Pete and the Pirates at the Camden Barfly - 9th October 2007

For a few months now, friends and opinionated acquaintances have been telling me to listen to Pete and the Pirates. I didn’t manage to find their EP in any record shops though and I couldn’t listen online due to my temperamental internet being about as reliable as British weather. So when finding myself in Camden and hearing about the Pirates playing a small single release show at the Barfly, I couldn’t resist finding out what all the fuss was about.

Pete and the Pirates play perky, fun, folk inspired indie, vocally they add charming Englishness, taking clear inspiration from bands like the Smiths and the Cure. The atmosphere was relaxed and good natured, it was evident the band are enjoying their rise in popularity by the huge grins they wearing and exchange of banter with the audience and each other. It was refreshing too, to see that there was none of the rock star egotism that is becoming common in the British indie scene.

The Pirates kicked off the nights festivities with ‘Disko’, appropriately named with it’s disco influenced funky guitar line and shameless eighties drum beats, it got the crowd in full swing straight from the get go. ‘Come On Feet’, was a delightfully quaint pop song with bouncy guitars and sing-a-long harmonies. ‘Think Twice’ made us do exactly that, skipping between slow, romantic soft guitar strumming, made sweeter with vocalist Tommy Sanders adding a touch of tambourine, keeping us quiet until bouncing unpredictably into fast, raucous indie, dance mayhem.

The new single ‘Knots’ went down incredibly impressively, with the bands faithful singing along to every word, even though the track is being released next week. It takes definite inspiration from experimental indie bands, such as Interpol, using a lo-fi sound to make it sound of lower production, with whimsical melodies over it to give us a glimpse of what contemporary indie would have sounded like if it was released in the seventies.

If I ever manage to get my internet working I will definitely be downloading all I can find from these pirates, I recommend you see them now on the club circuit before this secret treasure of a band is thrust into the mainstream.

Further Listening:
www.myspace.com/peteandthepirates
‘Wait. Stop. Begin.’ is out now on Stolen Recordings. (2007)