Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
With over a 100 bands and groups making their way to Liverpool as part of the International Pop Overthrow, now its 11th year of coming to the city, you would expect some rather great acts to make their way to the forefront, gently guide you to some good tracks and times and leave you gasping hopefully for more. What you might not expect, especially in the city that gave pop music to the country if not Europe and beyond, was a for a group to make their way across from the sleepy city of Lincoln and give the type of performance that the bands that made Merseybeat would have said was the best way to thrill a crowd and then make that same audience wriggle with excitement at reliving those heady days.
The Popdogs were launching their debut album, Cool Cats For Pop Dogs, in this invigorating environment, having put it back to coincide with the I.P.O. and there really was no better place than The Cavern for it to be launched. Toe tapping, uplifting and magnificent. If that’s not enough then for those who sat and bounced through the set; the chatter that could be overheard from table to table and chair to chair was of how damned good James Strying on vocals, Tim McKeating on lead guitar and backing vocals, Phill Kay on rhythm guitar, Shaun Knibbs on bass and Martin Collins on drums. If a band has got the sheer audacity to take on Merseybeat at its own game, to sound as though those days of innocence and future experience were back big time then they deserve to hear people saying how good they are as an act.
The Popdogs ran through their set leaving sections of the audience breathless with anticipation for each new song that came bounding over the speakers. With tracks such as Kelly’s On, High Time, Last To New York, the fabulous Kissin’ Alicia and the excellent Queen Of The U.S.A. thrown into the set list, the group from Lincoln couldn’t go wrong at all.
As album launches go, one that was far from the group’s home city and in a place where great music is appreciated if performed well, this counts as a qualified success. The Popdogs are one of the hottest groups around, they sound great and the music, obviously and rightly so influenced by a special time in the U.K., well the music is top notch.
A distinctive pleasure!
Ian D. Hall