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FROM LEEDS, WITH LOVE

Your Vegas & Pigeon Detectives : Bowery Ballroom

4/7/2008

“We’re The Pigeon Detectives from Leeds, you’ve probably never heard of that - or us”. A strange claim by singer Matt Bowman considering they quickly sold out The Mercury Lounge and were subsequently upgraded to The Bowery Ballroom.

Any of you who had tickets to the cancelled Happy Mondays NYC gig last year also missed an opportunity to see these northerners as the support band.
Since then the PD’s have played all the festivals back home and survived to finally arrive at their debut gig in NY.

The band took the stage to the sound of helicopter blades - a la 'Morning Glory' - all very eerie. When the lights finally came up, the ‘Tecs were stood there looking well zipped up in their outdoor coats. They dove right into ‘I Found Out’, and it wasn’t long before the jackets were off, and so was the gig, straight into 5th gear.

To say Matt is a bundle of youthful energy would be an understatement. He impressively managed to avoid knocking out any of his four band mates who wisely stayed rooted to their designated spots. If they could bottle that energy, I think Red Bull would have some serious competition on their hands.

In between bouts of throwing and swinging his mic around, bottles of water were strategically lobbed to him from the wings. Most of said beverage ended up over his curly locks or over the crowd, as did the empties.
“You can sell them on ebay tomorrow”, he suggested, although I doubt they’ll fetch as much as Britney’s hair.

The band breathlessly tore through their debut album ‘Wait For Me’ which contains a slew of hits including, ‘I’m Not Sorry’ and ‘Take Her Back’. The Album is rife with anthem-like chants and tongue-in-cheek lyrics, similar to The Fratellis in that sense.
It probably won’t be long before these songs are adapted for the various terraces up and down the U.K., which is no small complement.

The boys were recently nominated for ‘best new band’ in this year’s NME awards, (narrowly missing out to The Enemy) and It’s easy to see why.
Not just by the music, but also by the overwhelming energy they projected. Matt persistently encouraged the crowd to bounce and sing along, and there was no shortage of takers.

Endearing himself to his record company, Bowman told everyone,
“We’ve been the Pigeon Detectives and these have all been songs off our album. You can’t buy it over here yet, but you can get it on iTunes, or just download it for free somewhere”. With that suspect advice he stage-dived into the moshers and called it a night.

A stomper of an evening with two great bands, and all for a tenner. You’ve got to love that.

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