Hold Steady - Dublin Castle, London, 18/1/2008

  by John Clarkson

published: 16 / 2 / 2008

intro

On a Friday have been garnering a reputation over the last few months for their strong stage presence and for having the same original name as Radiohead. Sarah Maybank watches them play an inflammatory set at the Dublin Castle in London

The hair! The riffs! The attitude! The monochrome duds! The Hives? Nope. It’s On a Friday – or YouTube’s most hated if you tot up all the anger-posts from psychotic uber-fans getting all proprietorial over Radiohead’s original name. The one they had back in 1986. Twenty-two years ago. Sad. Not that these boys care, mind. They’re way too busy catching fire in Camden. On the night the celebrity-studded borough goes up in £30million-worth of flames, Dublin Castle involuntary gets its own ensuite blast furnace, thanks to On a Friday igniting all over its tiny stage. OaF (note to band, acronyms can destroy careers) are all about the rocket propellant power of pure noise tempered with the knowledge that you have to keep it catchy to get the girls in. It works – there’s a bunch of them pogo-ing at the front. Their vocalist rides the power riffs with a combination of puppy fat earnestness and ‘Jack Flash’-era Mick Jagger-swagger – and boasting the calibre of self-belief that’ll earn him millions as a motivational speaker if the band thing all goes hideously wrong. There’s something about the song writing that’s excessively in awe of Linkin Park, and that could get up sniffier critics’ noses. But on pure, wild-eyed Pele Lundquist energy alone, the Fridays deserve their day in the sun.