The Subways with Jeff Caudill 20/2/06 Melkweg Klein Zaal

I have to say that I was fully impressed by their live energy. They put on a fantastic show and were truly a hell of a lot better than I expected. However, I really couldn’t help but think, gee I liked this band a whole lot better when they were called The Vines. 

I have to say that I was fully impressed by their live energy. They put on a fantastic show and were truly a hell of a lot better than I expected. However, I really couldn’t help but think, gee I liked this band a whole lot better when they were called The Vines. 

 

The Subways with Jeff Caudill 20/2/06 Melkweg Klein Zaal

 

Opening act was Orange County California singer/songwriter Jeff Caudill.  Unfortunately I could hardly hear him over all the chatter. The talk was a wee bit warranted however, since he was out of his element entirely. A singer/songwriter opening up for a power pop trio in a room filled with distracted hormone-enraged teenagers is not the greatest combination, oh no. I don’t really know what is better; no opening act or a DJ playing music in the same vein as the headliners. In this case I would have chosen neither, I say bring on the main act as soon as possible so we can all go home. Hypothetically speaking, if the opening band is bad (which he wasn’t), it would make the main act look that much better, wouldn’t it? A case of compensation for rock ability through contrived contrast (Just something to think about). At the set break, the DJ did his best to get the kids primped for what was to come. The energy in the room was stale, effectively squandered by the little folk singer’s dreams of exposing his music to a bunch of Dutch teenagers.

 

Still, out jump The Subways. They make a very animated entrance on stage, which quickly brings the audience out of its coma. Within minutes, the first fist-waving head nodding body emerges above the crowd, riding a wave of up-stretched hands and centipedes towards the stage for approximately a metre before collapsing and sinking down. Moments later the drowned teen emerges laughing and leaping looking for his next mount up again into the heavens of rock-dom. This was like a rock show out of a movie!

 

Nearly every song would start off sounding like, dare I say it, Oasis (Apparently it was Oasis that made the young Billy Lunn turn musical and then convince his brother and girlfriend to start a band with him). Clean guitar chords, which then digressed into prog-rock jams before returning to a staple blues-garage rock structure is The Subways formula “du rock”. They are in essence the perfect ready-to-assemble rock and roll kit for any pimple-popping youngster.

 

 

I have to say that I was fully impressed by their live energy. They put on a fantastic show and were truly a hell of a lot better than I expected. However, I really couldn’t help but think, gee I liked this band a whole lot better when they were called The Vines.  Dreaming of other concerts whilst at a decent one at that… nope, not a good sign.

Watching mallrat turned hottie bassist Charlotte Cooper run around the stage yelling into the audience as if she was playing an arena show was quite enjoyable. Her fiance (or husband by this time), Billy Lunn graced us with not one but three leaps off his brother Josh’s drum kit and two stage dives into the audience. It was by far the rowdiest concert I’ve been to for a long while. I witnessed the most crowd-surfing that I’ve ever seen on a Monday night in Holland, or ever, for that matter. During the show I stood next to a gaggle of 16-year-old (plus or minus) girls who cooed the entire show and when the crowd quieted down for a minute, they’d yell out offerings to Billy, like, “I love you,” and “I want to make babies with you!”

 

 

They closed the encore with Rock N’ Roll Queen and I darted off to make a 10:40 train.  Other song highlight included, my favorite song of theirs, With You also Oh Yeah and Mary. These kids definitely have something and they seem to be very eager to become big pop stars, so I wish them luck. I think with a little more maturing, sound seeking, or rather sound developing and finessing their next album might have a more original sound and be worth buying.

 

Words: Zoe E. Gottehrer