There’s no easy way to say this but at the moment the northernline is like dog sh*t, it gets everywhere! And tonight one of its avid reporters is here at the fabulous Empire in boro and the other is across the other side of town at The Westgarth reviewing The Crookes. Who has got the best gig, read on and all will be explained.
This gig is the first night of The Pigeon Detectives current UK tour to promote their soon to be released album Up, guards and at ’em and personally I was thinking the turn out may be poor, a Monday night, the clocks changing and everyone catching up on sleep from the weekend!! (I know it must be only me getting old) How wrong I was, the show is a sell out, 1100 fans are packed into the venue all waiting for their heroes to step onto the stage.

The band bound on stage at about 9.10 pm to the Beastie Boys classic, Sabotage, the lights shine out over the crowd and every face is beaming, its been along time since the fans saw their heroes and tonight we are told this is their first proper gig in over 2 years.

The last time I saw the Detectives was October 2007 at Scarborough’s Vivaz club and since then nothing has changed, lead singer Matt Bowman is full of energy, climbing onto the drum riser leaping off it, pouring water, beer and anything else he can get his hands on over his curly mass of hair.

The last time I saw a singer spin his microphone round and catch it as much as this was when I saw The Sweet in the late 80’s, their singer Brian Connolly is sadly now deceased so let this be a warning to you Matt, stop spinning that mike now!! I fearedthe worst throughout the set, audience member dies from microphone in mouth!

At one point a can is hurled at him from the crowd, Matt catches it and takes a swig from it before throwing it back! Why couldnt Mozzer do that a couple of years ago in Liverpool!!

By the time they launch into Going out  the crowd are going wild, I took my camera but its impossible to take any photo’s as the crowd are jumping up and down too high.

The Pigeon Detectives are a much more popular band than I thought, their first two albums sold over 500,000 copies in the UK alone which in this day and age I would say is good, and when they play songs from those albums the crowd sing along to every word. No doubt when the new album is out and the band tour again, everyone will be singing along to these songs also.

They play some new songs for a while mid set a couple are duff to me anyway but the others are excellent, one is very Strokes like in the guitar playing especially. I suppose decamping to New York to record your latest Cd may have that effect.

The band are all from Rothwell apart from lead singer Matt who tonight is on home terrority and all his family are in full force stood up in the Gods watching down in awe on their relative going hell for leather around the stage. How he doesnt break a leg I have no idea. He also for me swears far too much and if I had all my family in attendance would not use the F word quite so often (again it must be me getting f**king old!!)

They play This is an Emergency, the crowd go wild, they play Romantic Type, ditto and before the encore go off with Take her back.

Earlier on in the set Matt announces encores are for bummers which I found a bit of a silly thing to say especially when the band return to the stage for an encore!! Remember where you read it first!! Here not in Heat magazine Matt from the Pigeon Detectives is Bi!!!

The gig was a good one, how Pete got on at The Crookes we shall soon see, but everyone here tonight leaves smiling from ear to ear.

Final thing to add, not a review of the show but just a note to congratulate the venue on its under age drinking policy. All over 18 year olds get a different coloured wrist band and can only buy one drink, this stops the older kids buying booze for the younger kids but they still can get in and watch the shows.

And pint cans of Carling at £2.70 is cracking, they were ice cold and to me just the right price especially in a night club style venue. Most venues these days try and rip punters off but not here.

So all in all an enjoyable evening helped along by reasonable beer prices in a cracking venue. Can’t wait for our next visit.

By Andy on April 2, 2011