This Town Needs Guns, Jonquil, ABC Club @ The City Screen Basement Bar, York. 19th September 2008

What a line up for a Friday night in York, the Club Defcon crew aka Simon has set up a beauty. The Basement Bar is sold out tonight and I’m glad as these bands deserve to be heard.

ABC Club are some young’uns from the Leeds / Halifax area who are managed by ¡Forward, Russia! guitar wielder Whiskas who happened to be around supporting the talent on show. ABC Club make a kind of jagged post punk with a hint of shoegaze in the vocals and some punchy drums that make you want to move. They have plenty of tracks to download on their myspace so check them out.

The Oxford invasion is coming (They tried to take over Clifford’s Tower but didn’t have the funds to get inside, York is safe… for now) and Jonquil take the stage, I say stage its more like a marked out section of the floor, with everything and the kitchen sink to make noises with, and what a noise they make too. There are keyboards, electric double bass, guitars, melodica, drums, accordion, flute, trumpet; god knows what else all crammed into the Basement Bar. This is the first time I have seen or even heard anything from Jonquil and I was moved. They are accomplished musicians that’s for sure, they swapped instruments and played their hearts out. Jonquils fragile yet sweeping beauty filled the room with a joyous buzz. The vocal harmonies were excellent. The highlights for me were Magdalen Bridge, which they co-wrote with Youthmovies, its such a beautiful track. The finale was brilliant as they whiped out the Accordian for a bit of a hoe down with a majestic build. Jonquil rocked it…

The headliners This Town Needs Guns, also part of the Oxford invasion tonight, hit the stage with a stripped back, back to basics setup especialy compared to Jonquils bring it all make beautiful noise multi-instrumental indie pop gems. Tonight they are selling their debut album Animals, which I have been lucky enough to have on promo to review. It didn’t stop me from buying a CD copy though, and they looked greatful and delighted when I did so. TTNG played a lot of new matterial and it was a real treat to here in the flesh. They also mixed it up a bit with some of their earlyer works from the fantastic Cats x3 split. Chinchilla opened the set and from then on I was mesmerized. Tim’s guitar stylings are incredible, wether he was plucking away on the new songs or hammering around for the old ones he did it with such complex melody and skill. Chris and Jamie locked together to keep the groove tight, with a pounding jazzy edge and rock sensibilitys. Stuarts vocals where as sweet and effecting as always. Other set highlights were my faveourite from Animals, Lemur, which I think just sounds so cool. Panda and Rabbit where also excelent. The final track they played and one that without fail gets people moving is 26 is Dancier that 4. It was a brilliant, energetic ending that induced sporadic dancing, shouting and smiles all round. This Town Needs Guns brought it to York tonight.