Saturday, May 02, 2015

Live: Toy @ An Club (Athens, April 29, 2015)


Admittedly Wednesday is not the best day of the week for a night out at a rock club, but the few of us who decided to brave the midweek blues and head downtown at An Club for the Athens live debut of Toy enjoyed a fine night of psychedelic rock.
 
The Cave Children, live @ An Club (April 29th, 2015)
The night's entertainment started with a 40-minute performance by Athens-based psychedelic pop quartet The Cave Children. The band gave us a taste of their brand new debut album "Quasiland" which combines successfully '60s psychedelia with '90s Brit-pop influences. They obviously need to work on their stage performance, but their material is quite good, with memorable melodies and strong beats, so with a bit more work and experience they can make their presence felt at the local scene.


A little after eleven o'clock the small stage of An Club was filled by the five members of Brighton's Toy who kicked off their 70-minute set with the instrumental "Conductor", the lead track off their sophomore album "Join The Dots". The band started building up its momentum with loud guitar sound (actually a bit too loud, not allowing too much room for the vocals), distinct synth melodies and a motorik rhythm section which was adding krautrock touches to the psychedelic mix.


Actually the strongest and most memorable songs of the band are those which successfully blend psychpop guitar fuzz with krautrocking rhythms, so, at the end of the night when we were leaving the venue with our ears buzzing, it was tracks like "Motoring", "Kopter", "Join The Dots" and "It's Been So Long" that were still stuck in our brain, while some of the more meandering, down-tempo trips didn't leave a lasting impression. The intense finale, though, with an electrified version of "Join The Dots" was exactly what was needed to end this psychedelic night out on a high note.



Check out below Toy performing "It's Been So Long" from their Athens gig at An Club:


Toy, live @ An Club (Athens, April 29th, 2015)

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