Hundred Reasons + Johnny Foreigner @ Birmingham Academy 2 – 29th March 2009
Hundred Reasons at The Academy? It’s 2003 all over again!
Up first for me tonight was Birmingham’s very own Johnny Foreigner, and there was a fair amount of local support in the crowd for them, including a few mums and dads as well I think. I know nothing about them, and I don’t even recall hearing their name around, but it has been a long time since I’ve been to Snobs, so that might explain it. Hanging around in Snobs might also explain their style of mid-90’s indie – not what I was expecting to be supporting Hundred Reasons…
I’m not going to be making any friends by saying that I simply didn’t like this three piece – their songs sounded dated, and lead singer Alexei Berrow talked far too much between tracks – this may have been down to a sense of chatting to friends in the audience, but it really disrupted the (very little) flow of their set. At one point he explains that “most of these songs were written about what happened on The Academy dance floor”, which might explain why Ramshackle ended up dying an epic death.
Finally Hundred Reasons take the stage and the venue’s turned into a sweat box. The venue is in it’s “small” configuration, so once you’re in the room, there’s not a lot of room to move about. Unfortunately for HR, it’s also not sold out, but it doesn’t look too bad – maybe about 300 / 350 punters here to see them.
The band storm the stage and kick straight into set opener “I’ll Never Know”, from their last album “Quick The Word, Sharp The Action” – an album that was poorly promoted when it came out in October 2007 due to their record label being taken less than a month later. The album is getting a re-release on April 13th 2009 – I wish them better luck this time.
Tonight, they play songs from all four of their albums, but the ones that seem to go down best are those from their debut release, including “I’ll Find You”, “Dissolve” and “Shine”. The biggest letdown tonight was the sound – usually, the sound for headlining acts in this venue is awesome, but tonight, in the search for more volume (it’s probably the loudest gig I’ve heard in this small venue) the sound has suffered, and that’s spoiled for me.
A particular highlight for me was 2002’s “Falter” – the whole crowd singing the part that departed guitarist Paul Townsend sang.
This was a tough gig to review, as the band were far from awful, but also far from awesome. They were simply average, but I couldn’t tell you why. Sunday night gig? Bad sound? Poor choice of support? Oh well, there’s always next time.
Set List:
I’ll Never Know ****
I’ll Find You*
Dissolve*
Feed The Fire***
The Perfect Gift***
Kill Your Own***
Shine*
Soapbox Rally
Oratorio*
Stalemate
Live Fast, Die Ugly***
Slipping Away****
My Sympathy**
What You Get**
What Thought Did*
Falter*
Silver*
Encore:
No Way Back****
Remmus
If I Could*
* 2002’s “Ideas Above Our Station”
** 2004’s “Shatterproof Is Not A Challenge”
*** 2006’s “Kill Your Own”
**** 2007’s “Quick The Word, Sharp The Action”
Review – Tony Hackett
Photos – Lucy Pryor