The Straight Lines started the evening's entertainment with a solid performance of standard Americanised rock. They were mostly uncomplicated with their guitar heavy arrangements and massively clichéd lyricing.
A pretty standard opener, they marched through a mixture of unnoticeable tracks like Antics and livelier efforts with Loose Change and All My Friends Have Joined the Army getting better when the music was more complicated but not having the skill to continue like that for very long, using the lead singer's vocals to command the melody far too often.
It says something that I spent a significant amount of time staring at them purely for the sake of avoiding looking at the oddly behaving couple standing far too close to me. But I'll come back to that in a bit.
The atmosphere of the set waned and suffered at the hands of boring not-quite-banter and a, possibly misheard, joke about AIDs. The less said about the cover of Last Christmas, the better.
Cuba Cuba were the second act to come on although an argument could easily be made for them being the effective headliners. It was the only act to fully fill the venue and it was easy to see why. The posh school boy looking group had a knack for gathering popular influences together in a charming way with Snow Patrol, Friendly Fires and Everything Everything all cropping up at points.
I realise now that this is starting to sound slightly positive but I should tell you now, their showing was far from excellent. For a start, the lead guitarist turned out to be one half of the aforementioned couple that made me feel horrendously awkward and while they started strong, with catchy keyboards and jumpy guitar hooks they took a dive towards pretentious and dreadful about halfway through. Their collection of sounds and influences was so calculated and slotted together it made them feel completely void of originality and unlikeable. The Wild West themed We Rode reached levels of I'm-going-to-the-toilet-now awfulness and by the end I was lamenting my association with any fellow gig goers who were able to sing along.
Ultimately, what turned the night into a worthwhile excursion were the surprise choice for actual headliner, Tiger Please. Despite continuing the trend of lacking originality, a reduced audience and U2-esque twinkly guitar rifts, the final band emitted a definite presence and sincerity that was absent before their arrival. Excellent drumming and the inclusion of a violin for the majority of their songs had me sold throughout. The lead singer had a powerful voice, channelling Dave Grohl for the first half before delving into folk rock storytelling reminiscent of the Decemberists with hints of Fleet Foxes and that very brief, long forgotten, period when Embrace were making quite good rock songs.
The entire performance was organic, engrossing and much bigger than the small venue it occupied. A band I would definitely consider revisiting in the future and one I will recommend to others.
Verdict: An average night saved by an genuinely excellent closer.
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