Electric Soft Parade + Restlesslist + Tinker Jack.

Bedford Esquires Lev 2. 13th February 2007.

With the annual Brit awards due to take place tomorrow night, it would not have been fanciful to suggest that tonight's headliners the ELECTRIC SOFT PARADE probably could have made off with a trophy or two when their magnificent debut album "Holes in the Wall" was released way back in 2002. With the creative songwriting skills of brothers Tom and Alex White, their future looked paved with gold. Indeed we witnessed that embryonic talent here at Esquires on a couple of occasions, first in August 2001 during a co-headline tour with The Music, then again in January 2002.

However, with their side project Brakes seemingly taking precedence, ESP seem to have been consigned to the musical bargain bin! A sense of anti-climax seems to hang in the air tonight with only a brief nod to the early days. Much of the set focuses on new and unreleased material which seems to have a shallow feel despite a healthy turnout for a damp Tuesday evening. 'Secrets' has a maudlin 'Mull of Kintrye' sound, while 'Cold world' fails to inspire. Now signed to the Oxford-based Truck Record label, their selection of songs tonight would probably sound and feel a lot better on the beautiful Truck festival day. The myspace plugged "Misunderstanding" has an instantly "hummable" sound, while the amazing outro to the Electric Soft Parade's final song is quite simply awesome. It perfectly sets us up for an encore, but typically we don't receive it. A shame as a couple of old classics might have saved the night. The evening was really a story of what might have been, much like Electric Soft Parade's career.

Support tonight comes firstly from Bedford's TINKER JACK, a dreadful name for a most enjoyable band. Their set begins in an auspicious manner as thay all await the appearance of drummer Gareth but with some beautiful harmonies from Tinker Jack's male and female vocalists, songs such as 'Baby Be Lonely', '25' and 'Higher Skies' immediately create an aural delight. It's early days, but the signs look good for Tinker Jack.

Featuring members of Electric Soft Parade, RESTLESSLIST are in their own words '3 Prats and a Laptop'. Gents, I could not have put it better myself. I only managed to put the sickbag away during their final song, a quite haunting horror reggae tune. The rest was quite nauseous.