Louie, Illustrated Youth, Portion.

Bedford Esquires Lev 2 14th April 2007.

This evening's headliners are six-piece Londoners LOUIE. In fact, the only negative comment I can make about them and their set tonight is their awful band name! Louie? Urgh!! It just conjures up an image of some dodgy 70's teeny-bopper band (anyone remember Kenny?). Thankfully Louie believe in the old 'punks not dead' ethos and are definitely from the Towers Of London school of music! Their look is perversely a snapshot of Kings Of Leon and Biffy Clyro, ie long hair, some beards, skinny t-shirts and faded jeans. How punk is that?

Apart from a slight technical problem ay the beginning of 'I.D.' when the twin Louie vocalists searched frantically for a functioning mic (which was starting to escalate into a farce of Spinal Tap proportions), the set was a superb mixture of guitar driven noise, shouty duel lyrics and hard fast drummin'.
Their debut single 'Trees' is typical of all the 12 songs preformed tonight. It's a super-charged amphetamine fuelled chorus that induces moshing on the stage and, finally, feeds through to certain parts of the crowd. 'Can't See The Sun" and 'The Curves and the Bends' are perhaps not the time-stopping anthems of the punk era, but their short sharp melodic shocks bear the traces of many of those seminal groups. Current single 'I know what you're doing tonight' offers a salvo of adrenaline that matches the virulent sting of its risque lyrics. They display a fine ear for a tune as well as giving the punters a total ear pummeling. Team Tourette might be struggling at the moment to regain some sort of credibility, but the Louie twins (Jordan Smith and Gaz Tomlinson) at the helm of this band were total lunatics, who also to their credit had a genuine rapport with their audience, although I feel there were many in the crowd who were not expecting a band quite like this!!

The support started with perennial Esquires favourites PORTION, who include in their ranks vocalist Blaine, a man who always causes havoc and mayhem on stage. He does not let us down, but he met his match tonight with Louie! Portion return in early May and so will a longer review.

Young Indie kids ILLUSTRATED YOUTH are currently supporting Louie on a few dates. They are very much the calm before the storm. This Croyden based four-piece seemed a little overawed at the beginning, but soon settled to deliver some pleasant guitar pop sounds. 'I See' was the most popular song of the set, while 'Round to See You' drew some strong applause.