Porter & May
The Continental, Preston
18th May 2017
Words & Pic: Stomper
It’s an excellent sunny evening in Preston, it’s an excellent sunny evening for listening to excellent sunny music from the excellent Porter & May who happen to be releasing their excellent second EP in the snug of the excellent Continental pub.. Or as us locals like to call it “The Conti”
Luckily for us we are treated to two sets tonight which consists of their two EP’s plus a few extra songs..
They start off with “intro” which to any normal band would just be an intro but Porter & May aren’t any normal band. The vocals on “intro” provided by Maria Toase and Hannah Cobb have that duel harmony thing going on that Midlake make full use of.. It’s very infectious and gets you from the off.. “Intro” for me isn’t long enough, it could go on forever and needs to. We’re straight into track two with “Young Ones Mind” again with extremely harmonious vocal chorus..
I’m not going to go through every song in the set but two stand out songs from the first set are “Pretended” and my favourite song from their first EP “Talking About Myself”
I’ve said it before in reviews that without a great rhythm section you’re basically on a hiding to nothing.. Aidan Poland is one of my favourite drummers and being a bassist myself I appreciate him. He isn’t a pounder but has a deft touch and plays a rim shot with a tambourine like a pro footballer dinks a ball into the top corner of the net. I witnessed him playing his ride cymbal with his fingernails. Yeah, he’s that good.. He is the Aidan McGeady of the drumming world..
We’re straight into the second set (EP 2) with costume changes and a quick succession of “Burn” “Mantra” and “Space song”.. Young Liam Ogburn is noodling away like a young John Entwistle on Bass to the very catchy “2:10” and “My Blue Moon.” Also noted cymbal grabs by Aidan Poland.
We’re onto the penultimate track which is my favourite of the night and entitled “Temple Of The Muses.” There is an acoustic version on EP2 but this song needs to be recorded sooner rather than later with full band..
Go see Porter & May they’ll cheer you up if you need cheering up that is..
Maria Toase: Vocals – Guitar – Keyboards
Hannah Cobb: Vocals – Keyboards – Guitar
Liam Ogburn: Bass
Aidan Poland: Drums
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