The Drums/Surfer Blood
Sound Control, Manchester
06/02/2010

If the NME Tour gig down the road at the Academy is aimed at the average magazine-buying public – more interested in seeing The Maccabees for the fifth time than the other three ‘support’ acts on the bill, of which The Drums were first – then tonight Sound Control plays host to all the scene and, unfortunately too often, heard indie kids of Manchester. All too stereotypically arguing over who was the first to hear Surfer Blood playing triangles in school and The Drums whistling in utero.
First to the stage is the, only slightly, less hyped Surfer Blood; fresh-faced and armed to the teeth with a debut album dripping with laid-back coastal rock tunes, faintly laced with tales of wasting away in the sunshine state. Initially a little hesitant, shy maybe, it isn’t long before the band are hurtling through track after track of new generation surf-rock, polished on the sands of palm beach. The likes of ‘Twin Peaks’ and ‘Swim (To Reach The End)’ packing enough of a punch to get even the most adamant of shoe-gazing scenesters moving their feet.
By the time the headline act get to the stage, their second of the night so far, the crowd are on their toes but it’s difficult to separate the genuine enthusiasm from simple anticipation to qualify the wave of hype that The Drums rode across the pond. While emanating the sentiment that being the hottest band this side of the Arctic Monkeys sits uncomfortably with them, The Drums let their material scream over the whispers of all those sound of 2010 lists. Parading the hits from their ‘Summertime EP’ the east coast soon-to-be-favourites drag the animated crowd through more decades than The Doctor, from the sixties with ‘Make You Mine’ through to the early eighties homage of ‘I Felt Stupid’ and ‘Don’t Be A Jerk, Johnny’. But all this has been said too many times before; as much as comparisons to The Cure and The Beach Boys has gotten them on the radar of curious star-makers, their real task now lies with distancing themselves enough to be named alongside them.

David Howarth