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Gig Review
Standard Fare / Mexican Kids At Home / shedboatshedd The Grapes, Sheffield
Article written by
Matt H - Jul 14, 2009
Standard Fare - weekend first more like
It’s difficult in Sheffield. There’s almost too much going on. So it’s a shame rather than a surprise that such a decent line-up only draw a few of us to the tiny top room of the Grapes on a balmy Sunday evening.
Shedboatshedd are a singer-songwriterly tag team, two-fresh-faced young men taking turns to sing their gently earnest, well crafted acoustic ballads.
The ramshackle but accomplished Mexican Kids at Home use a collection of toy box instruments to create tumbledown, whimsical tales of small town life. Their jerrybuilt pop is rather lovelier than you’d expect from a bunch of Clowne-based skateboarders it's bursting with slightly faltering tunes and life and thoroughly entertaining with it.
Standard Fare too play toe-tapping pop tunes, though with more of an electric jangle. Their songs are less jaunty but shot through with an affecting wistful heartbreak. Rewarding of repeated listening, I doubt I’ll hear a better set of indiepop tunes all year.
With a few more people there might have been a bit of dancing and a bit more of a feel of an event. But even so, as a way of passing a lazy summer’s Sunday evening, watching three highly talented, young bands do their mightily impressive and enjoyable thing would’ve taken some beating.