White Belt Yellow Tag/ New Cassettes/Run Toto Run/MidiMidis
Roundhouse, London
07/10/2009

Opening the night, MidiMidis take The Fly back to school days of attempting to fire up a neglected ZX Spectrum while everyone else was ‘A’ and ‘B’ button bopping to the sounds of Super Mario.  The duo cause an almighty 8-bit mosh up; powered by Slash-stanced low slung bass and saluted by the occasional frenzied Les Paul angst.  Imagine The Strokes in Tron if you will. They look great, it’s fresh, and it really does work.

By way of contrast to the party MidiMidis started, Run Toto Run take us on a jolly musical adventure, putting all at ease with soothing storytelling-worthy vocals.  Parading around in a feathered headband, lead singer Rachael Kichenside blows her sparkly stardust magic into the crowd as the band strike xylophone, synths, keys and samples. It’s all a little bit too nice at times until the Manchester trio unleash a violin (!) and acoustic guitar to bring the set to a stomping end. Job done.

Rocking up and looking like they mean business dressed all in black, except for the lumberjack shirted drummer who keeps a mean beat, New Cassettes answer the question of what happened to Captain Ric from Kelloggs Ricicles fame.  He’s singing his heart out at centre stage.  And it’s a tight display as the band tear through a high energy set, but sadly it’s not inspiring enough to capture this old dog’s heart.

Headliners White Belt Yellow Tag bear a name we’ve seen bandied around a fair bit, and the Japanese art-punk noise The Fly was expecting is washed away with epic widescreen sounds and a polished tight sheen.  New single ‘Remains’ is the soundtrack to major labels’ swooning, with frontman Craig Pilbin drawing more than a passing resemblance to the eloquent sounds of Chris Martin.  ‘News’ resonates heavily around the room before they take it down a notch for ‘Where Echoes Land’, and final track ‘We Have Sound’ marches with a military intent that sends the vocal and high spirited crowd home very happy.

Shane Daunt