Stepping into Anvil in Lansdowne, the holy grail of Bournemouth metal for bromance, intimacy and modern 80’s stylised songs seemed to make no sense but that’s exactly where We Broke Free were on Friday and what a great night it was. Starting the night were -You, who have been shaping their sound on the local uni party scene gaining a good following who were all here early for their jangly Johnny Marr influenced songs. For a debut gig as a band in a venue -You held their own playing a tight set keeping the crowd interested but inevitably it felt like they need a few more gigs to shape their sound fully. Watch this space, -You have the potential to build an army of followers through their guerrilla gigs. Will -You ever take the place of The Libertines as the kings of DIY indie, only time will tell!
After a short interval, it was time for pizza, quite literally with Pizzagirl charismatically hanging an inflatable pizza from his one-man synth set up. Pizzagirl had quite a following who he instantly brought to life throwing devil horns and making jokes about the metal venue and how he planned to ‘rock out’. Pizzagirl has just released his debut EP called ‘An Extended Play’ which he played in its entirety starting with ‘Favourite Song’ getting the crowd singing along to the catchy ‘do do do’ lyric. He chose to keep the tempo upbeat throughout literally bouncy as he sung and by his third song ‘Coffee Shop’ he had the whole crowd bouncing along with him. Pizzagirl is the kind of performer you see and think would be good to have a beer with which the We Broke Free team later found out was as much fun as we expected as he got up and MC’d with the Indie DJ at Buffalo Bar into the early hours. However, don’t take him for granted the talent taken to play rhythm guitar, whilst playing lead keyboard melodies and cueing samples and beats is remarkable to watch. Think 80s/90s electropop performed by a one-man flaming lips.
Her’s stepped out to an excited, warmed up crowd remarkably taking the energy up another notch. Stephen dressed in the nearest charity shop chic held the stage with consistent picked guitar and vocals whilst Audun flew around the stage with shockingly precise bass playing whilst dropping drum and synth patterns on the samplers. As a large framed Norwegian Audun looked like a black dressed version of Pacman’s ghost wearing flowing robes, it was as weird and captivating as the image you have in your head. 80s was the consistent theme between these 2 acts but Her’s experiment with elements of dream-pop and melancholic tones in the vocals. Her’s have honed their performance with their theme of bromance guiding the crowd teaching them dance moves they called ‘team building exercises’ which connected the crowd to follow in rhythmic clapping later in the set as well as crowd surfing a cardboard cut-out Piers Brosnan. For a 2 piece with the energy of a full band and song writing to go with it We Broke Free look forward to Audun and Stephen flying up the charts with their album to be released this summer.
