Hickox to take to the stage. Never heard of him or heard anything by him, so looking forward to hear what he does. As the hour of 8pm arrived, he took to the stage and seated himself behind a large electric piano, joined by Sam Grimley on various guitars. From his opening number, I was struck by his voice - he really has presence on stage. For the first song or two I just thought, 'yeah, he sounds OK, but...', and wasn't really drawn in. A couple of songs had great stories behind them, and his spoken intros to 'The Lisbon Maru' and 'The Dubbing Artist' were intriguing.  The song that really land...

Back to SUB89 for the third time this year: The Jesus and Mary Chain supported by a relatively new band from Bath, Swimming Girls. SUB89 is the most crowded I've seen it - clearly the JAMC are still quite a draw, helped no doubt by the strength of this year's new album 'Damage and Joy' as well as the strength of their back catalogue, not to mention their "mainstream" rock credentials which gives them pretty broad appeal. First up, as tradition dictates, the support act, Swimming Girls, clearly a new band (they only seem to have one song out there on SoundCloud) but, as their playing shows, a band used to playing together.  Ahead of the gig I listened to the one song I could find, 'Tastes Like Money', which was OK, certainly enough to make me want to hear what they were like live. As is often the case, live, the band were better than I expected with a late '80s / early '90s sound - a cross between maybe shoegaze / dream pop with a...