The Minutes at Whelan’s, 26th of October 2014

Gracing the familiar surroundings of Whelan’s for a third time in under half a year is an impressive thing for a band to accomplish. Doing it while managing to sell out the venue each time is another matter entirely. There’s a certain indescribable energy that radiates from The Minutes when they perform live, and tonight was certainly no exception to that.

Opening the show were Cork quintet, The Vincents. An apt support act, The Vincents treated those who had gathered early to songs that were an interesting blend of haunting reverberated guitars, a stomping rhythm section and on occasion, saxaphone. Their sound is sometimes remnant of Warpaint, but instead featuring male vocals. Although their set seemed to be very short, it was a memorable one.

The Minutes took to the stage to screams and excited roars, and immediately kicked into fan favourite, Black Keys, which ensured that the dancing began straight away. Frontman Mark Austin donned a priest collar, and in a way, a gig by The Minutes is an almost religious experience… if mass was soundtracked by straight up rock ‘n’ roll, that is.

Songs from their recently released sophomore album, ‘Live Well, Change Often’ sit into the set like they’ve been around as long as the tracks from 2011’s, ‘Marcata’ have been. This sort of fluidity makes the set soar from strength to strength, and it never loses pace. Seven Seas and Cherry Bomb are particular standouts from their latest effort, as both manage to sound incredibly big and bursting with energy. There were technical issues during Cherry Bomb, which led to Austin and drummer Shane Kinsella performing an improv jazz inspired jam while bassist Tom Cosgrave got everything working again. This incident would have taken many bands down a peg, but it certainly wasn’t going to affect The Minutes.

Mark spends much of the night jumping into the crowd, and extending sections of songs just so he can stay down on the floor amongst the crowd for that bit longer. During Gold, a pathway cleared in the crowd and bassist Cosgrave who remained on the stage and Austin, who walked nearly to the back of the floor area, jokingly square off before kicking into the last chorus of the song.

A super extended version of Supernatural closed out the night on a high. The song that usually clocks in around five and a half minutes went on for almost ten minutes, and featured Austin asking if anybody fancied a lock in, and professing that this show was the most fun he’s had in Whelan’s in a long time.

Love them or hate them, it can’t be argued that The Minutes put on one hell of a live show.