All hail summer as the first live show of the Finbar Hoban Presents… series kicks off the first day of May next Friday night when Waterford group Percolator with support from Black Robots come to Bar Ritz (Mulroys Bar ) Castlebar.
Percolator are an Irish three piece made up of Ellie on drums and vocals, Ian Chestnut on guitar and vocals, and Jason Grant on bass, recently they have been gigging as much as possible at numerous venues in Dublin, Cork, and other Irish cities with bands such as A Place to Bury Strangers, Oxford Collapse, and Katie Kim, also at the Irish Green Gathering establishing themselves as an exciting upcoming band in the Irish alternative scene.
The band’s first self released EP will be available in the next few weeks. Demos of their work have already been given some radio airplay and attention from promoters and magazines. Repeated comparisons have been made to My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth.
This may be down to the boy/girl vocals or lead singer Ian Chestnutt’s preference for jazz masters and alternate tunings, but their music is not necessarily just for gazing at your shoes, it has a raw edge which comes across really well.
Support on the night will come from another group from Waterford called Black Robots, the band’s demo was Connected magazine’s demo of the month and is deeply grounded in simplicity and honesty in equal parts. A strong, raw, punk ethnic is the core of what Black Robots are about. Influenced as much by Autolux as they have been to bands such as Minor Threat, Black Robots tend to sway from raw noise based songs to strange space melodic songs.
Moving from as messy and loud as they can make it to as sparse and straight as possible, Tony’s drums are the backbone of the whole band; his thumping drives all of the songs, and his intuition structures the songs as well as filling in all the gaps. Dean’s guitar style is straight and to the point and serves as a carrier for the melody of the songs. Simple riffs are used as the basis and the two mould and structure around this.
Black Robots are based on dirt and melody; these are the only ingredients they need. So why not go out and enjoy the first night of the summer on Friday May 1 when Castlebar’s only alternative event Finbar Hoban Presents… Percolator with support from Black Robots. DJ Finbar will be back commanding the turntables so expect to hear new tracks from School of Seven Bells, Gaslight Anthem, and Animal Collective, plus lots more. The show starts at 9pm and Westcoast Audio will provide sound on the night. For more information on this show check out www.myspace/finbarhobanpresents com for updates and photos of previous shows.
