Life on the road can be a hard slog when you are a relatively new band trying to make your mark on the world. Portsmouth-based rockers Brave Rival know all about this from their five-year career, and today, that is amply illustrated by their ten-and-a-half-hour journey from their home town to Newcastle for this show.
Brave Rival
The Cluny, Newcastle – 06 September 2024
Words: Ian Sutherland
Photography: Michael Burgess
It is more van lag than jet lag they have to deal with at this point in their career, but this resilient, dedicated bunch of rockers soon put the memory of their long journey behind them.
Opener Blame The Voices shows how confident they have become, the band entering the stage one by one and the sound building through drums, bass and guitar before their dual frontwomen add in the voices to create a remarkably full sound.
Their new album, Fight Or Flight, has been received hugely well by both critics and their growing fan base. When singer Lindsey Bonnick declared that they were going to play this whole album tonight, there were cheers all around.
Debut album, Life Machine, was a great start, and their follow-up is a progression from that, their growing maturity as writers and players allowing them to add more depth and complexities to their sound.
Seventeen is a swirl of nostalgia and insistent riffing and harmony, while Bad Choices is an irreverent anthem to parts of our lives that everyone can relate to and a big, bouncing crowd-pleaser to boot.
Crowd-pleasing is Brave Rival’s stock in trade. Getting on the road only works if you are a good live act, but the secret of this band is that they are a bloody great live act. The music might not be reinventing the wheel, but taking some blues rock influences, spicing them up with great writing and playing, and then adding unique full-on dual lead harmony vocals is a winning combination in itself.
The secret sauce is the onstage chemistry, all the band members constantly having fun with each other and the crowd. They have that likeable quality that makes a crowd want to enjoy them, want to join in and want to cheer and applaud like mad things at the end of every song.
This is absolutely obvious on groovy anthems like Five Years On and old favourite Guilty Love but you can see it on the slower tunes too. I thought they dropped the atmospheric Stars Upon My Scars quite early in the set, but when guitarist Ed Clarke got his big moment with a spellbinding solo, the audience was enthralled with his playing and just exploded with appreciation at the end.
There was no need to worry that Ed would not be in the spotlight again. A feature of this new set seems to be that he gets to be front and centre a lot. Insane had more terrific playing and All I Can Think About had more and was just pretty special all around.
Some bands may see it as brave to close a set with a song from their latest release, but in Heavy, Brave Rival have a song that kind of sums up their onstage sound. A measured and classy rhythm section from drummer Donna Peters and bassist Billy Dedman, tasty embellishments from Mr Clarke’s guitar and topped with heartfelt vocals from Ms Bonnick and Chloe Josephine.
When the ladies out front belt out those harmonies over the memorable hook lines, that may just be the Brave Rival sound in a nutshell.
An encore was inevitable and the changes and complexities of Sink Or Swim showed their versatility and made for a poignant and thoughtful end to a triumphant night.
I have been lucky over the years to see bands early in their careers and follow them as they grow and grow and go on to bigger success and bigger venues. I think Brave Rival are going to join this list over the next few years.
Catch them in the smaller halls while you can. They will not be there for too long. Simply magnificent.
