Review: Night Beats At The Grand Social

Smoke billowed from the front of the stage, as red lighting pierced through the evaporating mist. This was a serious foreboding of what was to come from the Seattle based trio Night Beats.

This was the psych-rock band's debut show in Ireland, promoting their upcoming third studio album, entitled 'Who Sold My Generation'.

The first two tracks were Fender foreplay, as the garage-soul group teased the crowd. By the third track, that essential missing ten percent of psychedelic rock oozed from each guitar, as the drums rampaged there way through a storming set.

"It's our first time in Ireland," the singer said sheepishly. He needn't have been so shy. Soon fans were being hoisted onto each other's shoulders, as they managed the tricky, swaying, balancing act of not wanting to face plant on the floor, while narrowly avoiding head trauma, from the low loft ceiling. With the red smoke swallowing the first 10 rows of fans, the wailing guitars encouraged reckless behaviour, it was pure psychedelic rock in motion.

The Dublin five-piece September Girls were the opening band at the Grand Social. Their sound encapsulates all the best elements of what made the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Dandy Warhols' Dandys Rule OK days, such an awesome, stop you dead in your tracks experience.

Their songs created a dark, brooding, enchanting, trancelike feeling in the venue, with a cacophony of guitars, an enchanting keyboard, and pounding drums. Certain tunes were laced with Moroccan and Arabic inspired sounds, that were, at times, hypnotic. Their driving sound encourages you to fall under the spell of this garage rock band

My only complaint is that they didn't have a chance to experiment with extending certain songs to 7 or 8 minutes, to really create a fever pitch feeling. Sarah, Jessie, Caoimhe, Paula, and Lauren will be wowing crowds across the Atlantic in March at largest music industry gathering on the planet, SXSW (South By Southwest). Hot Press looks forward to seeing them over there.

Sandwiched in the middle, were the Dublin-based duo Twinkranes. Their electronic, industrial sound gathered a lot of interest.

Though, there did seem to be trouble with the sound and volume decibels. However, maybe that's because their performance was so unflinching energetic.