So, we’ve nearly made it through the longest 25 days in the most boring month of the year, and at last, tonight is the official start of the 2024 gig year. This brings us to the recently reopened and refurbished Arts Club, which is a real boon to the local live scene.
The promoter for the gig, the Liverpool institution that is Evol, has a real knack for finding the best new bands around, especially those from Ireland, and it’s one of them we have to look forward to tonight, The Clockworks, fresh from the release of their critically acclaimed debut record, Exit Strategy.
This is the second night of a pretty huge tour of the UK and Europe which runs until the end of April, so this seems the perfect time to catch them before the touring ennui inevitably sets in.
But it’s not just one international bright young thing that we see tonight, a quick word about Nixer, who are the main support for the first handful of the dates.
Their sound is essentially a disco Enola Gay, with all-thrashing squelchy synths and beats aplenty with a powerful lyrical message and it’s so easy to see why they’re perfect for warm-up duties. However, big message to bands playing Liverpool, don’t wear football scarves unless you want to alienate half your crowd straight from the off.
Time is taken in-between bands to admire the venue’s new massive lighting rig which seems to be bigger than the actual stage. It makes a lovely change to see this venue in particular being invested in due to a recent takeover having been shut for a while after being, for want of a better phrase, run into the ground by the previous owners.
So, at 9:45, as the newly extended room has filled up very nicely, The Clockworks enter and kick into the beautifully evocative ‘Deaths And Entrances’.
It’s hard not to compare this opener to Rush Of Blood-era Coldplay, with lead singer James McGregor seated at the keyboards.
He’s not there long as they crash headlong into ‘Bills And Pills’ and ‘Mayday Mayday’ as the energy levels increase both on and off stage. The band seem a bit hesitant, possibly nervous, to begin with but a passionate ‘Car Song’ finds them hitting their stride.
As powerful as the album is on record, they manage to add another layer to proceedings live, as it goes on, then you already get the feeling that this set is going to hit so hard at this summer’s festivals.
The likes of older single ‘Feel So Real’ and ‘Advertise Me’ sound absolutely huge even in such a small room, and there’s a defiant fist pump from McGregor at the end of every one, acknowledging the crowds’ love for them with actions speaking louder than words.
It becomes clear that we are going to get the whole of Exit Strategy in order, which is understandable as it feels like the running order of the album was written specifically with the live stage in mind.
They already have a knowing swagger about them, a confidence in the songs, allowing them such flourishes as a short state of the nation spoken word piece ahead of the glorious ‘Modern City Living (All We Are)?’
Main set closer ‘Westway’, is as lovely as it is on record, and the response it inspires has the band looking genuinely moved by the reaction.
The ‘encore’ (they don’t bother going off and on again) is made up of a pair of pre-album singles, the immense ‘The Future Is Not What It Was’ and ‘Enough Is Never Enough’.
So that’s The Clockworks, triumphing in January. By April they are going to be an out of control snowball, juggernauting towards those outdoor slots and we’ll look back at tonight, thrilled that we were there at the start of their rise.
