Live Review: Red Rum Club & Cusp – Docks Academy, Grimsby
13/02/2023
It was another mid-week return to Docks Academy, our hometown venue that’s making all the noise at the minute, for another cracker of a gig and one last “Hoorrah” with Red Rum Club and Cusp.
Occasionally it’s a good thing to go into a gig slightly blind, this is what happened with Cusp! A band I knew very, very little about, but wow, how they would change that.
The band have a huge atmospheric sound that’s built for the big stages, so it’s no surprise that modern indie giants like DMA’s, Circa Waves and The Sherlocks have taken them on tour in the past. The tunes take you on an emotional roller coaster, from the jangly driven indie pop of ‘Crazy Money‘ the swaggering ‘Beside You‘ and to the more emotional but optimistic ‘She Said (Be Leaving)‘. It’s the 3rd time the band have played Grimsby, with frontman Dan Stock claiming that they came back to Docks Academy for the chicken wrap, in reference to the Mockingbird catering truck outside the venue.
During the set, Stock had to crouch down and wave his hand in front of a hypnotized person in the crowd, that person happened to be me, the band certainly gained a new fan there for sure.
After giving the head a wobble and getting back in the zone, it was time for a pint of one of the many offerings that Docks Beers brews on site. The Grimsby Town hazy pale ale Clap, Clap, Clap Clap Clap Clap Fish! Is the usual drink of choice.
Red Rum Club have gone from strength to strength over the last five years, gaining one of the most loyal fan bases in the business. Rather than coast along though, the band always push themselves and once again have shifted up a gear in the run-up to their fourth album release of ‘Western Approaches’ on 23rd February.
It shows how much confidence you have in the new album when you open the show with two songs from the unreleased record and still have the crowd in the palm of your hands. ‘Godless‘ came first and has the now trademark Red Rum Club sound, that of the rhythm section sounding like a charge of galloping horses, this backed up by Joe ‘The Blow’ Corby’s trumpet really transports you into feeling like you are in the middle of a battle in the Wild West. The darker and moodier ‘Black Cat‘ came next, this tune is really turning into a fan favourite. By this point and only two tunes in, you could tell that both the band and the crowd were really up for this gig.
‘Kids Addicted‘ gave the crowd more of an opportunity for a sing along, and the dancing really started to wave through the crowd, led by energetic frontman Fran Doran’s snaking hips and air punches, these were so infectious that the audience could have been mistaken for a flash mob. The real dancing came when the band grooved through the disco-infused ‘Nightcalling‘ though.
Red Rum Club are at their peak when they marry the Mariachi style to the Tarantino-esque film score. The band finished the main set in this fashion with ‘Honey‘ and ‘Matador‘ sandwiching the poppy ‘Eleanor‘ in the middle. I never realised how much of a tongue twister spelling Eleanor actually was and now if ever asked to spell it, I don’t think it will be possible to not sing it, a bit like doing the alphabet but a whole lot cooler.
Tongue in cheek ‘Vanilla‘ made a swaggering entrance during the encore to give some bravado, it’s a bit like a marriage of Arctic Monkeys and The Zutons, the tune is by no means as boring as the title suggests.
Every band has that one song that absolutely takes the roof off a venue, the song that unites absolutely everybody in the room, for Red Rum Club, that is ‘Would You Rather Be Lonely?‘, the perfect song to end to. Long after the band left the stage there were still cries of “Would you rather be lonely, lonely all the time, would you rather be lonely, lonely or be mine.”
With the release of ‘Western Approaches’ in February and the huge hometown show at the 11,000 capacity M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool, this could be the last time we catch them in a venue as small as the 300 capacity Docks Academy. That said, they did seem to relish in the playing to a smaller audience, so fingers crossed that their second appearance at Docks Academy won’t be their last… Same for Cusp, can we adopt them?
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