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Review: The Walls – Live @ The Odessa, Dublin (July 8th, 2010)

Posted in Gig Review, IRISH NOISE!, Music with tags Bone Deep, carrying the fire, Joe Wall, Live @ The Odessa, Live at the Odessa, phantom power, Steve Wall, The Odessa Club, The Stunning, The Walls, The walls odessa club, the walls odessa club review, The walls reviews, to the bright and shinning sun on July 9, 2010 by Tickets There

Recession or no recession, the Odessa hasn’t changed a bit. Tickets There’s willing to bet that every man who gets their hair styled in Dublin is in tonight to sample the fine food, drink finest bottles of wine from the bar and soak up the pompous, ego pumped atmosphere. Why do we do bother? Because Live At The Odessa just won’t stop bringing good bands into the fecking place.

As usual, Tickets There (purposely) manages to miss tonight’s support. Last thing we need is a singer songwriter to get us in the mood for the legendary Wall brothers. Instead, trips to local McKenna’s in Dun Laoghaire and O’Reilly’s under Tara are all the support we need. With Murphy’s in hand (of course they don’t have Guinness, that would be too common), it’s time to stand back and soak up some relaxing new material from The Walls.

Opening with their newest single, Carrying The Fire, Steve and Joe begin the show solo with some added beats courtesy of the musical prodigy that is Joe Wall. Swapping vocals, multiple instruments and harmonies mark the early set with their experimental new live style adding a nice vibe to the show. Rather than bringing a full band on tour, The Walls are testing out a new audio-visual show which allows the rest of the band to appear on a screen behind the brothers, letting them play and interact with each other. Surprisingly enough, this new style of performing loses little of the vibe you get from a full band show with everything rehearsed and timed to a T.

Treating fans to a nice selection of material from their up and coming third album, Stop The Lights, the band are keeping their stripped back, cooler than Alaska sound going with atmospheric, ear pleasing tunes. Phantom Power sees Joe take over vocal duties with Steve mostly adding background harmonies. Having never gotten a chance to see The Walls live before tonight, Tickets There’s pleasantly surprised to see Joe knows his way around a lead guitar just as well as a bass.

Not to shy away from their older material, the band manage to knock out classics such as Passing Through, To The Bright and Shinning Sun and a thunderous performance of Drowning Pool before closing the main set and retuning for an encore comprised of Rusty Old River, a song they originally recorded as The Stunning and the Walls very own, Bone Deep.

With the gig over, it’s time to scraper and seek refuge in the cozy confines of The Stags Head with a good, Dublin born pint of the black stuff. Great night from a great band, Tickets There have our eyes focused on the next albums release. More Walls in 2010 will be a lovely thing.

Oliver Cole – Live @ The Odessa, Dublin (October 1st – Live Review)

Posted in Gig Review, Music, News with tags Oliver Cole, Ollie Cole, The Odessa Club, We Albatri, What Will You Do? on October 2, 2009 by Tickets There

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Going to the Odessa club’s like going to the dentist except for two prominent differences. One, it’s totally self inflicted. You’re actually paying to go though the awfulness that awaits you inside its doors, without the excuse that it’s all being done to avoid much worse pain in the future. Second, they don’t hold you down and numb you when you walk in. You have to work long and hard at the bar in order to numb out the sounds of rejected D4 ego tripin’ ponces, moaning on about riff raff always attending sales in brown Thomas. Anyways, I won’t go too off the rails because tonight is Ollie Coles first solo single launch and no crowd, no matter how up their own arses they try to be, can dampen that.

About three minutes after entering the venue, Tickets There turned and ran. I am no fan of that venue and I’d timed my arrival to the exact moment I thought Ollie would be walking on stage, Unfortunately, I’d arrived half an hour before the support act was even due so running was really the only option. After a few failed attempts to find a quiet pint nearby and a nice wee walk around the town, it was time to face it and head back. In the door, straight up the stairs and to the bar that’s the only option in crisis times like these. Drown out the blues. Thankfully the Odessa has some good…ish smoking areas and the roof one was nice and quiet.

After a couple of pints, it was time to head down and check out the support (name totally escapes me). I only managed to catch three songs and it all seemed like a mock cliché. I remember there was one song called Small Fish, Small Pond and really that doesn’t hold up great aspirations does it? Remember that scene in Family Guy when Stewie bashes the shit out of the jackass with the guitar. That kind of guy and that kind of music. Ended on a funny note though when the guitar kept making strange noises. Ah well, good fun.

After another blatant crashing of the private party upstairs and some more smoking area intrusion, it’s finally time for Ollie to take the stage. With no commotion, Ollie Cole, long time friend and band mate, Gavin Fox (Concerto for Constantine) and Ciaran Fortune (The Chapters) take the stage and quietly get things ready. With a few words of welcome, the band start the show with Oh My Girl. The sound is surprisingly good and the venue flips from half full to wedged within seconds, as people continue to pour in throughout the opening number. Not letting the enthusiasm drop, Ollie and co. plow on through another new song before playing a great version of the single they’re here to launch, What Will You Do?. Live, this song sounds even better that on record and band and crowd start to flow together a little better. A rendition of Turn classic, Close Your Eyes follows and brings a very quiet, appreciative atmosphere with it.

Not one to stay in one style, the band launch into some upbeat / heavier numbers ,including Need You Strong, Drug Song and Holding Your Heart. Unfortunately Tickets There missed, what sounded like, a great job on We Albatri, one of the best known songs from Ollie’s forth coming album. After another new one (didn’t catch the name) the band finished the evening off with another old Turn number, Life’s Great Advice, which still sounds as strong as ever.

With no encore, the band turn and run before the masses piled on top of each other, start their descent towards the stage. Tickets There did likewise and briefly meet a trapped Steve Wall on the road to safety.

With the album due out next year, you can be sure we’ll be hearing a lot more about Ollie over the next few months and by the sounds of the material and band tonight, that’s going to be a good thing.