Electric Picnic 2011 - O Emperor
Crawdaddy Stage, Sunday 4th September, 2.00pm
Describe in a Tweet: Very enjoyable, even if they don't reinvent the wheel.
What happened: We're pleasantly surprised. There's a sizeable crowd this early on in the day - clearly revellers are committed enough to wake from their slumber after the demands of the previous night to see the Waterford band. You can see the attraction: dreamy delayed guitar lines and plenty of hooks to keep us intrigued, with a sound that borrows from Wilco and Bends-era Radiohead. For the most part it sounds excellent and the tracks are well sculpted, providing plenty of guitar noodling for this set. There's just the right amount of polish on each track and it's a shining example to other Irish acts as to how professional they can really sound if they put their minds to it. This reviewer may not be as familiar as they would like to be with O Emperor's debut album but on the basis of this performance it deserves to be heard.
Different Class: Modern Dance is a lovely track to finish on but Don Quixote is a superb piece of songwriting, rising and falling as that clean lead guitar comes to the forefront during the chorus much to our delight.
I Don't Like Mondays: There are one or two dull moments during the set but for the most part it's hard to fault.
EP rating: 7/10
Comments Post your comment