Boom! Bap! Pow! @ Manhattans,Perth (11/03/11)

Mon 14th Mar, 2011 in Gig Reviews

For anyone that sought a fix of surf, blues, and soul music last Friday night the place to be was Manhattan’s Bar. Boom! Bap! Pow! and Day of the Dead hosted a night of doo-wopping and fast-action spy guitar for the small cohort of punters that filed into the music hub. The choice of Manhattan’s is unsurprising, since its change in management Manhattans has gone through somewhat of a rebirth. It is now the home to regular gigs from left-of-field bands and is quickly building a reputation as the new Amplifier.

First up were on the night’s bill was Valiant, this trio of childhood friends came on playing a solid set of well crafted blues-rock, this long-standing camaraderie was translated well in their music. This natural affinity within the band dynamic made for an enjoyable, easy to listen to set, however there was a pervading sense of restraint within their songs. They were unable to come up with anything particularly charismatic or inventive within their song writing, Valiant were very much focussed on preserving the paradigm of straight up, no thrills blues-rock. While not necessarily a bad thing it was greeted by an unfortunately lukewarm reception by the crowd.

With Valiant finished, the stage was set for the spy guitar trio Day of the Dead.
It is universally understood within the music community that instrumental bands will always struggle more than their vocal counterparts to hold audiences, let alone animate them; this was not the case with Day of the Dead. The cadre, channelling the musical energies of Dick Dale attempted to warm up the crowd with their guitar-driven surf-rock, along with impressive renditions of The Chantays’ Pipeline and The Surfaris Wipeout they were able to achieve this to some extent. It seemed that the crowd was quite standoffish towards the idea of dancing and it took several attempts by the band to encourage the audience to loosen up, however they got there in the end.

By this point in the night the punters were well and truly warmed up. People were laughing, the drinks were flowing and male toilet-goers were even treated to an impromptu poetry session from a somewhat inebriated music-lover. As yet, there had been very little activity on the dance floor but with the arrival of Boom! Bap! Pow! this would soon change. As the band walked on, a wave swept over the crowd, transforming the once tame onlookers into a throng of swingers and jivers. The band, fronted by the captivatingly quirky Novac Bull, spun off their brand of 50s doo-wop.

The band got up on stage and genuinely had a good time with what they were doing and this energy was in turn transferred to the audience. Despite some persistent troubles with microphone feedback the show was an exceptional performance. The powerful, blues-saturated vocals of Bull combined with the band’s catchy, easy to dance to songs had everyone moving.

Boom! Bap! Pow! were the stand-out element of the night, however the other bands performed exceptionally and they all seemed to thoroughly enjoy it, probably the most important aspect; since music without love is just noise. They were all determined to make it a night worth remembering and they succeeded with flying colours.