Reverend and The Makers
Fibbers, York
8th October 2006
Live Review
The cosy little scene venue, Fibbers Bar in York is the venue that I make my first and possibly only appearance at a Reverend and the Makers gig on their October tour. I say this with sadness and not glee sadly. I can't hide the fact that I am a big fan of Jon McClure and his band of merry men.. and a lady. With a unique brand of indie/pop/dance there certainly aren't many if any like him.
Since my last run in with them there has been a change to the line up and an addition. I was interested to see how this would affect the sound. I was pleased to see the new guitarist added massively and in a good way to the music. He made more of his riffs and added his own style to the music. I loved the bass orientated sounds that R&TM produced previously but with the change in guitarist it has developed into a more rounded sound.
They played reworked versions of old songs that were even better than the originals. Upon listening back to the old demo's it was surprising how much the sound had progressed. The band sound less poppy than they had previously.
New songs that caught the ear were 'Open Your Window' and 'Lidia' with them it was a case of more of the same. That being that like the older ones they were damn fine! The usual favourite's were also played, 'What The Milkman Saw', '18-30' and the fated single 'Bandits'. McClure and co tend to attract a variety of fans to their shows and tonight was no different. A few yobbish boy's were about who seem to be lost in the irony of '18-30' and 'Julian's Got A GTI'.
I had only one small fault to pick which was the song 'Sex With The Ex', (musically) to me this sounded just like a certain song by another band. I would be surprised if I was the only one to think that.
Regardless of that one anomaly the show was to the bands usual high standards and included Jon's scary stares at the crowd, a couple of poems and some fist shakes.
Reverend and the Makers are back and they look ready to do some real business in the music world! Roll on the next tour, I reckon one or two more people may begin to appear wearing a 'There's Always Tomorrow Mate' t-shirt.
Dom Chalk
