Matchbox Romance - Brixton Academy, London, 29/9/2006

  by Daniel Cressey

published: 22 / 10 / 2006

intro

Daniel Cressey watches American punks Matchbook Romance play a safe set to a largelly early adolescent audience at London's Brixton Academy

Matchbook Romance are treading a fine line at them moment. On the one hand they are walking the US punk, we rock Brixton, you wouldn’t want your daughter bringing us home line. On the other, they’re too damn polite by half. It is the latter that seems to have hamstrung them tonight. Admittedly you would probably feel a bit foolish swearing and inciting to violence a crowd who have an average age of over 15 only due to attendant journalists and bar staff. There is still a lack of any real aggression or danger from this performance. You want to scream "Stop saying thank you to us and fucking make some noise." Occasionally signs of something interesting come through, such as on the slightly-eyrie, slightly-different 'Monsters'. And in their favour the appallingly short timeslot allotted means as soon as the band looks like they might be getting into their stride they are unceremoniously hauled off. Still, if Matchbook Romance want to be more than a my-first-punk-band they need to be a lot more angry.

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