21/8/2006 Towers Of London & Suffrajets @ the Water Rats

Subject	Towers Of London & Suffrajets @ the Water Rats
PostedDate	8/21/2006 3:17:00 PM
	It's great to be able to catch Towers Of London in such an 'intimate' venue for a change.  Naturally, the place is pretty full as either of the bands on the bill tonight could pack the place on their own. The only down side is that the excellent real ales that this venue used to serve seem to have vanished - a step back as this is something virtually unknown at other London music venues.  Towers are on good form tonight and well fired up. Several of my friends are seeing Towers Of London for the first time, and they all seem impressed with the band's full on rock 'n' roll performance - the Rev's lead guitar work in particular being commented on. Mid-set singer Donny asked the crowd if any of us had been there when Oasis played at this venue in their early days - apparently no one had. His usual clambering over the PA stacks was thwarted by the lack of room between PA stacks and the ceiling in the tiny venue, but he has enough charisma to carry the show off without resorting to such antics. Most of the band's recent album got an airing and went down a storm. They finished with a cover of 'Freebird' which to be honest wasn't a great version - I've heard at least two bands make it sound much better, although to be fair they got to play through a much clearer sounding PA. I go to loads of gigs - often several in a week, but this was easily the LOUDEST one I've been to for some time!  This was the first time I've seen Suffrajets with their new bass player - I wonder how long this one will last? I thought she was better than the previous girl - who I thought was noticabley better the second time I saw her play. The new girl seems more of a proper musician though, and less 'Look - I'm a girl and I'm in a band!'. One thing that has impressed me the last two or three times I've seen this lot is how strong some of their songs are - and how much better they sound with Alex actually singing instead of screaming. I heard their new single on Xfm last night and I thought she sounded like Nina the Cardigans singer! The tune certainly got stuck in my head for a while. Suffrajets finished around 11.00 and I hung around for far too long afterwards, but met some cool people and had some very interesting conversations. Still got home in well under an hour though, which is always nice.