31/1/2011
‘I Wanna Be Your Dog‘ style pounding riffs, eerily quiet Radiohead-like moments, lyrics with all the right intentions – what’s not to like? I Dream In Colour have been cut loose from their native land of Essex, playing to unknown crowds across Britain and beyond. Tonight they’ve made it to Liverpool for the first time, and with the show they’re about to play it’s certain they won’t find their van propped up with bricks afterwards.
Monday nights at Liverpool’s Mojo hold Club Lazy Genius, where indie acts can get up to prove to everyone just how indie they are. A wall of grinning Elvis‘ stare at you from the back of a makeshift stage as various nut-jobs with acoustic guitars serve as warm ups for the night. Everybody loves a freak show though – just look at how popular The X Factor is.
‘Ready to Go‘ makes an apt start, then climbs up into ‘Get Along‘, one of their catchiest singles and a stand-out track in the set. Already I Dream In Colour sound like a sweaty tattooed convict in comparison to feeble head liners The Skinny Boys. It really is a case of their triple distilled whiskey versus The Skinny Boys’ watered down Tesco Value special brew. ‘Hold on to Your Heart‘, however, is brimming with sweetness and serves as an example of how naturally the band can switch between light and shade. Previous to ‘Hold on to Your Heart‘, ‘Losing Touch‘ was not particularly attention grabbing, more like an unwanted pothole in the road, still it managed to hold its own.
I Dream In Colour are incredibly together as musicians, their timing is perfect and they rarely falter. Steve Daniels‘ bass lines smoothly wind around guitars, hugged warmly by Peter Judge‘s drums to produce a sturdy rhythm section. With approval from Rolling Stones‘ producer Chris Kimsey, “this band have something very special”, we have clearly only seen the tip of the iceberg in terms of the success I Dream In Colour have the potential to achieve. The details of their unreleased debut album are still steeped in secrecy, but high expectations have already surfaced within the music press on the back of ballsy live shows and strong single releases.
Singer-guitarist and sole songwriter Richard Judge commands the room, with the powerful voice of some undiscovered exotic bird and dance moves to match. ‘Fourteen‘ receives a passionate delivery, laced with pangs of frustration until the layers are stripped back to end on an almost whisper. ‘Finding the Courage‘ is the staple that marks the end of all their gigs, its fun and dancey and injected with a huge dose of energy. It’s incredibly hard to fight the urge to jump all over the place with this playing, an urge which the band themselves didn’t bother fighting at all.
I Dream In Colour undeniably blew away everything that came before and after them tonight, despite being out of their comfort zone. The Skinny Boys made a meek appearance which only drew attention to how greatly they had been outshone. I Dream In Colour should soon be out of seedy bars and on to big stages.
myspace.com/idreamincolourband
(Lydia Parry)
