Underachievers Please Try Harder ft. Brown Brogues & Great Waves @ Roadhouse, Saturday 14th January 2012

A Brown Resurrection

In between songs, the guitarist of the Brown Brogues, Mark Vernon, is looking down at the stage with his back to the crowd preparing for the next song when a cry of, “Know any Stone Roses?” rings out. He slowly lifts his head, half turns around and slings a look of disdain in the direction from where the heckle came from. After all wasn’t it the Roses who said, “The past was yours / but the future is mine”?

The future looks bright for the Underachievers Please Try Harder promoters whose nomadic wanderings has led them to the Roadhouse. If a capacity crowd is anything to go by, it will be there for a good while to come. After all, the essential ingredients seem to be in place; an always differing but intriguing line-up combining with excellent between-bands DJ sets and a value for money door price of £3. It’s not a recession buster, more just common sense.

Great Waves by name, great waves by nature as rich textures flow from the guitar and keyboards. The duo stands on opposite sides of the stage, allowing the space between them to be used as a backdrop for a series of projections.

A chiming resonance builds, with a Cocteau Twins style lushness breaking out. Using the past as a reference point only, they take their own directions towards a form of blissed-out beauty before exiting the stage in a myriad of noise and distortion.

The condition of the drum skin is a testament to the ferocity with which it has been assaulted by Ben Mather, the drummer with Brown Brogues; it is held together with gaffa tape. It is always likely that more will be required before the evening is finished.

The guitar and drums duo from Wigan are equally ferocious throughout the rest of their set. They can veer from a Cramps type rawness to a full on deranged onslaught that has a substantial amount of the audience jumping along. It’s effectively simple in that two standard instruments are utilised, but the sound swamps the venue and the passion spilling from the stage is impressive. Like all good performers, they leave to chants of “more”, without any hint of a Stone Roses cover.

Words & Photos: Ged Camera