Polar Bear Club / The Lock and Keys

Polar Bear Club / The Lock and Keys: live in Leedslive in Leeds (2009)
live show

Reviewer Rating: 4

Contributed by: wearestillalivewearestillalive
(others by this writer | submit your own)
Published on March 10th 2009Oh, the vagaries of the UK Railway Network. Its unreliability was the cause of a great deal of pain last Sunday night: missed connections, missed meetings, missed opening bands. We arrived in the attic of Leeds Cockpit nearly an hour after the doors opened, just as the first band, Beasts, were f.

Oh, the vagaries of the UK Railway Network. Its unreliability was the cause of a great deal of pain last Sunday night: missed connections, missed meetings, missed opening bands.

We arrived in the attic of Leeds Cockpit nearly an hour after the doors opened, just as the first band, Beasts, were finishing up their set. The three songs I caught were punishingly loud and heavy hardcore jams with just a hint of a metallic edge, most of which were about anger. Vaguely reminiscent of Botch and other UK acts like Your Demise, I stood and cursed the train for making me miss most of a band that I will definitely be looking out for in the future.

After grabbing a pint that was surprisingly reasonably priced, we headed back upstairs to watch the Lock and Keys. After getting over my initial disappointment that they weren't Lock & Key, an old Deep Elm band who had probably split up long ago anyway, I started to enjoy their slightly sloppy and wholly unoriginal brand of thrashy pop-punk, with songs about getting drunk and stuff. Annoyingly, there was a girl with a microkorg on the corner of the stage, adding irrelevant synth parts to each song, whereas a second guitar would have really fleshed out their sound.

As Polar Bear Club began setting up, the crowd surged forwards, and the long and usually boring process of changing over instruments was made endlessly more interesting by an incredibly drunk sound guy who did his job perfectly, but kept shouting about the Gaslight Anthem and sexual innuendos involving drums whilst I entertained myself by creating a ranking order of who was wearing the best T-shirt. I went for Dag Nasty in first place, with Sundowner, Lemuria and Lifetime battling it for second.

As soon as they started playing, with the thick, pounding intro of "Eat Dinner, Bury the Dog and Run," the crowd was hooked, yelling along with every word, fists in the air, feet on the stage, grabbing for the mic, swallowing me up along with them in a wave of positive aggression. Singer Jimmy Stadt patrolled the front of the stage, with the moves of Adam Lazzara and the voice of someone twice his size (and endlessly better than Lazzara, I might add), inviting everyone to join him as the rest of the band powered through a flawless set with barely a pause.

Halfway through, they gave me a shock with a perfect cover of "Ten Minutes" which, having never seen the Get Up Kids, rates as one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. Being a show full of UK punks born in the late `80s and early `90s with similar frustrations, the place understandably went completely insane for about three minutes.

The show reached its peak, however, towards the end with "Burned Out in a Jar" as an increasingly sweaty crowd gathered together to sing along with the intro before the Club took us through their last few numbers with more and more energy, inspiring crowdsurfers to spring up from nowhere.

As with all the best shows, it was over too fast. After being denied an encore, the crowd headed downstairs to the merch table before spilling out in to the street, a happy mess of punk rock kids heading back to the uncertainty of the trains.

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Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not respon sible for them in any way. Seriously.

evildeadalive (March 15, 2009)

I prefer concert reviews without setlists. Ruins the surprise, and sometimes they won't play a song you were expecting giving you a bit of a let down...

SilentStorms (March 13, 2009)

Is this a review or a picture show? I'd vote for the latter. I don't care what they look like or what they're doing, unless they're jumping around or bleeding because the singer walked into the bassist. Score is for the review.

damnitsderek (March 11, 2009)

In all honesty, I didn't know all of pbc's material well enough to recognise every song they played by name.

That's cool. At least you got to see them live, which will be forever jealous for until they come to the Pacific Northwest.

Blackjaw_x (March 11, 2009)

Thanks, icapped2pac.

icapped2pac (March 11, 2009)

Hey, in case any of you fellow fans don't know already, Chris Browne (guitar) made some "solo" material a while back. Jimmy does vocals on 2 out of 3 songs, and other people fill in elsewhere. They're fantastic songs and deserve more exposure.

http://www.myspace.com/chrisbrownetown

cantinflas (March 11, 2009)

can't wait till they start the west coast leg of their tour. so glad to have been recently introduced to these guys.

wearestillalive (March 11, 2009)

In all honesty, I didn't know all of pbc's material well enough to recognise every song they played by name.

xote (March 10, 2009)

Who the fuck cares about the set list.

Sometimes yet one sometimes you don't.

Deal with it.

damo (March 10, 2009)

good to see a yorkshire gig reviewed

dint go as not keen on PBC

chrisafi (March 10, 2009)

I meant remembering all the songs in order obviously.

Whats the point of a setlist without any order? Not much.

Blackjaw_x (March 10, 2009)

Boston's Lock And Key only finally broke up last year, after releasing a fantastic 14 song final album.

God some people are so far out of the loop, I... ugh.

Also, what do you get out of reading what songs were played at a show you weren't at? WGAS? (That's "Who gives a shit?", it's new. It's mine. Nah, it's lame, that's the first and last time I'll use it).

damnitsderek (March 10, 2009)

So because you're having a great time at a show, that makes it impossible to remember what songs were played? When I go to shows, I generally have a fantastic time and am still able to remember most of the songs played, albeit not in order.

If you think it's seriously THAT difficult to remember the songs performed by the main act from a show you were at no more than a day or two ago, then I'm shocked because it's quite simple to do so.

mikexdude (March 10, 2009)

"Asshole factor at current Have Heart shows really is not all that bad. I think the Trapped Under Ice set is something you don't want to be caught up in any way shape or form unless you get stoked on shirtless dudes and clumsy sounding mid-`90s NYHC"

Trapped Under Ice only had one asshole in the crowd when I saw them.

inagreendase (March 10, 2009)

I wish PBC wasn't touring with Have Heart when they get back. There's a show I don't want to get caught up in.

Asshole factor at current Have Heart shows really is not all that bad. I think the Trapped Under Ice set is something you don't want to be caught up in any way shape or form unless you get stoked on shirtless dudes and clumsy sounding mid-`90s NYHC.

Nonetheless, I wish that tour was coming within an hour and change of me.

ConsolationPrizefighter (March 10, 2009)

I wish PBC wasn't touring with Have Heart when they get back. There's a show I don't want to get caught up in.

And if the reviewer checks this out, Boston's Lock and Key did break up, I think almost two years ago now.

chrisafi (March 10, 2009)

Seriously.

When I review gigs I don't know what the setlist is because I'm way too busy having a good time to write it down as they play it; even so that would require organisation which is so not teh punx

To 'request' a setlist as standard is unnecessary; most bands you can predict 75% of it easily and any surprises (e.g. Get Up Kid Covers) will get mentioned in the review anyway!

Fool

mikexdude (March 10, 2009)

I got a boner like four times reading this review. Great pictures. These guys are my favorite guitar players ever; they have incredible sense of melody, rhythmn and chord usage.

LIUHLTDTGKNBghjfgcghnband is amazing.

Icapped2pac (March 10, 2009)

Don't insult Jimmy by comparing him to Lazzara. I'm pretty sure Adam ripped his moves from Geoff Rickly, which is a much less shameful comparison. I'm sure Geoff got his from someone else too though.

damnitsderek (March 10, 2009)

When you read about a show that raves about how good it is, it's frustrating to only see two or three of the songs mentioned. Also, if the tour is going your way, it can be advantageous to have an idea of what selection of songs will be played.

ven89 (March 10, 2009)

Why is a setlist necessary?

damnitsderek (March 10, 2009)

Once again, I'm going to mention how there should be a requirement for setlists from the main act. If you're going to review a show on here, it's the least you could do.

deadelectromix (March 10, 2009)

mikexdude.

24HourPriapism (March 10, 2009)

way to not really review the show but review the t-shirts of the people in the crowd. awesome.

inagreendase (March 10, 2009)

Good photos. My redundant list linking the last three looks pretty stupid. Oh well.

Archangel (March 10, 2009)

I cringed at least four times during this review.