Turin Brakes ProfileAfter a decent wait, Caitlin Park strode up to the mic, letting out jibs and jabs of low hums. Her deep, deep vibrato pulsated around the room, interspaced with sound clips from ye olde time films that Park layered beneath her acoustics and heady vocals. Confident but without taking herself too seriously, Park even engaged in a little chat tease with the crowd – deciding to christen some poor chap near the front Ronald, “'cause you kinda look like a Ronald”, before breaking out into a barely recognisable cover of New York, New York. By the time Park wrapped up, the ex-pat heavy crowd (You sound like you're from London!) was practically frothing at the mouth with anticipation to hear from their hometown lads.
The break may have been long (ten years), but the love for Turin Brakes' Olly Knights and Gale Paridjanian was as strong as ever. No time for hellos, the boys flew straight into their set, with Knights' voice as characteristically smooth as ever, drawing in and silencing the rowdy crowd and evoking a hipster-heavy army of mimers and head nodders.
“You might know this one, it's from an album we did called Dark On Fire” – cue screams and cue the band launching into the achingly brilliant Stalker, before snowballing into a series of tunes to keep the faithful happy such as Feeling Oblivion and Painkiller. Knights' vocals were even more perfect than on record, while the dutiful Paridjanian kept his eyes on the road and played the shit out of his electro-acoustic, leaving Knights to absorb the spotlight.
Turin Brakes have never really enjoyed the same sort of recognition from other bands in the nouveau acoustic movement which is a damn shame, because these boys know how to intoxicate a crowd and give back the love to all those loyal Brakers – what more could any fan ask for?
