Red Rum Club at The Engine Rooms on 15.3.2024 with The Bankes Brothers supporting.
Looks like Red Rum Club have jumped up a level and that is great to see. Two and a half years since a recommendation led us (wife Sally is a big fan) to CD purchases and a small gig in Exeter Cavern, Red Rum Club (RRC) have a top ten album and are selling out larger venues like the Engine Rooms tonight.
Western Approaches is the fourth studio album for the band, there’s also an album of acoustic sessions. This is our fourth time seeing them – other gigs feature in my previous Red Rum Club blog. (Venue blog of the Engine Rooms here.)
But first, support band The Bankes Brothers. When we rock up to the queue for the doors opening at 7pm, there’s a guy chatting over the barrier to some bods in the queue from Canada, soon joined by another happy Canadian and these are the Bankes brothers, the two brothers at the heart of the band.
I got here early to make sure I caught their set – I’d been impressed by what I’d heard on Spotify. It’s apparent from their exuberant chat that this is the last date of their support slots with RRC. They’ve flown over from their hometown of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada with baggage stuffed with cables, pedals and merch; guitars as carry-on luggage, then borrowed amps and a drum kit, before setting off on a dream trip.
“Have you been to Greggs yet?” Shouts one fellow countryman. “YEAH! Three times!” We gasp. My wife intervenes to apologise for Britain’s much loved calorific food retailer
They are clearly appreciative of RRC’s role in their lucky spring break, outside with the queue and on stage. Later, Francis Doran, RRC’s frontman explains how they played in Victoria to ’20 or so’ people and afterwards went up the street to an Irish bar, packed with a few hundred people enjoying The Bankes Brothers. They invited them over to play in the UK, for just a few hundred quid a night.
They’re an indie rock/pop band but there are some folky bits in there – vocals remind me of Jake Bugg – and I think this five piece have a great future…surely. Their set is well received, amid a notable volume of Friday night babble from the rear of the venue. I captured this one which is saved on my YouTube channel: See Me Run. (Photos not much cop I’m afraid.)
Red Rum Club
Most of the new Western Approach album is on show tonight and my standout picks would be Houdini and Hole in my Home, which comes later in the set. There always appears to be an urgency in the songs, trying to get the story out – lead singer Fran singing like he’s a storyteller – so expressive.
The newer tracks still mostly have the trumpet playing as the essential ingredient that gives the band its unique style. So many tracks are lifted by the trumpet’s rallying call. The venue and sound tonight accommodates that brass element much better than more confined spaces I have seen them in.
Lead singer Fran thanks everyone for buying the album, ‘spending 10 quid or so’ on a CD, a few pounds on a download, to make them happy people with their top ten album. (We have two CDs and a signed vinyl LP in our house due to a some over enthusiasm and under communication, so that must have helped!)
He mentions a call from Elton John to the band to congratulate them, and talk about himself and their home city of Liverpool. Fran even waved his phone about to show the pics. This the big time… well it’s getting there.
There are still some older, more familiar gems to enjoy though: just one from the previous 2021 album How to Steal the World I think and that is Vibrate – you still don’t get that many songs featuring mobile phone use. Another cracker, captured on video here, from tonight, is the singalong and leap about opportunity brought by Kids Addicted – that really gets the crowd bouncing. (Grey-haired gig goer YouTube link.)
It’s an early start/early finish gig this one and the main set is over by 9.30pm. They return, unavoidably, for a duet first, then another older favourite, Eleanor.
Lastly Fran asks if we’re ready for the Hoo Ha song… big cheers and the opening bars of Would You Rather Be Lonely, and the big ‘Hoo Ha’ chant at the beginning.
Lovely to see this energetic and original band getting somewhere. Where next?
Gigs with Ivan 