The Jungle Giants, Tiger Beams& The Strums @ Alhambra Lounge(19/08/2011)

Mon 22nd Aug, 2011 in Gig Reviews

Anyone on Friday night who complained about having nothing to do should be shunned. The valley played host to some fantastic acts and it is truly great to see that you can walk in almost any direction and see live music for a reasonable price. Brisbane has some incredible talent at the moment and it’s great to see it being noticed.

After starting the night seeing the always entertaining Sam Cromack ( of Ball Park Music) at Black Bear Lodge, I made my way to Alhambra lounge for The Strums, Tiger Beams & The Jungle Giants.

The Strums kicked off the nights proceedings after a late minute cancellation from Galaxy. They played a stripped back acoustic set due to the late notice of the gig. It was a shame that more people didn’t come earlier to see them. They were brilliant. Kicking off the set in their Kid Rock singlets for shits and giggles, they played their brand new single Two And Two Is Three which debuted on Rage last week. Throughout the short set Jai and Eric played several songs off their new EP due out in October along with some covers including Ain’t No Sunshine and finishing the set with Only The Good Die Young. They even threw in an old Dead Riot song for good measure. For a band that only formed at the start of the year, they have certainly got something going on.

Unfortunately I missed out on the Tiger Beams set due to a prior commitment but asking around afterwards, the general consensus was that I was an idiot to have missed it and they played really well. Jeremy Neale is doing great things at the moment with Velociraptor, his solo stuff and now with Jesse Hawkins in Tiger Beams as well. Does he ever sleep?

The Jungle Giants hit the stage at around 10.30pm kicking off their set with No One Needs To Know which is a favourite off their debut EP. One of their new songs Country was also a highlight. It’s not as upbeat , but it has great lyrics and it’s one of those songs that you feel like you know as soon as you hear it. For such a young band with so much buzz around them, it’s fantastic to see them live up to the hype. Sam Hales is an incredible song writer and amazing singer, Cesira Aitken is a freakishly talented lead guitarist, Keelan Bijker looks as though drumming comes as second nature and Andrew Dooris on bass brings the crazy energy to the set, constantly moving around the stage like a caged animal. It was interesting that they didn’t play all 5 songs from their EP, instead only playing a couple and filling the rest of the set with new songs. Finishing their set to a very happy crowd with Mr Polite which has been heard on the Triple J airwaves in recent weeks, The Jungle Giants should be proud of the impressive show they put on tonight.