It Bites - London, September 26th 2008

It Bites

Plus support: Touchstone


Friday September 26th 2008 - Islington Acadamy London


Fg Awsome!

..as someone in the audience so eloquently put it..at the top of his voice, only weakened by at least 90 minutes of singing along, and roaring his appreciation..

Anyone who ever believed that It Bites would be nothing without St Frank at the helm, would have been eating their words after the performance I've just seen. ....But more of that in a moment.

It Bites are currently on a UK tour to promote their sparkling new album 'The Tall Ships' and opening up for them, on a number of those dates is Touchstone. At the Islington Acadamy tonight Touchstone had the crowd eating from their hand, with a brilliant performance. I'd seen them before supporting Tinyfish, and had been very impressed by their powerfull and melodic music. At the time I had felt that there should have been a little more 'light and shade' in their music, but tonight their set, which did include some personal favorites of mine (including the superb 'Discordant Dreams') meandered through many musical twists, turns and changes of mood and tempo. They played a well structured and paced set, headed by singer Kim Seviour, who put in a fine lead performance as well as some great harmonies with keyboardist Rob Cottingham. They left the stage to calls for 'more' It was the start of a very good evening.

It Bites were on form. They played with the confidence, charisma and energy that had defined their performances in the mid to late 80's. John Mitchel may have been nervous trying to fill Franks boots, but if he was it didn't show. His vocals were strong, his lead guitar work was superb; lending his own style and approach to the old songs, to great effect. Former bassist Dick Nolan has also left the band, only to be replaced by Take Thats former bass player!!! A fact that John M couldn't help but mention, to his sheepish bandmates mild amusement. The whole band, especially John M, seemed quite overwhelemed by the audience reaction to both the old and new songs. They were clearly as happy to be there as the audience was. Twice he stood looking at the crowd and simply said 'Glorious!' As you would expect of It Bites, the sound was superb; Bob Daltons drums coming across with the same crisp clarity and depth that had won me over back in 1987 on the 'Big lad in the windmill' tour.

The crowd sung and roared itself hoarse, and It Bites delivered a set comprised mostly of old material, which although I was very happy about, they probaby should have played some more new material. They opened with 'Oh my God' from the new album, and also played 'Ghosts' 'The Wind that shakes the Barley' and 'Great Disasters' These new songs are classic It Bites, written with live performance in mind; strong vocal harmonies, tight powerful rhythms, heavy riffs, and contrasting ambience from the keys. It's a wonderful brew!

There were a few surprises. As well as an acoustic rendition of the intro to 'Once around the world' and 'Still too young to remember' They attached the 'glorious' outro to 'Once around the world' to 'Calling all the heroes' as the encore. It was a very stirring end to an excellent set, which alongside the new classics, included:

Screaming on the Beaches
All in Red
Midnight
Old man and the Angel
You'll never get to Heaven
Plastic Dreamer
Kiss like Judas

Thankyou It Bites! It's great to have you back!

It Bites Official website

It Bites MySpace

Touchstone official website










Edited by Blacksword - September 28 2008 at 06:54

Hi Tommy!

I'm glad someone responded to my review! I was so pumped up about this gig. Best gig I've been to in along time.

I really like the new album. They certainly seleceted the right tracks to do live.

sigod wrote: Fantastic review as always sir. It felt like being there in person. I only wish I had been!

Cheers Simon. Next time they play we must go. It's all coming back to me just how much of a fanboy I was back in the day..

If you haven't already, check out the new album. Really good stuff.

Their comeback album is quite good, alhough a bit ear-candy at times. John Mitchell performs a good job on vocals, and has a very different style from Frank Dunnery (much in the vein of Neal Morse). Kino was probably a trigger to this reunion.