Live Review - Gary Go / VV Brown (Wedgewood Rooms)

I do like going to gigs, I do x

First published on mintsouth.com in Mar 2009
Words - Suzy Sims
Editor - Rob Ball
(c) mintsouth

GARY GO / V.V. BROWN @ WEDGEWOOD ROOMS 22/03/2009

It’s a little quiet in the Wedgewood Rooms tonight. There’s plenty of room to stand wherever you darn well like, no queue at the bar. Although it’s pleasantly airy, it also makes the atmosphere empty. Most people are standing in small groups a fair way back from the stage. It can’t be easy interacting with an audience some distance away.

Unless you’re with VV Brown and her crew, that is, who come breezing onto the stage, all casual smiles. The bassist is enthusiastically urging everyone to clap and no-one wants to disappoint. Their cheerful, glitter Motown pop gets the crowd not exactly dancing, as everyone’s a bit self-conscious and sober for that, but quietly enjoying themselves. With the retro pop and spot-on voice, VV Brown is like a fresh Amy Winehouse, only much, much less scary.

Every song they play is a little iced gem of pop and they all sound like potentially massive singles. “Do you want some fun?” VV laughs after one particularly intense track about her ex boyfriend, “who was a complete arsehole.” Southsea does want some fun indeed, and everyone makes appreciative whoops and feels that little bit brighter.

It can’t be easy following an act of that quality, and Gary Go certainly does not have it easy. A few ladies walk past me, loudly discussing how they were only here for VV Brown but they might stay a bit longer, and a few people disappear during the early part of the set when it becomes apparent he’s not a disco monster.

This is a real shame, because those with musical blinkers were missing some enjoyable pop rock. It’s mature (a friend described it as Radio 2’s acceptable sound of British singer-songwriting) and also gives a wonderfully pleasant feeling that everything’s going to be ok.

The tracks don’t make as immediate impressions as the previous act’s but they are intensely played and full of beautiful melodies which leave you uplifted and slightly exhausted, along the epic pop melodrama lines of Athlete et al. Gary’s a confident front man but his vulnerability comes out in his songs which is quite endearing, and the people who stayed seemed really captivated by the music.

It must be hard being a reasonably little-known act starting a new tour on a Sunday night when very few people know your songs. However I’m pretty sure that in a few months time, people will regret not seeing VV Brown and Gary Go in small venues when they had the chance.

www.myspace.com/vvbrown
www.myspace.com/garygo