This was Teenage Revolution’s first gig….ever.
A four-piece band and a group of youngsters: Lolly, singer (16), Toby guitar (15), Mason on drums (13) and Fynn on bass (12). I was invited along to help with the crowd numbers to give these guys a real-life gig experience, rather than just their mums & dads coming along. These guys are not going to need help with crowd numbers!
For their first gig, well, I was very pleasantly surprised. To be honest, I was expecting the end of year school band scenario that family have to sit through to show support. But Teenage Revolution were not that….nowhere near that in fact. They had a cracking sound, and apart from Lolly’s young voice, you would not have guessed it was their first gig, or how young they all were.
They were surprisingly tight, in tune, no noticeable bum notes and they had energy until the end.
Singer, Lolly, reminded me of Wendy James from Transvision Vamp. I liked that she wasn’t trying to be someone else or trying to be American. There was tracks with free style rapping – lots of words to trip over, which she didn’t and she had a pretty good voice when she sang.
Their style was rocky rather than pop, and their choice of songs was spot on: AC/DC, Red Hot Chilli Peppers. The guitar riff from Enter the Sandman was excellent and was played on a track they had re-arranged themselves using their own lyrics and a rap-style. Brilliant.
The latter part of the set had a few more pop tracks, but with a rock feel and people did get up. Their version of Word Up was great and loads more got up to dance – getting the crowd up to dance is a hard task and they managed it – we weren’t obliged to at all.
For a first gig, they were great and better than some more experienced bands I’ve seen. There was the obvious nerves and being inexperienced such as engaging with the crowd, no obvious leader to end a track, but very small things and not that the many nerves came through as the first song was strong. All songs were strong, to be fair, they chose very well. Didn’t try to be flash – they just played very well.
I hope they realised the applause, clapping, cheers and smiles was utterly genuine. Thoroughly delightful to see young talent making the effort to get out there and do a proper gig – I really hope they continue.
2 Eddies is a good venue. A restaurant area, bar area and venue area all in an interesting environment. Very nice Italian food with friendly staff. Certainly a place I will happily go back to as they have plenty of music going on.
This review first appeared on GrapevineLive
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2 Eddies