16/4/2010 Dead Monroe & JOANovARC in Camden

Subject	Dead Monroe & JOANovARC in Camden
PostedDate	4/16/2010
	Two gigs I want to get to in one night, but fortunately they are both in Camden this time.  First port of call is the Barfly to see Dead Monroe. Unfortunately it looks like their new keyboard player Poppy only lasted one gig...  There's a respectable crowd in the Barfly - meaning in numbers rather than their status. It's good to see the boys playing to plenty of people though. The band perform well, but unfortunately the sound mix is dull and muddy...  In spite of this, their commercial sounding pop/rock sound went down well with the crowd - most of whom probably had no idea who the band were but Dead Monroe won them over anyway. Â I don't have time to hang about when the band finish as I have to rush off... Fortunately, Tommy Flynn's is only a few minutes walk down the road and I arrive before JOANovARC start their set. The new expanded lineup of the band is starting to gel a bit more now, although the original 3 piece version of the band fitted into this venue a lot more comfortably. This is certainly a very different band than a year or so ago, and new rhythm guitarist Laura taking lead vocals on a song makes things more interesting while extra percussion from Violet The Cannibal (I'm not even going to ask!) adds an unpredictable edge. I'm still not sure if I prefer this new more commercial sounding version of the band to the earlier harder rocking 3 piece though...