Finding Albert/One Last Secret/Little Fire - Nice and Sleazy - 14/9/12 (Glasgow)

Every city has a legendary music bar.

Or did have.

Over the last few years many have fallen in the war involving the coffee shop franchise and the state of the art glass bedecked office block.

Progress apparently marches on in its all consuming effort to tear individuality out of our cities, and most of us can see that with one failed battle after another the war is being lost.

However hanging in there defiantly is Nice and Sleazy in Glasgow.

It's a bit grotty, it's a bit sad looking, but hey, that's what it's supposed to look like.

If a venue doesn't carry the battle scars of a thousand plus gigs then it's hasn't really earned its spurs.

Sleazy's has though, and God bless them for fighting the good fight.

It downstairs in the bowels of the bar that I find myself tonight.

The main draw is Finding Albert who suitably impressed at the Wickerman festival, and who I've been keen to have a second bite at.

Before them they have management mates 'One Last Secret' playing in support and a personal friend of my own who goes by the name of Little Fire.

He's up first, and while his approach to the gig is as professional as I would expect my heart could break for him.

It's pretty much glaringly obvious that the early birds in attendance aren't really into the spirit of the night.

None of this is a reflection on his talents, but it must be soul crushingly difficult to try and connect with an audience who are feeling the magnetic draw of the bar and would rather go along with it than give five minutes of their time to an artist.

It's the worst aspect of opening up a gig.

I've lost count of the times I have seen acts who deserve to be headlining their own gigs struggling to maintain any sort of attention from an audience who are only interested in one act on the bill.

It's not just in club sized venues this happens either.

Goldhawks (where are they now) who supported The Courteeners in the 02 Academy played a set that blew me away in front of a crowd of thousands who stood chatting loudly to each other with some occasionally casting a solitary glance in their direction as they rocked out.

Similarly Little Fire played an exceptionally entertaining set that rally did deserve far more attention that it got.

If the effort to promote passion and soul in a song was rewarded financially then he would be a rich man.

It's possible that I have seen Little Fire perform more than any other artist in the last three years, and I've yet to feel that nudge of familiarity breeding an sort of contempt.

His ability to shade his own original material by changing the tempo, or the inflection of how he delivers the lyrics, maintains a great deal of freshness to each performance.

'Ten ways' in particular sounded very fresh due to the slightly different approach.

The addition of a few new songs that I've personally never heard before was for me the stereotypical icing on the cake of the performance.

In short it was another excellent set that served to confirm that Little Fire is going somewhere, even if others haven't picked up on that yet.

Unfortunately One Last Secret, who had a solid following of friends and family in attendance, dropped the ball for me.

There's a great deal of talent involved in the band.

In fact I couldn't negatively comment on their musicianship or how they presented themselves.

It's more a personal taste thing on my part

I guess just didn't feel a connection with the material, and when I moved towards wrapping my head around one song they would jump to the next with that then having little to do with the last.

I felt ultimately dissatisfied by being wrong footed each time they moved from one song in their set to the next.

This is really where my lack of enthusiasm for the band comes from.

There's no musical thread to them that I could hang onto.

While every song is played well they are each rooted musically in a different genre, and while I would celebrate eclecticism in a bands material I would still say that there has to be something of them weaving its way through all the songs.

A good band who who I really can't get a handle on.

Finding Albert are undoubtedly the stars of the night.

From the moment that the band kick their set off it's very obvious that this is a stadium act in the making.

A band who are just killing time on the small stage of Sleazy's until the rest of the world catch up to how good they are.

Their slot on the main stage at the Wickerman festival was very obviously well earned and it would be a shock to my system if they didn't progress to the point of being a household name.

Finding Albert could be the band who follow on from Biffy Clyro into the major leagues.

Yes. I did just say that.

While there are plenty of fantastic bands playing every single week all over Scotland, and many of them deserve to grab themselves some success, it's also true that of them all there are the crème who have that extra something.

That something that screams that stardom beckons.

This doesn't mean that it is guaranteed, but if they do make the leap the band will certainly have no problem in delivering what is required to grab some solid attention and keep it.

Even when they are one man down, as they were during this performance, four fifths of them still manage to display enough talent to impress even the most jaded music fan.

They are the well oiled music machine that just keeps giving.

Intuitively linked to each other to the point that they live and breath their material the set verges on being flawless, but not that shiny clean flawlessness that lacks passion, but instead flawless in that they do cover every base including that of having some fire in their belly.

It's difficult to express what I mean because I keep wanting to name bands like Muse and Coldplay to illustrate their stadium credentials, but at the same time I can appreciate that for everyone who would be impressed with drawing that comparisons there would be those who would consider it a turn off.

So how about I say that if Coldplay and Muse lost all the attributes that draw a degree of loathing from people - that annoyance factor - then what you would have is Finding Albert.

As they neared the end of their performance it was becoming apparent that even those who hadn't initially came to the gig to see them had been won over, and virtually everyone was keen to freely show their appreciation with calls for an encore.

With there set list plundered it was an impromptu version of Blurs 'Charmless Man' that would finish the night, and finish it on a high.

Finding Albert have certainly got my seal of approval.
(Kelly Conway)

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