The Horrors @ The Roundhouse Review

Pre-gig Thoughts

The Horrors are one of those bands that have never managed to fully garner my interest. A solid first album (Strange House) and then a bunch of albums that didn’t float my boat (Primary Colours/Skying). Though I have to admit I think the band have found their ‘sound’ with the newer albums. It was a bit of a surprise then that gig tickets to the Horrors @ The Roundhouse fell out of the birthday card sent by my sister (she’d seen them prior at the 100 Club on the eve of Strange House).

My expectations before the gig? Low/Neutral, with a hope of a band impressing me with a decent live performance. If they can do a good job live then I’m sold.

 

The Gig

After the initial cock up of me leaving my ear plugs at home (and buying the cheapo foam ones from the Roundhouse stall), we ventured into the main hall. Some visceral ‘horror’ music played before the band Toy came on. Now this lot suffered from ‘Support Band Syndrome (SBS)’, a droning vocal, treble heavy sound, a drummer that seemed to play the same thing through every song (and looked thoroughly bored) and absolutely nothing about them. So all in all a good start to keep my hopes up.

Next the Horrors made their entrance. I had seen some YouTube footage of the antics of the lead singer so was expecting a decent lead performance. Instead it was probably the most uneventful lead performance I’d seen for a long time (support bands excluded). The setlist was made up of songs from Skying and Primary Colours, which sometimes ventured into the danger zone (read the 80s) and left me thoroughly cold. A few songs here and there picked it up, but I couldn’t overcome this overbearing thought that the band are a bit ‘plastic’. Looking cool just seemed to be higher than actually performing.

 

The Thoughts

They’re not a bad band as they played solid, I just expect more from a live performance (and so should everyone else). They didn’t have the warmth/charm/aggression/heart/soul/skill ^{[Delete as Appropriate]} for me to contemplate wanting to see them again in a venue context. At a festival I would check up on them, incase I missed something but they’re a band I just don’t think I can buy into based upon such a soulless performance.

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