WILLE AND THE BANDITS | LIVE REVIEW
Moon Club, Cardiff, Tue 24 Oct
There’s one thing that elevates a band from pub combo to professional outfit and that is confidence – and Wille And The Bandits have it by the bucketful. These guys know what they’re doing and to say they do it well would be an understatement. Their latest recording, Steal, is a stunning album full of lilting guitars, haunting undertones, and vocals that blend with the music rather than compete for attention. The Cornish trio have the balance right on CD but could they recreate the complexity onstage? The answer is a most definite yes.
On that small and oddly-shaped Moon Club platform, with the ceiling almost touching their heads, The Bandits took the audience from hard rock to blues and onto rock’n’roll via heavy classical and a touch of Indian folk. Guitars and gadgetry outnumbered musicians threefold, frontman Wille Edwards switching between flat slide guitar and acoustic with ease. This is a band that makes playing music seem as simple as buttering bread. Edwards’ complex guitar solos come across as effortless, likewise Andrew Naumann and Matthew Brooks’ drum and bass rhythms. Many songs are longer than your average single and tracks such as Scared Of The Sun go through many musical phases. The all-acoustic Mammon was ruined by the loud chatter of several audience members but this didn’t put the laidback surfer dudes off their stride and they carried on upping the ante.
It’s been eight years since the band formed and toured England in van – a time recollected in their song Living Free – and now they are about to embark on a tour of Australia. But to these cool chaps it’s all in a day’s work and they could probably do it with their eyes closed. You have to be pretty self-assured in your art to end a set with a 15-minute instrumental – the fabulous Angel (written in memory of Edward’s mother) overflows with emotion and has no need for words. If the mark of good music is whether or not it elevates the listener, then Tuesday night’s performance certainly hit its target.
words LYNDA NASH