Review of We Were Promised Jetpacks at Whelans on December 8th 2011
Review: Kev Meagher
I often wonder if the Scottish music scene mirrors our own, vibrant, varied and producing great acts just waiting to make an impact on a bigger stage. Over the past few years Scottish acts like Glasvegas and Biffy Clyro have found mainstream success, and it begs the question what other bands are just waiting to make it to that next level?
We Were Promised Jetpacks fit nicely into this category, fresh off the release of their second album ‘In the pit of the stomach’, the Edinburgh lads are looking to build on the success of their 2009 début album ‘These Four Walls’ which saw them play SXSW, tour the US with Jimmy Eat World and have songs feature on US Shows ‘Sons of Anarchy’ and ‘One Tree Hill’.
Hoping to see if they were ready for this step I made my way up to Whelans on what was probably the coldest Thursday night I remember, and it looked like the crowd inside agreed with me as they remained in their coats as the support act for the night, Bouts, did their best to warm them up. The Dublin four-piece were fighting a losing battle as their brand of guitar rock was not aided by an out of tune guitar and an indifferent audience, but showed enough for me to think that on another night they would have gone over well.
The crowd had thawed considerably as We Were Promised Jetpacks took to the stage, opening with ‘Circles and Squares’, the first track off the new album, and I was instantly impressed. Any fear I had of frontman Adam Thompson’s voice being lost in a live setting was immediately dismissed as his distinctive Scottish accent rose above the crash of drums and guitars.
After a few songs, Adam introduced the band and for someone with such a big voice was not only incredibly soft spoken but humble, not making a big deal of it and just wanting to get back to the songs. This is exactly what they did, running through a mix of new and old material including a stunning performance of ‘Sore Thumb’ before again very humbly thanking everyone for coming and saying that they had two more songs. True to their word they played two more, finishing with ‘It’s Thunder And It’s Lightening’, and left the stage. The crowd which may have been a bit reserved at the start all seemed massively disappointed for the night to end as the band seemed to impress everyone there.
But for me it seemed like the perfect way to end the night and told me all I need to know about the band, they just loved to play and doing a false ending/encore bit would have been an inconvenience, as would spending half the gig chatting to the crowd. Instead they got on stage and played the guts of two albums as hard and passionately as they could and the result was one of the best gigs I’ve been to in a long while. We need more bands that care less about posing on stage and more about the music they are playing.