Saturday 1st December 2007 @ Academy, Bristol
With Support From: Electric City

I’d predicted that the Anson Rooms were going to be RAMMED to capacity tonight due to Orson’s regular appearance on music channels and radio, but judging from the feeble queue outside this seemed quite unlikely. Alas … the night was young!

Opening the night were London quad Electric City, who played an intriguing mash-up of grunge-punk and disco-house. Electric City have received impressive reviews from many sources, but my personal favourite and the most accurate has to be: “…Dirtier than a student’s weekend trip to Amsterdam. Quite simply you just don’t get rock bands this good anymore…”.

They’re supporting Orson for the entire tour and if their set tonight was anything to go by, could soon be headlining the venue themselves with (hopefully) a more engaging crowd! It was this which I felt spoilt the night slightly, as the majority of the crowd seemed hell-bent on standing as still as possible, whilst managing to keep a small area of personal space around them. Bizarre behaviour for a gig…?

Next on were our headlining rockers Orson, who obviously felt one support was sufficient to get the Bristol crowd warmed up tonight and it certainly seemed like people were loosening up. Perhaps a combination of the Anson Room’s beer and Electric City?

I wasn’t sure how tight Orson would be live, suspicious that singer Jason’s voice was particularly distinguishable and engaging possibly because of recording studio technology. However any doubts I had were quickly ironed out as the entire band executed each song perfectly, the whole set remaining equally tight.

The set was concluded with No Tomorrow which, as expected, sent the crowd into complete euphoria and ended an impressive night with a bang! The only thing which I felt spoilt the night was the lack of enthusiasm from the Bristol crowd, but judging by Orson’s faces, the first night of the “tour-ette” had been a success!

www.orson.trinitystreetdirect.com

Franko
Photos: Tom Daniels