Thursday 10/11/05 Cagedbaby @ The Barfly, Liverpool

“Tumbleweed” whispers a slightly embarrassed yet defiant Tom Gandey into the microphone, looking half American trucker, half wholesome hippie. At its peak tonight we spotted seventeen heads in the sparsely packed Masque Theatre, at the gigs nadir there were just eight. For a man who’s produced such a great album as this summer’s ‘Will See You Know’ it’s a damn shame that Liverpool has forgot to turn up. Still, what does Mr Cagedbaby do? He offers his crate of beer to the audience – good man.

It’s difficult to tell whether tonight’s show lacked a bit of punch due to the fact that there was barely anyone here or just because Cagedbaby’s show was a tad uninspiring. In all honesty it was probably a bit of both. Tracks such as ’16 Lovers’ and ‘Disco Biscuit’ are put into the blender from their smoothly polished, dancey version on plastic and are given a rawer edge in the live arena thanks to a three man backing band. Top marks for not just looping recorded snippets of tracks, a la many dance acts around, but really the songs just lost some of their vitality they contain on record. Maybe if there was a pogoing mass spilling onto the stage buzzing their tits off it may all have been different but somehow tonight most of the reinterpretations were just a bit safe. Only the quite brilliant ‘Golden Triangle’ raised the pulse of proceedings.

A bit of a damp squib then for all concerned, even if it wasn’t particularly his fault, Gandey should keep his head up and plug away for his is a sound that deserves to be heard by more people. With a dream support tour coming up with the mighty Chemical Brothers, that surely ain’t a bad place to start?