Bad Habits, Knievel Genuis, Pirate Radio, Dylan Lee Jones.

Esquires Bedford Lev 2. 9th December 2006.

Midway through this Roar Club gig I peruse the sparsely populated room and reflect on an excellent recent Bedfordshire on Sunday article by a journalist named Liz O'Reilly in which she writes of being puzzled by the apathetic attitude displayed by Bedford residents to gigs on their own doorstep. Considering the size of the town, the stature of the bands that regularly play here is amazing and the dedication and sheer bloody hard work of our promoters should be supported a lot better, and not just when the current flavour of the month rides into town. Liz, you spoke for a lot of frustrated people.

As mentioned, only a handful of die-hard regulars and various friends of bandmembers bothered to drag themselves away from the no-doubt riveting final of X-Factor, but first up was DYLAN LEE JONES (great name), a gentleman who bears some resemblance to Graham Coxon. His opening word are direct and to the point: "This might not be everyone's cup of tea, but f**k it!" Short in stature and with 3-days stubble growth, he has a brown scarf knotted around his neck and a parka thrown just off the stage. This acoustic 'geezer' almost immediately wins me over with the lyrics of one of his songs "These are the best days of our lives and I drink to it and we're on top of the world".
At times Dylan runs around the stage thrashing at his guitar like he is in some emo band, but with some amusing banter with the crowd, I would certainly put a few coins into his hat if he ever considered taking up busking.

Next up were PIRATE RADIO, a band I have not caught up with for a few months and it is good to report that they are as lively as ever. This young three piece play with real zest and drive and possess in Dano a female drummer who thrashes her equipment with such force and velocity that it is a sight to behold. The pick of their set is 'Scenesters', a take on their hometown of Luton about those young male and female 'chavs' who hang around the town centre and make it such a hostile and threatening place to visit. Another highlight is 'Stylish Dreams' which has a funky undercurrent and adds a rich variation to this spiky set.

KNIEVEL GENIUS appear to be a band that are not quite sure in what direction they want to take their music. One minute they all want to be in Rage Against the Machine which the next they are Arctic Monkey wannabees. At the moment it is this split personality that makes them such an uncomfortable band to watch and listen to.

Headlining are BAD HABITS, who visit Bedford to promote their current album 'Radioactive' Visually they are excellent, their drummer sports a 'gimp' mask, the guitarist seems to get his kicks out of appearing as a Zombie while the long legged female vocalist is kitted out in a red skin-tight zip-up suit. However, the songs are all a rather samey mixture of very limp wristed 'cock rock'. In fact, only penultimate song 'Underage' bucks the trend. Perhaps ironically, Bad Habits opening song is entitled 'Is Anybody Out There?', which perhaps sadly rather summed up the entire evening.