Bear Driver Bull & Gate, London 15/12/10
4/5
By: Alex Lee Thomson
Mid December seemed a fitting time to be talking about, or at the very least thinking about, those acts which are going to blow your petticoat in 2011. The fine team behind the Camden Crawl have promised a show a month between now and the main event in May showcasing those new acts they hope will be blowing said petticoats skywards.
Playing with Wild Palms, The Slow Revolt and Tim Ten Yen, Bear Driver were the highlight of a mulled-wine sodden sundown, as their James meets Pavement fronted by Sideshow Mel antics thumped the underside of The Answering Machine, the innards of Dananananaykroyd, and rear-end of Los Campesinos!.
They sound great, taking it easy on stage but hurling their guitars over their shoulders and letting a few melodies run riot, really allowing themselves to make this an exceptional performance. They could quite happily be shoe-gaze, and you know it would work, but with some graceful impatience they make efforts to really engage, and celebrate their noticeable success with a smartly enlivening latter half of the set.
No time for their cover of ‘Walking In The Air’, which is a shame seeing as it’s probably the last live show most of the crowd would have seen before the Christmas holidays, but ‘Wolves’ and ‘Long Lost Giants’ certainly make up for it. If you’re still wanting that extra dose of cheer though, you can hear their version of The Snowman classic on their blog.
Artists in this article: Bear Driver
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