Friday 10/03/06 Ludes, The Marshals @ The Barfly, Liverpool

Having only encountered The Marshals previously as the main support for The Automatic it is out of pure curiosity and the compulsion to seek out interesting new bands  that Gigwise arrives early tonight to catch their set. Escaping the awful weather, Gigwise finds ourselves in the dark yet comfortingly familiar surroundings of the Liverpool’s Barfly Loft.

The Dublin based Marshals are some of the nicest and most polite boys you are ever likely to encounter but after hearing about the booze fuelled ending to The Automatic tour in Cardiff the night before Gigwise isn’t expecting to much of tonight’s performance. However, they insistently reassure us that they play better when they’re hung-over! Their opening song ‘Sofia’ is performed to an crowd of no more than  twenty people, a predicament that continues for the entirety of their set. Yet, despite the small size of the audience they put their all into trying to impress their first Liverpool crowd. A result they successfully achieve with their catchy, bouncy brand of bluesy pop.

Good things have been said about Ludes, so Gigwise has high expectations about what we are about to witness. Thankfully, they come through and deliver a performance to be proud of. An eight song set and a small encore dazzle not only us but the crowd which seems to have gathered out of no-where. Opening with ‘Luckiest Theatre’ Ludes provide a surprising yet pleasurable mix of punk and jam, a concoction as odd sounding as red wine and cola but a hell of a lot nicer. Anthems such as ‘Are We There Yet?’ and ‘Dog Don’t Bark' make us dance like small children with utter excitement. So in reply to the question posed in their first song; ‘Will You Love Me When I Die?’ The answer is yes, yes we will.