In the City Report 2008 pg. 2
The next band none of us particularly enjoyed were called Angry vs. the Bear. They were described in the 'In the City' guide as 'edgy, female fronted English Pop' but they gave the impression we were watching some kind of very early 80s band with all of them were fronting Hanoi rocks sorts of haircuts.
I think it was my friend, Dave who said after unsubtly eying up the lead singer, 'Andy, I think you can guarantee these are either going to be either really, really good or really, really s**t'. Sadly Dave was correct on the second part of his sentence as although they clearly had the looks and the image and displayed the right influences (Blondie meets The Yeah Yeah Yeah's) , the one thing they didn't have which is a vital ingredient for any band is the songs. I don't like to be harsh about any band in particular but something Angry vs. the Bear need to consider is it's all good and well having the right image but if you don't have good enough songs, you may as well become models rather than being in a band.
Next up were a young five piece band from Yorkshire called The Antix, another band displaying major early Blondie influences (from their first album). Unlike Angry vs. the Bear, this was a band that knew how to rock out a bit despite their tender years (I reckoned there was two or three members of the band which if not still at school were certainly too young to get served at my local pub). They certainly had a singer who, I felt, was the most confident singer out of all of the bands I had seen that night and led her team mates pretty damn well on the whole.
The songs themselves I felt varied a bit in quality (but we all put that down to their youth). In particular the opening number felt like a bit of a mis-fire, but certainly their last song, which they announced was going to be a single in November, had the hall marks of a very good future.
The second night almost didn't happen at all, after root canal surgery at a local dentist left me feeling more than a little tender, shall we say. But it's the old saying with me it takes more than a little dental surgery to keep me down even though for the first part of the night I knew I was going to be on my own (one mate sick, one with car problems and one mate running late enough to make sure things would start off in peace and quiet).
First up for me that night was young Scottish five piece band Barn Owl who were formerly known as Pil Pil, and described as similar to two bands I was a big fan of in the not too distant past, Mogwai and Arab Strap. Live, I could see both of these elements with a healthy dose of iLIKETRAINS thrown in for good measure.
Although I thought they were technically pretty good throughout and I like the use of the two vocalists in their set (even though one of the vocalists had a very low vocal level which was a little bit too low for my tastes in places), I couldn't see them breaking the top 10 if you know what I mean. I could certainly see them on the label both Arab Strap and Mogwai were on and with a bit of luck the could have a nice little career.
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