British India

British India are a band I have been hearing bits and pieces about, but other than thinking that they had a cool name and hearing a few tunes on Triple J, I hadn’t heard as much as I would have liked. What's the best way to see if a band is worth their salt? Check out them being put through their paces in a live show. By the same token, gigs are always better when you already know the songs, so whenever possible I always try to get hold of some kind of recording when possible. The night before the show I picked up their debut ‘Guillotine’. I listened to it non-stop, I even put it on repeat at work the night of the show.

Their debut sounds so polished, yet somehow raw, so I was interested to see if they could improve on this impressive sound in a live setting. These guys received the biggest reception that I have ever seen at The James Hotel. These young guys seemed unfazed by all this. Looking as cool as a constantly touring rock band of ten years, these guys had plenty of swagger about them. The intoxicated viewers at the front were absolutely loving the raw power that these boys were putting into their performance, while those at the back looked equally pleased. Interestingly in the middle their was a large group of people (mostly girls) dancing to their songs. Isn’t that what rock music is all about?

I was very pleased to see that the vocals were turned up after a few bars and for the entire gig we could hear every word that lead singer Declan Melia sang. He had an incredible energy to his voice that really impressed me and got the crowd really going. Ripping through their whole debut album and one non-abum song that was so simple lyrically that everyone sang along, British India were an impressive act. Guillotine almost feels like a best-of album so it didn’t seem like any ‘album-tracks’ were played at all.

Tracks that really got the punters going included the furious ‘Russian Roulette’ and ‘Run The Red Light’, the brilliant single ‘Tie Up My Hands’ and the finale song of the encore ‘Black and White Radio’.

As I was not drinking I was standing minding my own business for the start of the concert, but with those drinking around me getting into it so much combined with the high energy rock’n’roll from the stage I couldn’t help getting into it and dancing. By the end of the gig, myself and about fifty other people up the front were dripping in their own and other peoples’ sweat.

British India were a quality live act and put on a show that deserves to see them recognised by the music public of Australia.

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