The Boston Music Rooms is tonight’s venue, hosting Twin Wild and their home town show. The four piece have been waiting “a long time to play this show” and the crowd shows their appreciation. Twin Wild are a pop-rock outfit, not to dissimilar to a heavy The Script or One Republic, Hailing from London town. Frontman Richard Hutchison even looks like Danny O’Donoghue.
Up first is tonight’s one and only support act, Duke Of Wolves. They are a bluesy quartet, boasting a punky female bass player complete with blonde dreads and welding googles, the band give of a smokey, riff heavy sound. Their lead guitarist has a good sound and is the pick of the group chucking out solos and licks left, right and centre. The guys are clearly enjoying themselves but are hemmed in by the small stage, every time the frontman tries to talk to the small crowd watching, his words fall flat and sheepishly moves on the next song.
Don’t get me wrong, Duke Of Wolves’ music isn’t bad, but their tunes lack oomph, with most songs bleeding into one another with no real discerning features. Their best track was the greatly named ‘Terry The Serial Killer’, a build on bluesy sleaze in a big riff off between the two guitars – cue guitar jumps on a tiny, cramped stage. That’s always fun to watch.
A blue haze lights the stage as Twin Wild appear on stage around 9:15 and quickly lunch into set opener ‘Super Star’. The bass rumbles through The Boston Music Rooms as Hutchison commands “London, let me hear you!” the throng happily oblige as they jig along to the slow sultry verse of ‘Nightmare’, content but nothing more.
“Thank you for coming, it’s cool and kinda scary!” announces Hutchison, but the guys look nothing but at ease on stage. The band are tight and never miss a note but at some points their sound because mudded and forms one enormous barrage of noise pummelling the crowd.
‘Fears’ is offered up next, a classic of pop-rock and a classic for Twin Wild as the fans go ‘wild’ (bad pun, I know) for it. The jigs are thrown aside for full on dancing, the sparse verses hold you back before the release of the chorus, they sing along as heads and fists bob along to the drums. Fears gets the biggest cheer of the night so fare and produces a big grin from lead guitarist Dave Cuzner, proving Twin Wild aren’t all moody.
The stage banter is long and unwilledy before ‘Willow Tree’ the band’s latest single, released today via snapchat. It’s another slow burner with the thud of the kick drum pushing through atmospheric swells, the vocals are swimming in reverb as the tune drops into the chorus. The four piece try their hardest to be dark and mysterious and it works most of the time, but their style does come over as pretentious at points which ruins the mood especially during their poor stage banter. The solo for ‘Control’ is the one and only time we see the guys properly cut loose and enjoy themselves tonight, Hutchison grooves with the bassist as Cuzner hammers out a formidable, effects filled solo. The tracks so fare tonight have been good but pretty similar.
“So this is our last song”, says Hutchison with a smirk on his face, leading the crowd to believe in an encore. The cymbals build in grandeur as the intro to crowd favourite “My Heart” begins, full on dancing resumes as the throng bust moves and sing along at the top of their lungs, shouts of “my heart only knows this one song” fill the room. A huge cheer and rock and roll ending see out the track as Twin Wild quickly exit the stage, cries of one more song erupt.
Are Twin Wild that much of a big deal for an encore? Do they actually have enough songs to deserve one? My thoughts must appear in other people’s heads as the shouts become angrier as they start to realise the guys were on stage for a mere 20-25 minutes. Even the sound man isn’t sure as the house lights stay down for some time.
“Where the f*ck is the rest of the set!” and “is that it!?!? Do they have school in the morning or something?” can be heard from members of the disappointed crowd. Twin Wild never do come back on stage, the whole show is over by around 9:40.
Twin Wild’s pop-rock show is entertaining and they have a few good songs, but I feel the band have a much inflated view of themselves. With more experience and a bigger, better back catalogue the guys could fore fill their ego.