Rumble Strips, Pull Tiger Tail, The Little Ones, Blood Red Shoes - Koko, London - Tuesday 29th May 2007

Thanks to the NME again for putting a great lineup of bands together, for their New Music Tour. Last year's tour featured Boy Kill Boy, The Automatic, Forward Russia, and The Long Blondes, who have done OK since. Well actually, Boy Kill Boy have done next to nothing since, as have Forward Russia. The Automatic have done pretty well since, and the Long Blondes have got more famous, but could not really have been more overhyped at the time of the tour last year. Nevertheless, a decent opportunity to see some hotly tipped new bands.

First up on the bill tonight were Blood Red Shoes, a boy and a girl from Brighton. They look like the White Stripes, except with the girl on guitar, and the boy on drums. They sound not too unlike them as well, with trashy garage punk rock mainly the order of the day. Of course, with only 2 members in a rock band, they both need to keep quite busy, so the both the drummer and guitarist shared lead vocals. The guitar consisted of a few simple chords, played very loud and very fast, and sounding very trashy and dirty. The drummer was the real star of the show, an excellent drummer, great vocals, and he bobbed around in his chair like a nutter. All in all, it was a very good noise for only 2 people to be making.

One annoyance was that the band seemed very grumpy on stage - they said hello, but accused the crowd of looking bored - not the thing to do if you want to win over a London crowd. At the end of the set, the guitarist took part in a comedy "smashing" of her guitar, except that it wasn't the guitar she was playing during the set, presumably she has a special guitar just to act out that particular rock and roll cliche. I really liked the music they played, it was loud and rocky, and when the girl was singing, it reminded me of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. But their moody attitude was not so good - maybe they were just having a bad day!

Following Blood Red Shoes were The Little Ones, a band from California who seemed to have a decent following of fans, even before they played a note - their entrance onto the stage was greeted with quite a cheer. But I thought their set was very average - the first and last songs stood out, but the rest did not leave much of an impression on me, let alone a positive one. They sounded like many of the American bands at the "strange" end of the scale, the vocals reminding me in particular of Mercury Rev at points. But unlike many of the bands they sound like, they seemed to lack many decent songs.

"Kooky" is a word I believe is used to describe bands like this - but I just find them a bit annoying. What they lacked in songs, the band did at least try to make up for in stage presence, and interaction with the crowd. They were very smiley and happy, and tried hard to ensure that the audience were having a good time - which many seemed to be. But the songs seemed far too commercial and forgettable for my liking. They will probably do OK in the sunshine at festivals, but I won't be there to watch them.

Pull Tiger Tail also came on stage to massive applause, and played what for me was the best set of the night. I had seen them and liked them before, and was again impressed by their tunes, and the urgency and energy with which they play them live. With 2 guitarists and no bassist, the bass came from a keyboard, and the sound of it was turned up very high in the venue, reverberating through my stomach.

They played at least 4 or 5 really good songs in their set, including Animator and Hurricanes, both of which I knew from their MySpace profile. The reaction in the audience was incredible, with lots of mental moshing and dancing. Towards the end of their set, they had drummers from the 2 previous bands on stage with them, to play on one of their songs - including the excellent drummer from Blood Red Shoes. All in all, they reminded me of lots of the things I like about We Are Scientists - although the music is different in style, the band are just as good for having a good time whilst watching.

After their set finished, I was a bit surprised to see lots of people leave the venue - not surprised that they were hardcore fans of Pull Tiger Tail, but slightly surprised that they weren't sticking around for the Rumble Strips. They missed a treat, as it turned out.

Last time I saw the Rumble Strips was at the Camden Crawl, at a pub about 15 yards from this evening's venue - it was literally straight across the road. A packed boozer and a great gig, but a very different venue to tonight. But, despite the venue being several times the size, the band looked like they could easily have been headlining a bigger venue. Pausing infrequently to talk too much, they rattled through a good set, including all of their familiar songs.

The band have a quirky sound, reminiscent of Larrakin Love, and old festival stalwarts Dodgy. That said, it is a very catchy sound that should see them get very much more popular in the next few months. This was of course not as good a gig for me as the previous time I saw them - stood about 5 yards from the band, in a pub holding a couple of hundred people. But I still really enjoyed their show, and will be making a beeline to see them during the summer. Should be good.