Fleet are taking to the stage as we arrive at the Metro, a scummy dive on Oxford Street that seems a million miles away from the tourist tack it’s surrounded by. Fleet are a 5 piece, including 3 guitar players, and they just about fit onto the tiny stage in front of us. They are a young band from Essex, four lads up front wielding guitars and Rebecca at the back kicking shit out of her drums. They are obviously influenced by the likes of Oasis, yet they also have a soulful melodic edge and the ability to switch into a bluesy hard rock. They are energetic and obviously enjoying themselves, Nick, who shares vocals with Luke, is throwing the rock star shapes and getting many admiring looks from the ladies for his troubles. Their 3 guitar attack (rhythm, lead and semi acoustic) makes for a rich in your face sound and the quality of their songs is excellent. Special mention however for Mike Rowe who’s lead guitar playing is sublime throughout.
In the studio The Scratch are masters of defying expectation and capable of switching styles at will. However, stripped of the electronic influence, live they resort back to a straight guitar, bass, drum, vocal format. I was immediately intrigued what new light this would shed on them.
The answer, in essence, was to transform them into an in your face glam punk band. When this works such as on the excellent thrash out of ‘I relax to Spiral Scratch’ it sounds fantastic. Andy is a great front man, all bulging eyes and flailing limbs, his stencilled shirt reminiscent of the Clash and early Manics. Baz on drums keeps it all nailed down at the back, the archetypal powerhouse. Unfortunately the first three songs don’t really get going. When you’re playing a 40 minute set that’s a fair chunk of your time. It looks like they’re a little rusty and the full sound they produce on record is lacking here. In fact they don’t play either ‘X-ray Eyes’ or ‘Brainstorm’ from their new 10 inch at all which is a real shame (see my previous review).
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Talking to Andy later on he’s keen to find a way to fill out the sound live, which will hopefully enable them to play the several songs they have to leave out at the moment. That can only be a good thing. Having heard their promo CD I know that a lot of their best material wasn’t played tonight and in that sense they are not doing themselves justice. Tonight The Scratch are hit and miss, when they punk out they are in their element but the nuances and seamless crossing of genres and styles is lacking. Not their night then but they shouldn’t be too down hearted, they have the talent and the material, their time will come.
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