The Belgrave Scandal, Pictures of Shanghai, Guilty Pleasure - Forum, Tunbridge Wells - Saturday 3rd February 2007

This was my first Belgrave Scandal gig for a while, since the mid-November date in London's swanky Cafe De Paris in fact. A last minute arrangement at Tunbridge Wells Forum, to cover for a late cancellation, this meant that the venue was much less full than usual. Never mind, there was beer flowing, and the band were wearing their suits again.

First band on were called Guilty Pleasure, a name that they will surely have to change if they start to get anywhere, to avoid being sued by the Sean Rowley and VH1 cheesefest of almost the same name. They are from North Kent, from where there seem to be quite a few decent bands emerging lately, most notably the Underground Heroes, mates of The View. The North Kent sound seems to be extremely strongly Libertines-influenced, and this band were no exception. Still very young, I have certainly heard much worse on offer as the first band on at the Forum. A decent enough soundtrack to spending twenty minutes at the bar.

Next up were a Tunbridge Wells band called Pictures of Shanghai. They had a big emo sound - not my cup of tea at all, but I had to admit that they were pretty good at what they were doing. I'm not all that keen on what they call "angst-ridden" vocals, but the guitars sounded good, and even the singer was pretty impressive given the musical style.


The Belgrave Scandal came on stage for their headline slot, and pretty quickly started throwing new songs into their set. For a first listen, the new stuff sounded pretty good indeed - something of a new direction, and reasonably different from their older songs - they have obviously been doing something other than eating and drinking over Christmas after all!

This being a headline set, it was longer than usual, and there was time for an acoustic solo from the singer and lead guitarist - this worked really well I thought, and when the band came back on for final song Soul And Power, it went down a storm. All in all, a very good gig - the new songs sounded very promising indeed, and the old stuff was pretty damn good too.