Live Review – Films of Colour at Club NME, KOKO

UK indie-rock band Films of Colour are just a wee bit exciting (to say the least)…

Formed in 2008, they are just now registering on the muso radar, thanks mainly to their cover of David Bowie’s ‘Slow Burn,’ which has been fully endorsed by The White Duke himself, plus his legendary producer, Tony Visconti.

On Friday 2nd December Films of Colour played London’s iconic KOKO as part of Club NME alongside East London band Dexters and, as always, BBM was there to judge.

Like any good support act, their entrance onto the stage to entertain a bunch of VERY drunk first year university students was humble, with lead singer Andy Clutterbuck merely muttering a very Johnny Cash like, ‘Hi. We’re Films of Colour.’ However, the humility didn’t last long as the band launched into their first track, the rollicking ‘Creature of Habit,’ whose high octane riffs had the teeny boppers rolling in the aisles with rock and roll joy.

It was obvious lead guitarist James Hatcher was having a bloody good time jumping all over the stage while hitting those power chords. At one point, as he was kneeling, hunched over his guitar it looked like he was channeling Hendrix and chewing up those strings – he wasn’t, but it looked good, all the same.

The band brought out ‘Slow Burn’ in the middle of the set, which definitely sounds a lot better live than it does on youtube where it comes across as a bit of an indie yawn fest. In-fact, it is fair to say that Films of Colour are generally a damn good live band. Despite most of the audience being there for Dexters, they really had the crowd going, which was definitely helped by the fact the boys clearly love their own music.

The middle of the set felt a little underwhelming compared to their opening track and as the final song, ‘Persinette’ was rolled out, the mid range instrumentals and slightly downbeat vocals were disappointing. That was, until they went into overdrive – Andy, James, drummer James Rees-Flynn and bassist Jack Allinson all went absolutely MENTAL as the volume and the energy was turned up in a November Rain-esque ending to their set that had the crowd jumping all over each other. It was GREAT.

While most of Friday’s crowd might have a bit of trouble recalling Films of Colour, they’re definitely sticking in the memories of plenty of others including the Guardian and The Independent newspapers, both of whom labelled the band ‘one to watch.’ With their cover of ‘Slow Burn’ on release from 5th December and a US tour planned for 2012 the band are certainly busy, and if their performance here is anything to go by, they’re going to get a lot busier.

By Rebecca Jones
Twitter: @RebeccaEJones