Friday 11^th July 2008 @ The Croft, Bristol

It’d be easy to make the assumption that Yes Sir Boss!!! are something of a festival band from not-so-distant stables to other Bristolian fest-favourites Babyhead or Smerins Anti-Social Club and to be fair, this wouldn’t be wildly inaccurate: it’s certainly possible to imagine the band charming the mud-sodden pants off a crowd of cider-wielding punters in a field somewhere. When they take to the stage, the smattering of waistcoats, skinny-ties and trilbys would seem to support this hypothesis too, at least until they start to play…

Yes Sir Boss!!! eat up genres like cream-cakes. Theirs is the kind of sound you might dream up with if you made a smoothie out of Tom Waits, Muse and Don Drummond and drank it in the backroom of a bar in Budapest circa 1890. A distinctly indie-leaning becomes apparent early on as the band power their way through the first few tracks of their set. Between lead singer Matt’s raspy rock vocals and the unfeasibly tight brass section provided by Jehan on saxophone and Tom on trumpet, YSB!!! have plenty of hooks easily as catchy as anything The Kooks have to offer. In fact the whole set-list is surprisingly chart-worthy. The undulating crowd of dancers, skankers and all-out, get-down-and-dirty dancers hints and the kind of reception that could await in the wider world.

The hiatus provided by a mid-set drum kit malfunction is all but unnoticeable amidst the impromptu Mexican fanfare style interlude from the horn section. The whole affair is over in a few minutes but only serves to reinforce the competence of the band as a whole. There’s clearly enough talent here to allow them to wander into realms far away from their set-list.

The evening’s entertainment climaxes with the bands signature track Not Guilty, spurred on by probably the catchiest horn part you’re likely to find, this year at least. Are they on their way to greater successes? Are they worth the door price? Will you be humming their musical catchphrases out of the door? The track’s final line, delivered in appropriately grand harmony answers all these questions and more: “Yes Sir Boss!!!”

www.yessirboss.com

Ed Williams