Review by: Vanessa Monaghan
Photos by: Alessio Michelini
Kassidy Live at Whelans July 22nd 2010
Thursday night in Whelan’s kicked off with two supports before the main act, Kassidy. First up was Dermot Kennedy. Accompanied by Michéal Quinn on cajon, Kennedy is a solid singer songwriter with a nice vocal style, with shades of David Gray and John Mayer creeping in on occasion. He was confident enough to do a new, as yet untitled song and at 18 years old, has a lot of promise.
Fresh from appearances at Oxegen and Benicassim, Ryan Sheridan is next up. He too, is accompanied by a percussionist. Sheridan shows great stage presence, has a really good mic technique and looks the part. His arrangements are interesting and entertaining.
I’ve never seen a percussionist use their whole body as Artur Graczyk does. Every movement seems to bring an extra percussion dimension, like the shaker attached to his foot. The two musicians manage to create a full rounded sound, not needing anything else.
Surprise of the set though was Sheridan’s rendition of Bronksi Beat’s Smalltown Boy, well worth a listen. He finishes with ‘Jigsaw’, an uptempo track with a memorable hook, which will be released as a single soon. This is a confident performance from what could be the new face of Irish music. I wanted to hear more.
Kassidy have been gaining a decent reputation following their Latitude, Oxegen and T in The Park performances. Hailing from Scotland, these guys look like the Black Crowes and sound like they should be from the America’s deep south. Their sound is built around 3 acoustic guitars, a resonator and lots of vocal harmonies. Interesting.
Kassidy start the night with ‘Yeah’ a track from ‘The Rubbergum’ EP, all four members acting as front men. Their harmonies are glorious and judging by crowd reaction they are gaining a decent following. The band perform their brand of alt Rock flawlessly with tracks like ‘A Night In A Box’ and ‘The Betrayal’, getting the crowd more involved.
There’s not much chatting from the band. Barri-James O’Neill, mumbling into the mic, thanking the crowd for coming to see them before saying he was too tired to express his emotions. Bad move, it feels now they are just following a paint by numbers approach.
There’s nothing wrong with their music, they know what they are good at and they vary what they do. I’ve never heard accordion sound as good as on ‘Beautiful Girl, Beautiful World’. Hamish Fingland takes over lead vocals for ‘Secret Takes A Lie’, while ‘I Don”t Know’ is an upbeat catchy number with the potential of being a future single. ‘
Best reaction is for ‘Stray Cat’, the audience singing and clapping along from the first bass-like guitar notes. Its catchy ‘Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba’ making it instantly singalong-able. The crowd loved it. The band then play ‘Take Another Ride’, a track with a catchy chorus, a little too down tempo after ‘Stray Cat’ though.
The band leave the stage to a slightly muted response but with some calls for ‘One More Tune’. The house music comes on. Kassidy were barely on stage for 45 minutes. Left a little cold after this one, I expected more.
