Review by : Vanessa Monaghan
Photo’s By : Alessio Michelini
What better way to spend an Independence Day evening than with Jesse Malin on his ‘Love it to Life tour’.
Allan Fox, opened proceedings to a sparsely populated Academy 2. Playing both keys and guitar, his solo set was entertaining and quirky, throwing in a Pharcyde cover for good measure. Two broken guitar strings didn’t throw him off and he just switched to playing the song on keys. His music could be described as a rock nursery rhymes, with clever lyrics and melodies. Fox tells us that he is a member of the St Mark’s Social and we’ll see him later ‘playing tambourine and dancing his ass off’. He doesn’t lie.
The Killing Four are an Anglo/American rock band, a cross between GNR and Queens of The Stone Age with some nice melodies. They have a great stage presence but perhaps the bass playing lead singer comes across as a little too cocky in comparison to the rest of the band. During an instrumental part of a song he also manages to down a full bottle of beer in one go (Yeah Rock!) The musicianship is good, great guitars and the drummer hits them hard. They are currently recording their debut but going on this performance they have a couple of standout tracks ‘Shout’ and ‘Stealing Prayers’. 85 % of the way there to having a great rock outfit.
The crowd at the Academy has built up as Jesse Malin and The St Mark Social take to the stage, many of whom seem to be American. The sound of Frank Sinatra’s ‘Summer Wind’ fades and the band immediately start with ‘Burning Down The Bowery’ from the current ‘Love It to Life’ album. There’s no stopping as they quickly followup with ‘Hotel Columbia’, while fast paced ‘Prisoners of Paradise’ gets everyone moving.
Malin seems relaxing and enjoying himself as he delivers the drum driven ‘Disco Ghetto’ and uptempo ‘Burn The Bridges’ from the current album. He switches to acoustic guitar for ‘Queen of the Underworld’ while biggest cheer so far goes to ‘Wendy’, both tracks from ‘The Art of Self Destruction’.
Malin tells stories throughout the show, about what July 4th means to him, about ‘getting bombed’ with Joe Strummer, ‘they forget he was human’ and how a male prostitution ring was being run from his High School. He thanks the audience for being there and he genuinely seems like he is loving his time on stage.
Allan Fox, takes front of stage with Malin for Almost Grown’, giving a stirring acoustic rendition with beautiful harmonies. Although he has his tender moments, the troubadour definitely rocks and plays his ‘favourite Jesse Malin song’, ‘Swing Man’, while thanking the audience for going to ‘a real fcuking show’.
Crowd favourite ‘All the way from Moscow’ has them clapping along, while another from ‘The Art of Self Destruction’, ‘Brooklyn’ has the crowd singing all the lyrics and is an obvious fan favourite.
The Band leave the stage and after a short time return for a rousing ‘Bastards of Young’. A short hardcore punk ‘Bad Brains’ by Malin’s first band ‘Heart Attack’, has him bouncing around the stage like a lunatic and he looks like his enjoying every bit of it. The encore also includes ‘Solitaire’ and ‘Aftermath’.
Malin is a rocker who definitely wears his heart on his sleeve. He has a great rapport with his audience and thanks them on several occasions, saying he appreciates it ‘if you’ve been here more than once’. Good gig, pity a few more people didn’t see it.
