The Pad Presents - The Bohicas, The Wholls, Swoons.
Esquires Lev 2 Esquires Saturday 15th August 2015.
So The Pad Presents have seemingly gone and done it again, they have booked for a Saturday evening THE BOHICAS, this is a band who seem to be cropping up everywhere at present. They are on the radio 1 play list and have a full page interview yesterday in Britain’s biggest daily news paper The Sun and this morning I’m reading all about them in Classic Rock Magazine. This amalgam of exposure perhaps captures why at present they are so popular. Their music takes slices of so many bands and artists throughout the last six decades, many musical ingredients are in The Bohicas future recipe of success. All ages seem to be catered for. Tonight is not my first viewing of The Bohicas however, no that came at The Portland Arms in Cambridge nearly two years ago, where they were sadly quite anonymous compared to their NME Radar Tour partners Cerebral Ballzy and the spiky but sadly short lived Amazing Shakeheads. Indeed, with two of The Bohicas on parade tonight, namely vocalist Dominic McGuinness (brother of musician Eugene) and drummer Brendan Heaney, I can full well remember their previous band Swanton Bombs (Esquires main stage July 18 2008, there is a review on the BAM website).
These two have obviously grown up musically and are now joined by long term friend guitarist Dominic John and recent recruit Adrian Acolatse. Their appearance and stage presence has certainly improved; they look cool and classy throughout, although I don’t warm to them as there is a distinct lack of crowd interaction. I thought Essex boys liked a bit of chat or cheeky banter. The Bohicas are at present waiting to unveil their debut album, The Making Of (Domino) which is to be released this coming Friday. Many tracks are performed tonight by a band who know they are in the media spotlight although I feel from their appearance tonight; Bedford perhaps doesn’t rate very highly. Although as Dominic admits as they perform Only You, this one got “cut off in MK”! Although the set as a whole fails to convince me to order the aforementioned album, there are a couple of songs that makes me believe that good old fashioned guitar based music is still alive and kicking. These are firstly Crush Me and then the divine To Die For, which possesses a chorus to do just that. Even I can sing along to it.
Finishing their show off in usual fashion is Swarm, which is their current single. The quartet leave the stage to some excellent applause, bigger venues and stages no doubt await them, but for many they will be remembered quite fondly here in Bedford.
It was I admit with a great deal of utter surprise last week when I heard the news that by ‘mutual consent’ vocalist Adam ‘’B-Man’ Brown had left performing with THE WHOLLS. Hopefully this talented and charismatic musician will find plenty of success with his next new project. This big loss is now offset by a double combination of the Chochiarella brothers. Tordy is now joined by Sonny on guitar, everything else is still the same, Joe on bass, Danny is on drums. It’s obviously very early days but there is on first viewing a mighty huge seismatic shift in sound and feel. These former urban rock n rollers are now full on hard edged rock n rollers. Angry Faces begins this new chapter for still one of the most popular and well supported local bands. Tordy then announces that Scarecron is “Dedicated to B – man”. This new image will take a bit of time to bed down and its early days to fairly judge their new material. I cannot emphasise enough just how different a direction this quartet have moved on to. There are a few brief nods to the past with a slight reggae lilt bubbling away on Rude Boy while a ‘street’ vibe surfaces over I Beg You. It’s true that The Wholls were tonight concentrating fully on getting this first difficult show done and completed. Musically it had to be tight and it was. However for this reviewer watching it all unfold I felt for this visually astute band, one thing was missing - a little three letter word called fun, perhaps that will eventually evolve, I certainly hope so. In 2015 Bedford desperately needs a creative and thriving Wholls. Let’s hope they can deliver.
I was most impressed by SWOONS, an indie rock trio returning to our venue from their home county of Buckinghamshire. This band looked to have very few mates in attendance so it was up to their front man to initially strike up a bond with the Beds contingent. He bravely tries by tempting the early arrivals immediately by calling out “your all welcome to step forward , we don’t smell that bad!” to their credit the sound of Swoons is original, they are not jumping on anyone’s musical bandwagon which can be levelled against some of their peers at this stage of their development. Lyrically strong, the compositions are well structured, especially Bridge and My Sister. Given this opportunity by The Pad Presents they seized their chance brilliantly.
Review by Martin Stapleton. www.bedfordalternativemusic.co.uk