The weather hasn’t stopped people from coming out tonight to see Bipolar Empire in Monroe’s in Galway. The Dublin four piece have been busy over the last year what with recording in LA with the legendary producer Pat McCarthy who’s worked with REM and U2 and Lance Hogan who put the finishing touches to their first album Feel That You Own It.
It’s clear from the start that this is a band that believes in the sanctity of the three minute pop song. They kick off with aptly titled Start the Show. It’s short and snappy in the rhythm section and is gently flushed with harmonies that are similar to Teenage Fanclub.
Many will be familiar with Tempomanic from a RTE promo reel. The band recently jammed with a member of Muse in Dublin. Comparisons have been made and they’re particular true of this number. With it rumbling drums and buzz-saw guitar it’s easy to see why it’s getting so much attention. Live it comes across heavier and more intense than on the album.
Bringing some Red Hot Chilli Peppers funk to proceedings is Playing With Fire. Lead singer Shane O’Reilly’s vocals have a soaring quality to them that are only brought back to earth when lead guitarist Mark Maguire, with ease and confidence, throws in a few slick guitars licks.
Their time in the presence of Pat McCarthy is evident in numbers like Trip Around the World and From the son as the harmonies sound like the best of early REM.
With no time to waste they move on to Open our Mind. It’s a pop rock anthemic with jangling guitar and a bouncing rhythm section. They’re pumped up and really enjoying themselves now. Not to over do things they take it all down a notch with the slow acoustic number; Why So Sad? which embodies their best trademark, the three piece harmony.
Their time in LA has infused things with a soft American vibe especially on Human Race. O’Reilly’s voice has a powerful but tender quality that could be mistaken for Jeff Buckley. As he moves through number like Smoking Joe and It’s Only Darkness he appears to grow with an unbridled confidence.
A surprise cover of I Want to be Adored by the Stone Roses brings a great reaction from the crowd who have now taken to the dance floor. At this point the place is heaving and a sweaty crowd are begging for more.
Saving the best for last is Feel That You Own It. Drummer Callum McAdam does a great job of nailing a solid beat and with O’Reilly’s vocals coupled with sublime harmonies this sounds like pre Joshua Tree era U2.
Tonight’s performance was certainly an ostentatious showcase of young Irish talent. Things can only get better for the boys from Tallaght. Watch this space!
Resisting the temptations of listening to Megadeth, we’ve decided to find another of Ireland’s underground unsung heroes instead. The list is beginning to run dry so we’re hoping a few kind folks and bands out there will get in touch and point us in the right direction. In case you think Tickets There is always about the guitars, the glitz n glamour, the swagger and adrenaline of rock n roll, we’re here to prove you wrong. Tickets There likes all good music…except Ska, we hate Ska. What a totally useless genre exploited by people who can’t get over their Police obsessions.
Over the last week we’ve had reviews about Hardcore Punk, Dance, Instrumental Heavy metal, psychedelic rock and now we’re turning our focus on country! Dublin five piece, The Whiskey Limbs have been keeping us entertained for the last couple of hours so it’s high time we start this mother, jJust incase our Megadeth inclination returns (can you say that? – Ed).
As usual we’ve never seen the, live or heard their EP/Album.
Eight songs!! MySpace Reviews or always harder to do on the spot when there’s that many tracks but it also gives you a much better idea of what the band is capable of. First track, Dancing on the Fuse is like a mesh of The Waterboys, Bruce Springsteen/E Street Band and Damien Dempsey. It’s got the country, it’s got that blues/rock tempo all topped off nicely with a hint of home brewed country n folk. The chorus, like almost all the songs here, is infectiously catchy. There’s nothing I don’t like about this tune and as first impressions go, this ain’t a bad way to start. Damn this doggy dance floor, damn these heavy shoes, Damn the Smashing Pumpkins for releasing that piece of shit single yesterday!
Second track Pretty Jane is very similar in styles but just as enjoyable and makes good use of their guitar player towards the end. Third track Meantime, sees the first real departure into a more serious, stripped back track. Colm Davis’s vocals at times give hints of a ‘put on’ effort but every time your mind slips in that direction, he pulls you right back and his delivery just improves on every listen. Backing vocalist Amy Frayne manages to make more of a mark on this number aswell and her harmonies add real depth and soul to the music. Another winner.
Dead Man’s Dream brings the rockier element to the forefront again. It’s upbeat, catchy and as an added bonus, has the best guitar solo we’ve heard so far. The following track, Dare brings things back to the relaxed feeling we heard on Meantime.
Love Song brings is to the second last track of the review. At first it gives the impression of a very slow, very romantic piece before revving up into a full on Celtic country assault. Colms’ vocals suddenly switch to a much harder Irish style and it really works. Love Song is possibly the most upbeat and enjoyable song in the playlist while final song, Half Way Girl is possibly the most bland. It’s a tired style heard too many times in your life. It’s still played well but there isn’t the same energy about it as there is in the others.
Overall, great stuff. This is an album/EP worth buying for anyone looking for a change from the ever growing instrumental / metal / techno / singer song writer acts out there. Tickets There will be watching these guys from now on.
Dirty, sleazy and good. Three words that sum up Tickets There’s highly professional opinion of House of Dolls. We found these guys days ago but haven’t been able to properly sit down and give them the dedicated focus they deserve from us. Now, with the wind in our hair, the sweat on our brow and a taste of last night’s Guinness on our breath, it’s time.
As usual, we haven’t seen them live or heard their album/EP wot-eva!
Opening tune, Before She Walks is like something straight out of the late eighties Brit alt rock scene. It’s got that relaxed, psychedelic ambiance but enough guitars and up-temo-ness to ensure it doesn’t send you to sleep if you’re having a few puffs. It’s well written, well played and enjoyable. Let the MySpace Review begin!
Second track, Gimme Some Glory is alot sharper. The singer’s voice is great and the band sound right. It’s not the craziest mother f**ker on the planet, but combined with Before She Walks, it’s more than enough reason to pick up their album. Light Starts to Fade begins like a forgotten Joy Division B-Side. The vocals are much rockier, the song’s explosive and filled with overtones of the impending ‘danger’ Tickets There loves so much. One thing we’d like to see changed is the guitar leads. Musically they’re damn good, so why not turn them up a few notches and let them make their mark? This is a demo rather than a real recording but that’s the only thing TT would want to see changed.
Vampire Blues starts like a Bruce Springsteen meets U2 cover from the eighties until the keyboards and guitars come tumbling in. I cannot for the life of me figure out who the vocals remind me of. Feck it, pretty decent song with a great upbeat chorus. Lots of guitars, lots of catchiness, lots of love for House of Dolls from Tickets There.
On Collider, the lads really unleash their hard rock side. It’s faster, bleaker, punk rock stomping down the door making you pogo like a mad man. The guitars rampage through the track, only stopping to let the lead spiral off into a mesh of blues rock tangents. This is the kind of song we like, expect the vocals get pretty annoying about three minutes in. It’s only a demo but they need to be replaced with words or left out altogether (is it the singer or an escaped sheep with delusions of a career in recording? Hell, If Babe can do it, that sheep can do it). Also, there’s too much space in the final minute and a half with nothing to fill the void. If it gets abit of a cleanup, this will be a serious track. So good, Humazi will be kicking themselves they didn’t kill House of Dolls and steal it.
Second last track, Suicidal Jesus starts well. Guitars revving u, drums just waiting for their change to have at it, throbbing bass lines and the crash, yes!! This is what we want to hear. The riff is very similar to the The Sex Pistols version of Stepping Stone but the song is taken in another direction. This is where the vocal styles really sound their best. The verse is a mix of punk, urban rock and more punk. Imagine Joey Rammone signing with Ash (for lack of a better example) and you’ll get there. The day is saved once again and Tickets There is happy.
Finally we come to the last track of their playlist, Prostitutes and it’s probably one of our favorites. The vocals are back to the muffled, gritty styles of Light Starts to Fade and the guitar riff is as rough n ready as anything we’ve heard. In some ways it sounds similar to The Future Kings of Spain but they’ve added a nice punk sound to the mix that works well.
There were a few different tracks up the other day and thankfully they’ve removed the one song we really hated, Slowly Coming Down. What they’ve left is an excellent representation of what could become one of Irelands best rock bands of the decade. They may need to pick up the pace of a few tracks to keep it exciting but for now; they’re more than ok in our books.
Check out their MySpace now by Clicking Here (and welcome to the first review on Tickets There .com)
What happened folks? In the mid 50’s, Mr. Elvis A. Presley walked into Sun Studios in Memphis, Tennessee and became the very first, the best, the symbol, legend, embodiment and icon of rock n roll. Like Sid Vicious to Punk, Frank Sinatra to big band, Johnny Cash to country and western or even Dana to lunatics, Elvis was the total hero, founder and creator of rock n roll. Don’t listen to music nerds, geeks and critics (ahem), Elvis started everything. Forget who influenced him, forget who wrote for him and forget who marketed him, Elvis was it.
Ever since the Kings death, music has flourished through the efforts, talents and hard work, creativity of various people and constant changes in popular culture. From Elvis, Buddy Holly and Jerry Lee Lewis in the fifties, rock expanded and produced the likes of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks and many others throughout the early sixties. Before long Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, The Yardbirds, Jimi Hendrix, Cream and many more appeared. The Doors came out of the west coast.The Who went rock, Led Zeppelin were formed and Jefferson Airplane stayed touring after Woodstock. Just before things could get civilized, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple came out. Queen, Clapton, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Stooges, Alice Cooper, T-Rex, KISS,…the list is endless people. Then came the 80’s, when pop reached a true peak before the ever looming wave of commercialism took it’s firm grip and strangled the genre, until it’s credibility was lower than Gary Glitters. On the other hand you had Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth, Guns N Roses, Def Leppard, Whitesnake, U2, Judas Priest, OZZY, Slayer, Sepultura, before the end of the decade when Nirvana, The Chilli Peppers, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Blur, Oasis, The Stone Roses, The Smashing Pumpkins, The Smiths, The Pixies, Joy Division, The Happy Mondays, New Order (yes the 24 lot), Faith No More, Nine Inch Nails and then (phew this is a long one) onto Marilyn Manson, The Foo Fighters, Weezer, Korn and so on before the late nineties and boom…nothing happened……funnily enough, fuck all has happened since. How in the hell did almost five decades of amazing, astonishing and diverse creation suddenly grind to an almost complete stop?
Things seemed to fall completely off course. Metal bands suddenly merged rapidly with dance music and rap. Korn had dabbled but so did Aersomith and nothing happened to them. Instead of Angus Young and the D belting out solid, hard hitting blues rock anthems you had fat ugly guys in costumes roaring at you about being bullied and still being virgins living in their mothers houses. Metro sexual, stylish geeks whining on about falling and crying about some girl next door that Lemmy would probably kidnap and turn into a hooker on sun-set before the night’s out. These guys in fitted suits, wearing ties with spiky hair, tattoos and dog collars were mixing Kraftwork with the eighties glam rockers like Twisted Sister, Poison and the likes while wearing their hair like girls. And I don’t mean the old style of hairy bikers drooling over a bar counter girly style, I mean a female hairdresser on a night out style. Like they were trying to keep disobeying the nagging disapproval from generations past and pushing things to some ridiculous limit that nearly goes full circle.
As for Pop music, that fell into the hands of TV companies, dance got old and turned into some demented, hindered state of destruction while indie music became overwhelmed by a horde of Eco-Friendly, Voices of poverty, injustice, animal cruelty and environmentally conscious millennium hippies. Voices that turned away from Indies recreational drug use, love and loss, party image and transformed it into a voice for all the issues in the world rock stars shouldn’t give two shits about, at least not on stage. The likes of Tom Yorke, Chris Martin, Bono, Snow Patrol, Kings of Leon, Kasabian and all that other horse shit. Their songs were so impotent, corpses of tax attorneys could laugh at them. Complaining, moaning and whining about the poverty and cruelty in the world they wouldn’t think of donating their profits to. Bands that appeal to societies total dregs. Bored children, housewife’s, grandparents, indie fans, jocks and just about every member of the heard the western world boasts. Droning brought to extremes of the human soul to a point it becomes so bogged down in ego, insincerity and boredom it would fail to shock a timid kitten.
Metal fell even more of the pits as the old genres piled up with hopeless hack impersonators before bursting at the seems into millions of decaying breakaways. Nu-Metal even buckled (not a bad thing, pile of shite aswell) as Emo broke through their last stand along with nu-punk and metal became even more appealing to the ugly, fat rejects of social society and the fashionable, jock culture more than ever before. After Radiohead’sCreep on the jukebox American Idiot and the Killers would follow and all the trendy’s and Goths alike would bop along. Metal was again infiltrated by main stream culture and unlike before the last ‘icons’ weren’t strong enough to tear it right back for the people of society who used the music as it should be used. Not for pusses crying and ugly nerds to find shelter. Metal is the music for the angry soul (sounds gay I know but hey, I am smoking in case you hadn’t noticed), the serious partiers, the ‘dangerous’ people of society.
Rock N roll lost it’s fight much earlier. After the Guns N Roses era came to a close, few rock bands ever managed to reach those heights again. Don’t even bother with the Killers and The Kings of Leon…or The Strokes bitch. I’m talking about real fucking n roll. The kind of rock n roll that made all the bad things bands these days demonize like drinking, sex, destruction, rebellion and a good hearty message of Fuck You to anyone who bothered them, fun!. Elvis shock things up, the Stones defined it, Aerosmith brought it miles higher while AC/DC put the fucking boots on before Guns N Roses perfected it in every single sense of the word.
The world is losing it’s icons. Right now I can’t think of any that have come out since the early nineties. I mean a true icon of rebellion. Pete Doherty, and Amy Winehouse make a mockery of drug addicted musicians which, throughout the history of music, have written some of the most amazing music ever created. The Beatles, Jim Morrison, The Grateful Dead, Hendrix, Keith Richards, Janis Joplin, Kobain etc. Bono, Yorke and Martin take the places of people like Neil Young with his stories, Springsteen and his zest for life and Bowies ever changing persona, image and style only to replace it with gilt tripping, giver of life wannabe humanitarian ideologist façade while they doge taxes and pontificate to fans what they should do, wear, believe in, live and breath. Forget ‘think for yourself’, the message was spelled out in bold impact lettering and strangely enough, a discontented mass fell for it, hook line and sinker.
That’s pretty much where we are in my eyes. I’ve forgotten many of the previous generation’s true greats but there’s only so much you can write in an hour and keep semi-coherent. I’ve also neglected some of the better talents to emerge on the international scene and some of the worse ones. Arcade Fire and MGMT to name a couple. But that’s how I see things, pretty much that black and white. Most of the old styles got confused, disjointed, lost in translation and overwhelmed in image, style and forced restrictions and beliefs and turned them into uninspired shells of their former selves. I’m not saying charity is bad, I’m not saying there’s no credibility in any of the new bands these days and I’m not saying looking after the environment is wrong, animals should be mistreated, people shouldn’t be nice to each other and drugs are good. I believe the exact opposite of each one and a conscious attitude is essential to the basic fabrication of mankind’s cohabitation together and civilized society. What I’m saying is people should learn this from other sources like parents and a proper education rather than one of mankind’s forms of entertainment. Aren’t we allowed to relax, switch totally off and dream sometimes with the horrors of some societies and the worlds problems being shoved in our face at every fucking turn?
Maybe there was one message spelt out by one of the golden age icons that we should listen to is the words of Jim Morrison.
“When the music’s over, turn out the lights, turn out the lights,”
The weather hasn’t stopped people from coming out tonight to see Bipolar Empire in Monroe’s in Galway. The Dublin four piece have been busy over the last year what with recording in LA with the legendary producer Pat McCarthy who’s worked with REM and U2 and Lance Hogan who put the finishing touches to their first album Feel That You Own It. 
'Ticket's There' - Irish and International Music Blog 