On Friday night, Bobbie and I went to see a band called Kassidy perform at the Perth Concert Hall (Horsecross) as part of the Perth Festival of the Arts. I have to admit, before I went I knew next to nothing about Kassidy apart from the information about them on the Horsecross website. So I was going to a gig thinking 'Scottish, hairy and cuddly' hmmmm...
To prepare myself I watched a couple of their songs on youtube, 'Oh My God' and 'I Don't Know' and to my relief I found I quite liked them! Bobbie, on the other hand was pretty much clueless. So when I rang her up to ask if she wanted to come to this gig with me, I was quite surprised to hear her say, "Yeah, sure,"
Then we both paused. What do you wear to a gig? In the end we just wore jeans and casual tops. I think we're lucky we both passed over the idea of 'dressy' clothing because we would have stuck out like two proverbial sore thumbs.
Not a lot of people turned up for the first support act, which was their loss because it was actually very good. I will have to phone up Horsecross sometime to double check, but I think the singer/songwriter was called Jaime and his friend whom he used to gig with in college was called Shaun. Their playing was pretty much flawless, and apart from the odd mumble into the microphone I couldn't understand, I really enjoyed listening to them.
The next support act were a band called Blindfold. They looked like a punk rock band straight out of the late 70's, complete with leather biker jackets. Bobbie and I actually saw the lead singer and one of the guitarists outside the Horsecross.
"Look! Biker people!" was Bobbie's immediate reaction. It all made sense though when they appeared on stage. As might be expected from their nonchalant swaggers, general appearance and the way they played with careless abandon, Blindfold owned the stage. The lead singer's screaming vocals, backed by the blasting electric guitars, thumping bass drum and keyboard, made for a thrilling performance. Bobbie and I don't normally even like that type of music, so maybe it was the way the drummer mimed to every lyric, or the seemingly drunk keyboard player - whatever it was, we liked them.
So, my thoughts for Kassidy after Blindfold's performance? They had better be nothing short of spectacular!
Kassidy's arrival on stage was accompanied by an explosion of strobe lights and red spotlights. All in all very dramatic. Then they started playing. All my doubts were immediately laid to rest. Every song they played was exciteing which is a difficult element to keep consistent in a performance, they made everything seem funny like when the keyboard player started on the wrong chord, and in a single gig, they became my new favourite band. But the thing I like best about Kassidy was not the standard at which they perform or even the way they seem so in sync with each other, it's the fact that their band seems so fair and inclusive to all it's members. Each member had a chance to sing lead vocals, and it's that sense of equality that I think will really take them places.
Because I also happen to be quite sly I managed to get a list of the songs Kassidy played at the gig. They are as follows...
- GetBY
- WAR
- Take Another Ride (my personal favourite)
- Waking Up Sideways
- That Old Song
- Home
- Oh My God
- Hunted
- I Don't Know
- Night In The Box
- One Man Army
- Stray Cat
- The Lost
- Traveller
- This Life is an Ocean
- Betrayal
Miss B xxxx
