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Watch ESP perform Blue It Is at the Billy MacKenzie Tribute Concert at YOUTUBE NME piece about the Club NME shows Mercury prize-nominated rockers return. SOUND LIKE: Heart-in-the-mouth, hands-in-the-air anthems akin to Mercury Rev. PLAYING CLUB NME: Sheffield Plug (April 24) Hull Welly (26) Tour Ads from the NME: No.1 - No.2 XFM DJ: blog.myspace.com/marshamusic The Fly 29 March: Whenever I see these live, I remember that I had forgotten (a) How much I like them, (b) how many huge indie pop hits they have, and (c) that it is a travesty and a mystery that they are not huge. Not just indie pop hits - intelligent and different indie pop hits. blackholereviews.blogspot.com Billy MacKenzie Tribute 28 March: Electric Soft Parade are a much younger band, still releasing music the first time around. Like other bands during the evening, they were daunted by the chance to cover a Billy Mackenzie track, not only because of his huge vocal range, but because musically "the arrangements are insane". They performed Blue It Is, a downbeat song where Billy stayed in the lower octaves. Photos from the Billy MacKenzie gig by Peter Ashworth (scroll down) (click thumbnails for larger) glittertigger.livejournal.com on Oxford Zodiac 12 Feb: "polished and professional and all good musicians" Worse Things Happen At Sea Blog on Pressure Point 9 Feb: I make no secret nor no apology for the fact I have an immense amount of time for Electric Soft Parade. A bit like my love for processed cheese, many have tried and failed to talk me out of it but even I would describe their recent live efforts as ramshackle at best. However, there was no chance I was going to miss them here ahead of the release of new album No Need To Be Downhearted. A rousing Start Again commences proceedings and I get the feeling we might be in for a stormer, however just as Human Body kicks in a voice pipes up. That's no good! Not a punter but Tom White, the Soft Parades guitarist and resident comedian. They start again and nail the song superbly but all I can hear are the detractors voices in my head chastising me for liking a band that make mistakes. Therein lies the beauty for me, a band not afraid to come across as loose and occasionally sloppy, not afraid to let Tom perform his Peter Kay routine and not afraid to look slightly at odds with the music scene at large. New single If That's The Case Then I don’t Know, has been in their live set for quite a while but is beginning to sound like their strongest song to date and sends the small but devoted crowd home with a definite smile on their face despite the criminally short set. |