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Gig Review

Wave Pictures
London, Battersea Arts Centre

Article written by Paul M - May 18, 2008

Wave Pictures

Battersea Arts Centre is a lovely old building with a grand staircase and ornate tiling. Like a few of these not for profit places it seems to be over endowed with under utilised staff. One fella is wandering around checking on the number of attendees, clicking on a little hand held counter. As there’s only a few dozen of us it strikes me that he could almost just as easily use his fingers and toes. Then there’s two girls doing the lighting, a sound engineer, bar staff, people on the door whose sole purpose is to point out where the bar is (it really isn’t that diffcult to find)… In fact there seems to be more staff around than punters, despite the event being free.

It’s my first visit for a gig having only previously been here to quaff warm ale at one of the regular beer festivals. Naturally the facial hair in evidence is significantly less on this occasion (though the band’s bassist, Franic Rozycki wouldn’t look out of place with an engraved pewter tankard pressed to his lips). The Wave Pictures have not played this venue before either and are probably slightly fazed by the fact that most of the audience are seated around tables. Being the only performers tonight, they take the opportunity to play an hour’s set and as always mix current and old material, never afraid to drop popular tracks (a young girl’s shouted request for them to finish with “the Marmalade song” is not granted), preferring obscure oldies or opportunities for David to show off his fretboard expertise. In fact there’s quite a few lead breaks tonight, meaning that three minute songs when recorded frequently hit seven or eight minutes here. Even though it’s probably not the band at their best and there’s occasional irritating feedback, their lo-fi take on country/folk, not a million miles from Jonathan Richman, is still wonderfully endearing and Tattersall is, as always, a delightful, engaging frontman. There are not many bands that you’d like to play all night but for me, right now, these are one of them.

Links:
http://www.thewavepictures.com/
http://www.myspace.com/thewavepictures

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