Live Review: Sticky Fingers, Will & The People

15 April 2016 | 3:06 pm | Mick Radojkovic

"Shaggy dos and facial hair underlie retro attire and a cheeky attitude."

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London-based band Will & The People fuse grunge, reggae and pop together into a joyous stage show. The young crowd seemed to enjoy the return to our shores of this four-piece whose songs were pretty safe, but fun. The band zipped through a swift set including a cover of 9pm (Till I Come) and The Lion Sleeps Tonight before kicking into finale, Lion In The Morning Sun.

Sticky Fingers are an interesting band. It seems that people either really, really love them, or are a bit 'meh' over them. Falling into the latter basket, we were determined to give them a red-hot go tonight.

The all ages crowd who frothed over the DJ set, including a cringe-worthy singalong of Hey Baby, were primed for the stoner-reggae-party-rock of The Stickys. They're a hard band to decipher — definitely not taking themselves too seriously; shaggy dos and facial hair underlie retro attire and a cheeky attitude.

Kicking off with Land Of Pleasure, the title track from their 2014 album, the crowd were pumping. It seemed inexplicable then, that they moved on to These Girls for their second song. Its sparse delivery really highlights the struggle that this band seems to have in flowing between tracks.

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They ripped through a fun set, brought out their regular extra member, Jimmy Young, from Bootleg Rascal who seemed to just hang out for a few tracks and bounced between old (no Caress Your Soul?) and new songs, which prompted bassist Paddy Cornwall to declare as "..not fucking bad, hey?". They ended the main set with the very local, Australia Street, Cornwall endearingly pointing out that he used to walk past the Theatre on the way to school.

The set went fast for such a laid-back group and they played well, but was it enough to convert us to the 'love' group? Not quite. Would we love to party with them afterwards? Yes.