The support act actually got a bit of abuse from the crowd as they came on-stage and were clearly not the three men of the hour we were all hoping to see, but clearly curiosity was piqued by the young man on guitar and woman on drums dressed in Brighton & Hove Albion shirts. They opened (and in fact closed the set) with the borrowed riff from Seven Nation Amy, but this was not The White Stripes, as one could clearly tell when the garbled lyrics seem to come out wrong. We were being treated to The Blue & White Stripes, Brighton's latest comedy musical duo, who had the brainwave of marrying Jack White's 'Stripes' material with lyrics about our local football team – some were clearly more well thought out than others but the crowd certainly contained a few Albion fans who were wise to the references and the set went down well to an initially hostile audience. I think we were all glad their set was a brief twenty minutes though as everyone was so eager to see the main event.
The lights dimmed and the three men came on-stage in near pitch blackness to a room full of roaring voices. They opened with the Supergrass track 'Diamond Hoo Ha Man' but with it's balls cranked up a few notches higher than I ever could have imagined. Coombes and Kerr sang in unison spitting every word with a venom the original song never mustered and those riffs were gigantic with Kerr's signature bass sound married to a pitch shifted fuzzy Rickenbacker through which Coombes was holding his own. They followed this with Royal Blood's 'Ten Tonne Skeleton' which sounded like it might have gained a few more pounds thanks to Thatcher's drums, which sounded like he was pounding them so hard the skins might break. Quickly followed with another one-two of former glories via Supergrass' 'Alright' and Royal Blood's 'Little Monster' before finally treating us to the material they have written for the new project.
What a sound the guys had crafted together, you could hear all of Coombes glam-stomp tendencies and melodies but played with an intensity and throttle they'd never been treated to. This was much harder rock than I'd ever heard from Gaz Coombes, but, it also had become as bouncy and upbeat as it was moody and intense. A few numbers in and song titles too quietly mumbled to recall we got things stripped down a little as Coombes picked up the bass and Kerr moved to a Fender Rhodes on the side of the stage to perform a beautiful anthemic-ballad the group announced as 'The Great Mistake'. It lilted along for a few turns before coming to a lofty close with some amazing vocal harmonies and a spiralling neo-classical arpeggio from Kerr held tight by the unexpected engine room of Coombes and Thatcher. All in all they played about six new songs before finishing on the one-two punch of familiar hits 'Pumping On Your Stereo' and 'Figure It Out' but it was Kerr's turn on the Fender Rhodes I couldn't stop thinking about on my way home. Who knows when they'll find time to finish writing this album they say they're working on but whenever it's ready it's going to be insane. This is one of those nights you will never forget and I was happy I was there!
Terry Moore