It doesn’t seem so long ago that people were referring to Sugar Army as Ian Berney and Jamie Sher ’s other band, after The Wednesday Society, of course. But after scoring supports with the likes of Eskimo Joe and Wolf & Cub, the crowds the slightly-more-accessible Sugar Army pull show who won that battle.
But from the early crowd at their Amplifier Bar CD launch, that wasn’t exactly clear. 2007 Next Big Thing winners Harlequin League, featuring The Fault’s James Rogers on bass and lead vocals, made the most of their half-hour on stage and while they impressed just about everyone in the room, it was a shame that was only a few dozen punters. With an instrumental opening tune echoing the sounds of Muse’s early albums and a series of songs led by a more vicious and aggressive vocal style from Rogers, Harlequin League set the scene perfectly as the shortest night of the year began.
If the Saturday night crowd needed anything to coax them in from the beer garden, The Silents filled the role like hand in glove. Omitting their softer, more precise tunes from the setlist, Lloyd Stowe, Jamie Terry, Same Ford and Alex Board reworked their set to draw the crowds in and fire them up for a rock show. They got obligatory radio hit Nightcrawl out of the way early, while potential single Ophelia made way for the likes of Generation Space and Little Girl Lost. Without their usual billing as headliner, the band took the opportunity to enjoy being on stage, jamming out closing track Future as only they could, with guitarist Terry climbing Board’s drum kit in the raucous finale.
Despite having a massively hard act to follow, there was never much doubt that Sugar Army would rise to the occasion. Appearing on stage amongst a pile of white balloons, Sher, Berney, vocalist Patrick McLaughlin and guitarist Todd Honey wasted no time getting down to business, launching themselves headfirst into the angular blend of indie-rock they’ve made their own since forming a little under two years ago. Without a second guitarist to hide behind, it’s Berney and Honey who are responsible for making the Sugar Army Sound so much greater than the sum of its parts. Juggling the rhythm and the melody with his basslines like few others could, Berney leaves his six-stringed bandmate free to veer off the riff-slash-rhythm path that would otherwise box him into a dull and generic role.
And while they’re built up a solid repertoire of live favourites over the past two years, evident in the reception of ...and Now You’re Old Enough I Think That You Should Know and I Got Your Soul, there were still a couple of surprises in store as the band unveiled a couple of new tracks from the Where Do You Hide Your Toys? EP. After dropping the live staple Actually it’s What’s On the Outside That Counts in the final stages, the four men on stage showed just what they’re capable of with Maybe the Boy Who Cried Wolf Was Just Paranoid. Applying the same ‘modern reworking of JAMC’ formula that’s made Black Rebel Motorcycle Club so successful, the EP’s highlight track was the ideal way to wrap a gig that no doubt marks the start of Sugar Army’s plans for world domination.
