Pineapple / Blue @ The Bistro, Rhyl

(review by neil crud)

‘He’s got a pineapple on his head, he’s got a pineapple on his head.’ Whether Paul Claxton’s dreadlocks are intented to resemble the exotic fruit is open to debate, but the tunes are certainly exotic enough.
‘They’re tight as fuck.’ Exclaimed Fatman Slim. And so they should be considering the number of gigs these 3 boys have done, but they should also be playing bigger places (full disrespect to The Bistro) as they’ve been around long enough, are still young enough & are talented enough to be a bigger band (a 4 piece!).
I saw the aptitude within Claxton many years ago when he was the frontman / guitarist he is now, but in Florescent Wetdream – who were around in those heady PSST days in Rhyl.
So a bigger than average crowd remembered the high points, particularly Pineapple’s ability to throw in a token cover version, minced up, grunged up & spat out, indie-fied; Lionel Richie‘s shite Hello ballad was played the way it should’ve been the first time, as was A-HA’s Take Me On.
BLUE also had a bash at the cabaret bit doing Pink Floyd‘s Predictably Numb, but played to the letter, a lesson from Pineapple wouldn’t go a miss.  The name drew up the anticipation of a rockabilly band in my Stella Artois poisoned mind for some reason, so when I was faced  with a progressive type genre I was pleasantly surprised
OK, these lads are barely out of school, they still had acne on their unstubbled cheeks & braces on their teeth, it was only their 2nd gig, they weren’t ‘tight as fuck’ & they weren’t loud enough.  But I sensed a spark, the ideas within the songs show the promise of better things to come & I would like to say that I may have witnessed the dawning of a new era.  Bold words for a 5 piece band who are still eating rusks for breakfast & aren’t particularly brilliant at choosing a name for themselves (if they’d have called themselves Gammon, we could have had Gammon & Pineapple tonight, fnarr fnarr) – however in years to come you’ll be able to say you read it here first.
Both Fatman & myself woke up (not together) with the most vicious of hangovers the following day which was only shook off by drinking again on the way to watch Wales be taught a footballing lesson by the Italians. (A COLD JASON LEE)