Next Stop Atlanta – Fuel Rock Club, Cardiff 23/06/13

Kicking off this Sunday night gig were Port Talbot’s With Best Intentions (7/10), obviously a young band, which showed a little in the nervous stage presence, but I thought the songs sounded pretty good and I’m defintiely gonna look into them a bit more.

I am a big fan of Bridges (8.5/10), their ‘Colour The Sky’ EP is a favourite of mine and they are always great live and tonight was no exception.

Songs like ‘We’re Not Your Enemies’ and ‘Stick To Your Guns’ work really well live, with singer Ross Dixon handling the soaring melodies with ease.

The band sounded great and put in a tight performance, the song ‘Voices’ was particularly excellent. Ross has a great manner with the crowd with lots of banter back and forth in between the songs. They also played a new song, which sounded top notch and definitely a sign of great things to come from this band.

Fresh from a performance at this years Download festival, This was The Afterparty (8/10) first ever time in Wales and they definitely made it count, putting on a high energy show, packed with catchy, full-on rock tunes.

We covered this band last year (Introducing….The Afterparty) and I am defintiely a fan of their crunching, melodic tunes like ‘So Much To Say’ and ‘How To Let Go’ from last years ‘Restless’ EP and live, the band really bring it.

They finished the show with current single/video ‘Liar, Liar’, a fantastic track, The video of which you can watch below. The Afterparty are definitely a band you need to check out when they return to Cardiff in July.

This was also Next Stop Atlanta’s (9/10) first show in Cardiff and hopefuly wont be the last, I’m a big fan of this band, first featuring them on the site back in 2011 and both the bands EP’s are regulars on my iPod.

They kicked off the show with ‘Get In The Van’, one of the stand out tracks from last years ‘The Things You Do Best’ EP, singer Georgia is a constant blur of movement and energy and had absolutely no problems hitting the notes.

This was the fourth night into the tour and it showed, the band were tight as hell and sounded spot on, with bass player Blake really going for it, drummer Rob hammering his kit and Guitarist Nik riffing like a motherfucker, the band definitely pack a hell of a punch live.

‘Perfection’ is one of my favourite Next Stop Atlanta song’s and was excellent live, Nik and Georgia’s harmonies were bang on.

The band played a few new tracks, all of which were brilliant and got me very excited for the album they will be recording later on this year.

One of the new tracks, called ‘Home’. sounded especially good, with a huge, bouncing, infectious chorus.

They ended the show with a slamming version of ‘I’m Not Morrissey’ which had many crowd members singing the chorus and the ‘Step It Up, Step It Up’ refrain.

This was a great gig from a hardworking band who are definitely worth checking out, if you haven’t already.

facebook.com/nextstopatlanta 

facebook.com/theafterpartyo… 

facebook.com/bridgesband 

https://www.facebook.com/WBIband

Photo’s kindly supplied by Tiegan Neary – http://tiegansphotography.co.uk/

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