Jaws The Shark are responsible for one of this year’s, and it’s been a particularly strong year for them, best debut albums, in the shape of Wasteland, and in support of the album, tonight is the first of a handful of UK/EU dates. It’s one of those rarest of records where any of the songs on it could be singles; it’s a high quality set of songs.
Pre-gig, we are promised most of the album as well as some of his earlier material (of which there is plenty so it’s set to be a good ‘un), especially as the Kazimier Stockroom is probably the best small venue in the city, there’s always a good sound and not a bad spec in there.
The support tonight is from Bones, a seemingly brand new band (judging by their terrified looking nature on stage and the amount of friends and family they’ve brought). They are a lesson in not judging a book by its cover. The current prevailing wind would usually see four lads playing relatively cutesy indie-pop, but these seem set on hitting that little bit of harder. We get a Turnstile cover, one that they call ‘a silly song’ (that’s actually quite ace) about a monkey, ending with their one already released track ‘Fight Club’ and this is all very promising stuff.
Although, they later commit one of those gig annoyances, support bands should not stand and talk whilst the main band are on. It’s very rude and they won’t like it when it inevitably happens to them.
And whilst we are getting our bug-bears out of the way before the main band review, tonight is yet another crushing indictment of the Liverpool ‘music scene.’ There’s been so many column inches written about ‘grass roots’ this and ‘support your local venue rather than going to see Oasis’ that, but unless you’re Jamie Webster, Deacon Blue or one of the handful of beloved local bands that have made it big, then you’ve got no chance of getting yourself a crowd in, especially if you’re a touring band from outside the area. And people still don’t understand why loads of acts prefer Manchester to here.
Moan over.
At 8:50, the two members that make up JTS live (on record it’s usually Olly Bailey as a solo artist, although he formed a three-piece to record the album) take to the stage to great applause before roaring into ‘Suff City’, before a slight pause for guitar problems. And then there’s a big old pause as the guitar packs in altogether. Hopefully, they’ve got all their technical problems out of the way on night one.
During the following ‘Demon Dream’, Bailey sinks to his knees as if to release the ghosts in the machine (they were only temporarily flustered; the guitar and bass are flawless after that), the two-piece creating a racket with a built in drummer playing out through a complex looking laptop set-up, making as much noise as if they had a live one.
‘Got It Made’ is the first of the Wasteland tracks tonight and Bailey looks delighted to “Play some old ones and some new ones, which we’ve never been able to do before.” ‘Summer Puddle’ hits much harder and grungier than on record, even so it loses none of its recorded nuances, neither does Lately with all its ahh-ahhh’s still intact, the orchestral flashes in ‘Rejoice And Pray’ (which is making it’s live debut this evening) and a smouldering ‘Last Train To Santa Fe’.
‘Destroy The World’ (their collab with Dinosaur Pile-Up) sounds gloriously fierce live, the Royal Blood-flavoured ‘Reno’ and a crowd singalong to ‘Silver Sun’ sees both band and audience really start to enjoy proceedings and it’s testament to their already big back-catalogue that the chat on the way home is as much about the ones they didn’t play (no ‘Wasteland’, ‘Just Popping Out For Forever’, or even ‘Andy Gray’!?) as the ones they did.
Closer ‘California’ sees Bailey come offstage halfway, mic stand in hand, to finish the song in the crowd, and there’s a sense of relief and achievement that they got it done. More than that, they given us an hour’s masterclass of rocky pop, all energy, catchiness and singalongs. If you’ve not got involved with Jaws the Shark already, then do it now. They genuinely are one of 2024’s (and future years) finest.
(Photo: Cheryl Doherty)
