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THE WIZARDS OF OZ: Operator Please plus supports The Vice & The Black Hats - Jericho Tavern, Walton Street, Oxford.
The Fly Online, Wednesday, July 2 2008
PINT-sized drummers, virtuoso violinists and trilby-hatted guitarists - they’re all out in force tonight.
However the evening’s entertainment is all about the energy and plenty of it.
Forget going green and switching to renewable sources, you could probably save the planet and power a fair few light-saving bulbs in the process off headliners Operator Please’s performance tonight.
The youthful Antipodean five-piece make it abundantly clear from the off why they’re some of Jools’ current ‘best friends’ (they appeared on his Later show earlier this year).
Akin to poking a stick in a poking a stick in a wasp’s nest and watching the ensuing chaos, the hyperactive pop band with a twist practically snap, crackle and pop with boundless energy.
That you can barely make out what they’re yelling on songs such as single Just A Song About Ping Pong is irrelevant with a band of this stature whose frenzied performance is as much a joy visually it is aurally.
Front-woman Amandah Wilkinson with her partial beehive hairdo and feline facial features leads the charge with her ‘enthusiastic vocals’, casting knowing glances into the audience.
Oxford’s Black Hats’ opening performance seems pedestrian by comparison - meant in no way as a criticism of the city trio, more an emphasis on the sheer amount of energy the headliners radiate.
The ‘Hats excel in classic sounding rock with a slightly punky-edge and tonight it must be something in the water as they also energetically zip through a clutch of songs, barely pausing for breath.
Trilby-hatted bassist Ian Budd’s fingers move snake-like across the strings as the band lay-down some angular riffs reminiscent of city peers Young Knives on The Chang.
Meanwhile the half-spoken, half-sung, vocals by singer Nick Brakespear add a punkish snarl to tracks such as closer Broken Bones.
© Black and White Music 2008. Site by Check The Label.
Sadly the downfalls of playing an early opening set mean a subdued cheer for The Lift - possibly their most radio-friendly hit - from a polite audience is the biggest response received by the group, who clearly and rightly so have ambitions above just being another pub band.
Catch them at Zapfest in Oxford’s South Park on Saturday, July 12.
Sandwiched in between all of this is Reading’s The Vice who all look like they’ve come straight from a Bon Jovi audition, with an abundance of big hair, tight jeans, t-shirts, sweatbands and leather jackets on show.
Fortunately for the sake of our ears though they’re not all style over substance and plough through a bunch of ‘Kings Of Leon-esque goes back to the eighties’ numbers.
The band show they know how to ‘rawk’ although, boasting a total of four – yes that’s FOUR! – guitarists –it’s hard to imagine them doing anything but.
Wavy-haired vocalist Sam yelps with passion, raps out the beats on his palms on tracks such as Back To Jail and pouts with such conviction it looks like he’s been practising it in his bedroom mirror- Mick Jagger eat your heart out.
Although it’s a close call on another night of Jericho talent it’s Operator Please who steal the show though.
The jubilant band savour the moment as they tear up the rule book - mashing up sassy, dirty great riffs such as on the superb Cringe with synths, classically-trained violinist Taylor Henderson’s graceful strings and big beats from their baby-faced drummer.
The sugary sweet icing on the cake is their take on the Salt N’ Pepa classic Push it as Wilkinson pre-warns the audience to ‘prepare for some embarrassing white-girl rapping’.
Definitely worth hanging on the telephone for.
Gripped by The Vice
By Linda Serck
The popular Black & White music night raised the roof of Plug 'n' Play studios in Reading on Wednesday 7 May 2008 thanks to The Vice and Underground Heroes. BBC Berkshire's Linda Serck leaves deafened but happy.
The Vice and Underground Heroes | Plug 'n' Play | Milford Road | Reading | 07.05.08
It's a balmy evening perfumed with the charcoal smoke of a thousand barbecues, but die-hard music fans risked sweating inside the intimate and dark Plug 'n' Play venue for a night of raucous rock. The Black & White music gig was abuzz with animated chatter from girls in summer dresses and lads with hippy hair - all waiting to hear Reading six-piece The Vice and London's Underground Heroes. As was I. From the outset The Vice deliver roaringly brilliant rock 'n' roll that stupendously mines the seams of Stones' roadhouse riffs. A wig shop of hair flails while fretboards of the three guitarists clamp down powerful crunching skuzz. Singer Sam could outdo Mick Jagger, Johnny Borrell and Caleb Followill of Kings Of Leon in the primal gut-shivering call-to-arms stakes. Single Mont Brilliant is an immediately melodic and outstanding track that meanders delicately round a campfire-lit night in snowy Switzerland, while Russian Winter and Sanctuary are other bolshy electrifying tracks to listen out for. It's set of Woodstock wailings and gritty gallops, it's a set of agonised mouths and laughing eyes, it's a set of impassioned vitality and louche bluesy indolence. They'll have you in a vice grip and you'll want it to stay that way. Headlining are London's Underground Heroes, who sound like an untamed ska-fueled clash between The Jam and The Subways. Furious and pacy, guitarist George effortlessly screeches out cockney exhileration in the voice of a ten-year-old and with the attitude of the Artful Dodger. With tracks such as Skin And Bone and Stella The Mistress we're sprayed with steamy underground indie punk at its most throbbing and intense.
Just the tonic for the heat of the night.
