Local lads The Magic Gang describe themselves as music for your mind, body, spirit and soul, you could tell they had definitely come back to their spiritual home town tonight. Their nice blend of bubblegum pop and distorted guitars certainly is very easy to get into and they have built themselves a good following around Brighton. As soon as the band hit the stage the bar emptied and it was obvious that most of the crowd were there just as much to see The Magic Gang as Swim Deep. In less than no time the crowd were dancing and singing along with the band, they even mentioned this themselves as it was the best response they'd had so far on this tour.
 
It's not hard to see what the attraction is to their music, it's easy on the ears and their onstage performance is very entertaining. Their stand out track of the night had to be 'Alright' which is probably their most catchy and memorable song to date. The also threw in a few tracks from the upcoming EP but by the end of their set, even though I had enjoyed the music I felt they still needed a few more memorable tracks.
 
Swim Deep got off to a dramatic start, with background music fading out to introduce the Jurassic Park theme song blasted out of the speakers. As the song hit a climax the band burst onto the stage and launched into 'Namaste' instantly getting the crowd on their side and dancing along. Swim Deep also have a very 'easy to get into' sound but with a bit more grit and a bit more of a 'Madchester scene' sound, even though the band are from Birmingham. They like to shake things up a bit musically on stage with singer Austin Williams switching from playing the guitar to the tambourine for some songs while the other guitarists take time out to switch to keyboards or percussion for certain parts on different tracks.
 
Their lighting engineer did a great job of creating the perfect backdrop to the songs and throughout the show the audience was buzzing. The only low point of the show was their jam songs in the middle which seemed a bit laboured and broke the magic they had created. However they bounced back with their biggest track to date 'Honey' and from then on till the end of the show it was a high energy roller-coaster of a ride.
 
People were crowd surfing, dancing and singing along the whole night long and all in all it was a night full of great music and an amazing atmosphere from two bands that really complemented each other well.
Jonski
 
Website: swim-deep.co.uk