Wednesday 13/07/05 Dogs, The Violets, Red Letter Suit @ The Cluny, Newcastle

July 14, 2005 by James Horrox

Many of you have experienced it - seeing a support band upstage the main act in a ground-breakingly spectacular fashion. The stunning Red Letter Suit are one of those bands. Their vocalist (female, and, for the time being, nameless) is truly captivating, head-banging like a crazy person and delivering a magnificent and beautiful avalanche of noise. For a spellbinding half hour the band unleash one blinding song after another, each brimming with strong melodies and catchy pop hooks underpinned by some ball-crunchingly heavy guitar-playing. Apart from some fool doing a piss-poor job of manning the sound desk, Red Letter Suit were outstanding. Somewhere between Fat Wreck Chords’ little darlings Tilt, and PJ Harvey (via The Subways and Sleater Kinney), this band are ****ing awesome and, with songs like theirs, deserve to be huge.

Next up The Violets. Tight, original, quirky, stylish, photogenic, they are all of these things. But enjoyable? This reviewer remembers with fondness a hernia operation from which he derived more enjoyment than he did the Violets’ set at the Cluny. This is a band who’ve obviously seen The White Stripes and thought “I’m ‘avin some of that”, except, amazingly, they manage to be even less entertaining than Jack and Meg. The Violets were put on this earth to epitomise the phrase “style over substance” and they make your ears hurt. And not in a good way.

Imagine Peter Cook playing Paul Kaye playing Rhys Iffans playing Liam Gallagher – give him a microphone and you’ve got Dogs' frontman Johnny Cooke. Even for those to whom ‘indie’ is a dirty word, Dogs are still a great live band. Cooke is the archetypal, post-Libertines rock n’ roll frontman, fag and bottle in hand, swaggering around the stage with all the cocksure arrogance of a man who knows his band are about to be ****ing massive, but doesn’t like to give the impression of being that bothered. New single 'Selfish Ways' is a cool song, nay, an excellent song, as are many of their other offerings tonight with the band clearly put 100% into their live set.

The twin aural assault from guitarists Rikki Mehta and Luciano Vargas conveys an infinitely more powerful and heavier sound than their studio work would suggest. Carving out great slabs of noise, dripping with vitriol and delivered with energy, passion and conviction, Mehta and Luciano pump out a sweat-soaked avalanche of riffage often bordering on Jetplane Landing-style progressive metal rather than the frequently bland, limp-wristed sound that seems to characterise most other indie bands.

The only problem is that after half an hour it all starts to blend into one, as it becomes clear that diversity is not, at this stage at least, on Dogs’ agenda.

But tonight was never going to be an easy gig for Dogs. Across town Oasis are playing their second sold-out date at the arena, and as a result the crowd is, shall we say, not a large one. In spite of this though, Dogs put up an admirable performance, and with the drive and ambition evident in their live set it shouldn’t be long before Dogs become a household name. But for many it was local band Red Letter Suit who stole the show, and no doubt those who witnessed this band’s performance tonight be flocking to see the band again soon to double check that it wasn’t all just some crazy dream.

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