Bank Holiday with the Backfire boys

Captain Backfire played The Thack South Milford last Monday (5th May) at a fairly well attended gig. They played what seemed a tight Acoustic set consisting of mainly covers with a few of their own songs thrown in. The sounds levels of this part of the set were balanced but could have been louder as people could be heard talking over the band.
The second set they played was full band and didn’t seem to go so well. ‘How Much it Hurts’ seemed to be at a lower tempo to usual, and ‘Loose Change’ was so fast it lost its funk. The audience did seem to enjoy themselves however and joined in with the songs when required. Also forcing the band to play ‘Good Friday’ as they had decided to play it only on request, the singing as they returned for an encore planned only to contain a cover of Jemeriquies ‘Canned Heat’ did just that.
The band had a lot of energy and seemed up for the gig but just didn’t seem tight or well rehearsed, which after the performance of the week before was a disappointment.

Captain Backfire – Manchester Battle of the Bands Final Jabez Clegg 27/04/08

Although the band only finished fourth out of five this was one of the best shows I have ever seen them put on. Encouraged by the fans who had traveled to support them the band seemed to feed off the crowed and use the energy in the room to lift the performance to another level.
A well rehearsed set, starting with ‘Blue Room’ consisting of the usual numbers and ending with ‘I’ll Be Waiting’, sounded tight and all the band members were on top of their game. Everyone was giving it their all and it showed, Eddie and Chris in the rhythm section sounded as if they couldn’t have been blown apart by a nuclear bomb, the guitars were interchanging with the smoothness of silk, the solos really showing what Reece and Richard are capable of whilst fitting tastefully with the rest of the track, Greg on trumpet was on fire and especially picked out by the judges for praise. Singer Joe seemed to get some strange comments about his ‘lack of edge’ although its had to see how you can have ‘edge’ singing to the laid back style of music the band play. Personally I though his stage presence was dominating, it seemed as if the crowed was in the palm of his hand. His voice sounded as good as it ever has.
The crowd, having been told stop chanting the bands name in the bar downstairs, were in full voice chanting as the band took to the stage, singing and dancing throughout the set, and cheering the judges’ comments.
On the night I do think the best band (Leeds based funk band 16 Days) won and the level of competition was high, but it seemed a little strange that the other bands finished exactly in the order they played.
Check Captain Backfire out at The Thack South Milford on Bank Holiday Monday (5th May) and look out for videos of the Manchester performance appearing on youtube in the next few days.