Peace/Superfood

Edinburgh Electric Circus, April 17.

At the start of 2013, there was much hope from certain sections that 2013 would see a return to guitar-based music (witness the fawning adoration laid at the door of Palma Violets, if you can have missed it). I’m no longer of an age where I perceive it as guitar fans vs. pop music, but in the (very subjective) view of good vs. bad music. Peace have had a lot of bigging-up from the media, their debut album In Love has been hailed by the music press and the album debuted in the top 20. The gig is either sold out or pretty close, and it’s packed to the rafters. Largely by people young enough to be my children…

Superfood have, according to my research, built up a profile in their hometown of Birmingham and are yet to sign to anyone. Peace reportedly have a bandcrush on them, but the problem is that there’s precious little to get excited about them on tonight’s showing at least. Within five minutes, my +1 for the night has decided that a) their bass player is cute (she is) and b) that the singer’s hairline is receeding (inclined to agree). The music is just more indie-by-numbers. Sorry guys (and gal) I don’t care who your celeb fans are, you’re going to have to try harder than this.

The crowd goes mental when Peace walk on, and it becomes pretty clear that despite the ‘no crowd-surfing’ signs up, there are some people in here who are just not going to listen. To the uninitiated, Peace are 90s influenced (the opening track on their debut is called ‘Higher Than The Sun’) and my +1 and I agree in the car on the way home that there’s definitely a Pink Floyd meets Libertines thing going on here as well.

I’m not so completely au fait with the debut as yet, but listening to it again afterwards I think I hear more originality on the album than I do live. For the moment. There’s not necessarily a huge amount of substance – but maybe there doesn’t need to be. Hearing the crowd singing along with ‘Float Forever’ it suggests that are very definitely breaking through and making an impact. They can write anthems, and if they can make a crowd behave like this, it’s clear that the next time they come to Scotland they will be able to play far bigger venues than The Arches or The Electric Circus (no, I’m not slagging those venues, just pointing out that they are on an upward curve).

Songs like ‘Toxic’ and ‘Scumbag’ hit the spot, too, and if the +1 isn’t won over, there’s plenty of folk who are…