TIGER ARMY LIVE REVIEW 04.05.07.
Posted by Jen on 15.05.2007, 20:39
On Friday the 4th of May, Los Angeles California’s Psychobilly trio Tiger Army came to London. This was the 3rd year in a row they’ve been over, 2 years ago they played the Camden Underworld, and last year they played the Scala in Kings Cross. This year they played the Islington Academy.
The doors were at 6pm, I wanted to get there early in order to catch the support bands.
As I walked in I thought it would be pretty empty but I was surprised to see it very much full and alive with punk rockers, psychobillys, greasers, skinheads, and a few ‘normal’ looking people!
The first band on were the awesome Send More Paramedics from Leeds. For those that don’t know them, they play what they call ‘Zombiecore’. -A mix of 80s thrash and hardcore punk with a generous helping of good old B movie horror! All dressed up as Zombies and getting the place nice and warmed up, they are a band I would highly recommend!
The second band of the night were London’s own female fronted punk rock band, Deadline. Their singer Liz has one of the best female voices in punk rock, very melodic which contrasts nicely to the punk beats and guitar riffs. These guys are well worth checking out if you don’t know them.
Then we waited for Tiger Army to hit the stage!
8:45pm the lights go down as an old Hank Williams track is being played. Tiger Army come on and launch into a new instrumental intro track as they do on each album. This is followed by the fast paced ‘Nocturnal’ which really gets the crowd going! They played a very good mix of their stuff, from the early days of 1996’s ‘Jungle Cat’ to the more recent ‘Rose of the Devil’s Garden’ off their last album. All the favourites can be heard tonight, the psychobilly anthem: ‘FTW’ to the pure country, almost skiffle song: ‘Outlaw Heart’, proving they’re a very versatile band and can play every style in the Psychobilly/Rockabilly ‘label’. There were 3 or 4 new songs thrown in as well which were in the vein of Morissey and a lot mellower sounding in comparison to their 1st and 2nd albums, but there were people singing along anyway! That’s the beauty of places like Myspace! They finished the set with crowd favourite ‘Annabelle Lee’ with the crowd occasionally drowning out guitarist/singer Nick 13’s voice! It was another great performance by a great band!
Their 4th full length album is coming out in the UK on Hellcat Records called ‘Music From Regions Beyond’ on June 5th so go and check it out!
Words By Tom Senior.
Photographs By Becca John.
http://www.myspace.com/tigerarmy
http://www.myspace.com/cherrybombxphotography