I saw Tapes ‘n Tapes last year in The Village, and they were ok. Pretty good. They played the songs and left. But I liked the songs (I still really like their debut album ‘The Loon’). On Tuesday night in Tripod it was more of the same from the Minneapolitans.
I’m not entirely enamoured with their new album ‘Walk It Off’, it has it moments, but overall I think it is weaker than the first one. As a result, the set seemed somewhat diluted in terms of quality. Nevertheless, they played a decent set, with the highlight being a good rendition of ‘Insistor’, directly followed by latest single ‘Hang Them All’.
There was something missing though. It just didn’t seem big enough for me. The charm of many T’n'T songs for me is their ability to twist mellow verses into loud, epic choruses. This was exemplified by ‘10 Gallon Ascots’ on ‘The Loon’, and seems to be a recurring theme. For me, ‘10 Gallon Ascots’ was the most disappointing song of the night, as the supposed epic choruses sounded thin and lightweight. I don’t know, either a new sound engineer or new distortion pedals are needed.
I guess I’m nit-picking, but it’s always disappointing when a band doesn’t seem to do its recordings justice in a live setting. Other gripes included the lack of an encore (again) and the ridiculous Budweiser monopoly at the bar. The only beverages on draught at all these Bud-sponsored gigs are Bud, Guinness and Cashels - all served in cheap plastic glasses. (Or ‘plastics’, as they will be called when I’m in charge).
As for the support acts - Sons & Daughters were unconvincing. Poor sound again seemed to detract (the vocals were indecipherable (though that may just have been the Glasgow accents)). I saw them in around 2003, supporting Franz Ferdinand in The Ambassador, and I don’t remember exactly how that went, but they seemed like a completely different band on Tuesday - more like a band on a victory lap than a band trying to win my affection. The lead singer was wearing short shorts and a dress/top with her back hanging out. Maybe she was over for a hen night.
Port O’Brien were actually very good. They made lots of (good) noise, and mixed it up with some folkie ballads. They put in a lot of energy, and were quite amusing between songs, in a stoned, Californian kind of way - canvassing opinion on the Lisbon Treaty, and generally thinking out loud. Frontman Van Pierszalowski reminded me of a young Terry Bolea. We also bumped into some of them on Aungier St afterwards, and my exclamation of “Hey! It’s Port O’Brien!” seemed to make their evening.
Ireland, like a toddler, needs to be told what’s good for it, and gently spanked every now and then. If you were to allow toddlers to be democratic and rule the country, we’d soon all be eating 
l be excused from P.E. classes to monitor the consoles (preferably Sega Mega Drives), and be on hand to take manual control in case of an unlikely emergency. These ‘Junior Auxiliary Inspectors’ will be issued train-driver’s hats and blue uniforms. All trains will run exactly on time, with 100% efficiency. Redundant ex-train drivers will be re-trained to do something else, possibly to manufacture hats.
