Dawes

Manchester Academy 3  - 18/01/12

I'd seen Delta Spirit, I'd seen Deer Tick. So when I heard that the lead singers from those bands had formed a 'supergroup' called Middle Brother with their counterpart in a band called Dawes I guessed it would be a safe bet that his band would also tick the right boxes. They also seemed well connected, with members of Wilco and the Heartbreakers guesting on their records and they've backed Jackson Browne and Jonathan Wilson. Anyway, I had to go see them. The latest album, Nothing Is Wrong, was one of my favourites of last year.

The smallest room in the Manchester Academy right at the top of the building has plenty of space to spare. Curiously there are some small children in attendance, just next to us about six feet from the stage. The vintage analogue amplifiers, the Hammond organ and the lived-in guitars that are strewn across the stage look like they should belong to a band of grizzled veterans, and not some 20 somethings on one of their first tours of the UK. This is the clue to their music - country folk rock that smartens up the 70s California sound that seemed to come and go just as Joe Walsh joined The Eagles and everything lost its innocence.

They have a great energy about them. Taylor Goldsmith is an endearing front man, all smiles and not a little like The Boss as he lunges forward towards the edge of the stage with a low slung guitar. His voice is confident and full and the songs allow him plenty of space to express his careworn lyrics. The sound is unashamedly retro - a gorgeous Hammond swell fills out the guitar and drums - Griffin Goldsmith is quite a sight, feeling every beat with outrageous facial ticks, jumping from his stool at the merest brush on the snare - he also has a voice as good as his brother's and you can tell the two have harmonised since, well, birth.

They are having a great time and the chilly crowd warms up towards the end. The album opener  - 'Time Spent In Los Angeles' - closes the show and it's just a great, feel good song - deserving of an open Chevy and the Pacific in the background rather than the dingy brickwork of a student union in northern England. An incongrous encore of Paul Simon's 'Kodachrome' draws a line under a fine, fine gig.

I leave imagining how much better they'll be in a year or so's time. They are outstanding musicians who are bound to improve as they play to bigger crowds. For now, there is something endearing about the goofy stagecraft and the wall to wall smiles, the sheer pleasure in what they do.

Another trip back across the frozen Pennines, with those damn speed restrictions in place, zips past like we're roller skating past Venice beach (no, really).